April 23 PENNSYLVANIA: Pa. looks to form innocence panel A state commission that would investigate at least eight cases of wrongful conviction may widen courtroom interpretations of the state's post-conviction release and DNA testing laws. A bill approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee in mid-February would form a 30-member Innocence Commission, whose members would be appointed by the governor, members of the General Assembly and the chief justice of the state Supreme Court. At least eight cases in Pennsylvania - the closest to this area are in Cumberland and Adams counties and Pittsburgh - involve a person wrongfully convicted and later exonerated after DNA testing, according to the Innocence Project, a non-profit legal clinic in New York City. The project specializes in post-conviction DNA testing that will yield conclusive proof of innocence. "People need to understand, its not just about innocent people," said Stephen Saloom, the Innocent Projects policy director. "It's about the entire criminal justice system. Everybody benefits when we get it right." Although there are exceptions, Saloom said law relating to post-conviction release and DNA testing often are interpreted narrowly in Pennsylvania courts, and prosecutors resist DNA testing in many cases. There are several reasons for resistance, said Colin Starger, staff attorney at the Innocence Project who works on Pennsylvania cases. "One reason they give is because they believe they have to be opposed in one case; otherwise, everybodys going to come out of the woodwork for DNA testing," he said. "I think that's a fairly unconvincing argument. One, that's not what happens; there aren't frivolous requests. Two, any frivolous requests would be denied." A 2nd reason is there's a perception that a DNA test request is an attack on the prosecutor or the strength of his case, putting him on the defensive. "It's wrong," Starger said. "DNA testing is not an attack on the prosecutor. It is an acknowledgement that science has advanced and proof not available before is now available. "DNA testing, as often as not, actually confirms guilt. If someone has confidence in the verdict, he should be willing to put it to the test." A good idea Creating a commission is a "substantial and enlightened" step forward for the state, said John Linn, Penn State Altoona criminal justice assistant professor. "While I'm unsure as to the number of wrongful convictions existing within the commonwealth, it could at least be argued that even one is too many - especially if that error, or errors, can be corrected," Linn said. State Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, R-Bucks/Montgomery, authored the bill. In 2002, he sponsored legislation creating the states DNA testing law, providing testing for those who have a "reasonable claim" to innocence. "That law has been in effect and has been used, and we've found we do have people in Pennsylvania - for example, Thomas Doswell of Pittsburgh - who took advantage of that law and was acquitted after 19 years in prison," Greenleaf said. "We're not blaming anyone here, and were not looking for fault." State Senate President Pro Tem Robert Jubelirer, R-Blair, said he supports the idea and voted for the bill in committee. "I think it's a pretty good idea in the sense that, with the technology today that we have, we need to learn more about how its affecting the criminal justice system," he said. "It will provide us with an opportunity to do some legislation that will hopefully bring us into the 21st century with these reversals of convictions." Defense vs. prosecutors Cambria County District Attorney Patrick Kiniry said he sees no problem with making the system better. "Under our system of justice, everyone is innocent until proven guilty with evidence," he said. "History has shown that, on occasion, innocent people are convicted. If the purpose of the commission is to go over the anatomy of a case to determine what went wrong if, in fact, the person was innocent, that seems like the right thing to do." Altoona defense attorney Thomas M. Dickey agreed that any time an opportunity rises to better a system, thats a good thing. "It's a criminal justice system - it's not a perfect system," he said. "Despite the downfalls, its probably still the best system." Starger said the commission has potential and should consider evidence preservation. A lack of evidence claim is one way prosecutors deny defendant DNA tests. "They could look at how we can find out, once and for all, what evidence does and doesnt exist in cases and what's a protocol to find it, so its not as random as it is right now," he said. Starger said a lack of evidence often closes Innocence Project cases and, in his 21/2 years on the job, about 5 of the 12 Pennsylvania cases he has worked on have been closed for that reason. He said a few cases are still ongoing. Saloom said Pennsylvania would be well served by a commission, noting that North Carolina, California, Wisconsin and other states have successful commissions. Eyewitness identification One factor in investigating wrongful convictions is the validity of eyewitness identification of crime suspects. In a Capitolwire report, some state inmates later found innocent and released said investigating officers shouldn't be present when victims or witnesses are asked to identify suspects because they may influence those witnesses wrongly. Dickey said people today are "all about" saving themselves. "People get persuaded into things, and you might have a real weak witness identification," he said. "Nobody likes to admit under the microscope they made a mistake; it's easier to point and years later find out there was an alibi or other things." Linn, who studies police ethics, said officers put in a lot of work on many cases that they dont want to see fall apart. "A good officer is more likely to accept that errors can occur and move on with their life," he said. "However, it is the case that sometimes the desire to bring a case to a close can compromise the values of even the best of us." Kiniry would rather prosecute a case proven by circumstantial evidence because it doesnt lie, is not prejudiced, is unbiased and carries more weight then eyewitness testimony. "People can use their own common sense, tie [information] together and form their own conclusions on whether a person is guilty or innocent," he said. "I don't want to believe eyewitnesses are pressured by law enforcement or prosecutors to say something they dont know; I just think people are mistaken." Other problems False suspect identification is just one problem that can lead to a wrongful conviction. "As with any jurisdiction, the problem of manufacturing evidence, falsifying testimony, prosecutorial misconduct and inadequate counsel can be highly problematic," Linn said. "The end effect is to distort our system of justice in a way that is both morally and constitutionally wrong. "Add to this fact that winning can sometimes overwhelm the fundamental goal of seeking the truth, and you have the potential for wrongful convictions." But he said that's not only the fault of prosecutors or defense attorneys. "We as a society allow, to some extent, this type of thing to occur," Linn said. Compensating innocent Saloom said Pennsylvania has no law providing compensation to people wrongfully convicted, but it should. "These innocent people have been forced to serve often the best years of their lives in prison," he said. "Without assigning blame or fault, we can all agree that these people deserve to be compensated for those years that were taken away from them and given the help necessary to return to their communities as the productive members they want to be and would have been if not for the mistaken conviction." U.S. law provides up to $50,000 for each year a person was behind bars and up to $100,000 for each year a person served on death row. The federal government does not provide compensation for state inmates. Saloom said society has to consider the emotional harm of a wrongful conviction, the loss of family, the services people need when released, medical insurance, vocational training, access to education and help with transportation and housing. "Most people, when they're proven innocent, theyre basically just released and thats it," he said. "They need and deserve help putting their lives back together again." Greenleaf said the Innocence Commission would not address compensation, but the Senate Judiciary Committee will. "I think there should be some compensation," he said. "What [it should be], that's what the discussion will be." (source: Altoona Mirror) NEW JERSEY: More than 3,315 men and women are serving death sentences in American prisons. Many of these people have been on death row for decades, waiting as they appeal their cases through the court system. The majority of these prisoners will die of natural causes before they face execution. Since 1982, there have been 197 trials in New Jersey where the death penalty was sought. Sixty death sentences were given, but 50 of them were reversed. Currently, 10 men are on New Jersey's death row. So exactly how many executions have there been in New Jersey since 1982? None. According to Newsweek, New Jersey taxpayers have paid more than a quarter billion dollars for capital punishment and no one has been executed. While I believe in the concept of the death penalty, primarily for the most heinous crimes, I do not believe it currently acts as a deterrent. In order for it to be a deterrent to crimes such as premeditated murder, the state must follow through on its threat of death. RYAN J. LEONARD Age 13 Mount Laurel (source: Letter to the Editor, Courier Post, April 22) VIRGINIA: Washington seeks complete vindication----Trial starts this week in which former death-row inmate will argue his rights were violated The final chapter in the long story of Earl Washington Jr.'s wrongful imprisonment will play out this week in federal court as the former death-row inmate seeks vindication. "I'd like people to know, like I been saying all these years, that I am an innocent man," said the 45-year-old Washington, who now works as a maintenance man in Virginia Beach. "I want to see the jury do the right thing. I know I was wronged." Washington was wrongly convicted of the rape and murder of Rebecca Lynn Williams in 1982 in her apartment in Culpeper. He is suing the estate of Curtis Lee Wilmore, who died in 1994, claiming his constitutional rights were violated. Wilmore was a state police investigator who interrogated Washington about a year after the crime was committed. The theory of Washington's case against Wilmore is simple, said Peter Neufeld, one of his lawyers. "Earl Washington was innocent, wasn't there and didn't know any of the details of the crime," Neufeld said. "The non-public details of the crime were fed to him by Wilmore, and Wilmore deliberately misinterpreted to prosecutors that all the details originated with Earl Washington." Those details in Washington's false confession were the key reason Washington was wrongly convicted by a jury, his lawyers claim. The defense vehemently disagrees that Wilmore fabricated the confession. William G. Broaddus, who is representing Wilmore's estate, said some of the details given by Washington in his false confession were incorrect. "Mr. Wilmore faithfully included those in the statement. . . . An investigator trying to railroad a suspect would not provide information that could be used to exonerate him." Curtis Todd Wilmore, the son and representative of his father's estate, doesn't want his father's good name tarnished. "I think a lot of people probably have the wrong impression from some of the press that's been going on," Wilmore said. "Somebody's trying to put a spin on this thing for some reason -- trying to make him look like a bad guy, and that's as crazy a thing as I've ever heard. There's no way in the world that he would try and pin something on anybody whatsoever, white, green, red or yellow." The trial starts tomorrow. Washington is seeking unspecified damages and the chance at the civil jury trial to illuminate how an innocent man could falsely confess and end up on Virginia's death row, his lawyers said. "People in the commonwealth are asking what went wrong with the capital-justice system that permitted a completely innocent man to be convicted and come within nine days of execution," Neufeld said. "This trial will answer that question." There is no doubt he was innocent. Even Wilmore's lawyers agree -- for the first time -- in a stipulation filed last month in U.S. District Court in Charlottesville. The stipulation states that Washington is "factually innocent of the crimes," was not present when Williams was attacked and that DNA testing of semen left by the perpetrator excludes Washington and "identifies Kenneth Maurice Tinsley as the attacker of Mrs. Williams." The stipulation also agrees that Washington had "no connection" with Tinsley. The supposed "non-public details" that Washington knew were at the heart of his conviction. In fact, U.S. District Court Judge Norman K. Moon, in an opinion denying a summary judgment, said that the prosecutors' arguments to the jury "placed great emphasis on Washington's knowledge of the details of the crime scene." Washington supposedly knew that the radio was on in Williams' apartment, that she was attacked in a back bedroom of her apartment and that the attacker left a shirt in the apartment. All that was true. "Now how does somebody make all that up unless they were actually there and actually did it," then-Culpeper Commonwealth's Attorney John C. Bennett asked the jury that eventually convicted Washington in 1984 and sent him to death row. But Broaddus noted that Washington also confessed to kicking in the apartment door, which had no marks on it, pointed in the opposite direction of Williams' apartment when taken to the crime scene, and said he stabbed Williams several times. She was stabbed 38 times. Washington also initially said the victim was black, Broaddus said. She was white. Broaddus also said that Washington was friends with several people who were questioned by police and possibly could have picked up the supposedly "non-public" information about the crime from them. A first round of DNA testing all but cleared Washington of the crime, and then-Gov. L. Douglas Wilder in 1994 commuted his sentence to life. Additional testing in 2000 was more definitive, not only clearing Washington but implicating Tinsley, who is serving a life sentence in prison for rape. Special prosecutor Rick Moore, an assistant Albemarle County commonwealth's attorney, was appointed to investigate Williams' death. "It's still under investigation," Moore said last week. "Basically I have not made a final determination whether to charge anybody." He would give no time frame for when his investigation would be concluded. He would not elaborate further on the investigation. Neufeld called the suit a "watershed case. If we can prove the state police fabricated a confession to put a man on death row, it will raise serious questions about the legitimacy of other confessions in other cases," he said. "So the stake is high." The stake was high for Washington, whose life was turned around by the DNA testing. He has been married now for 4 years. He likes his job buffing floors, painting and "fixing things that get broke." "I'm just happy," said Washington, who spent close to 18 years in prison. " I have a beautiful wife, I work every day, I stay out of trouble and I help people who need help." (source: Richmond Times-Dispatch) *************** Former death row inmate's trial against former investigator set to begin A man who came within 9 days of being executed before being exonerated will be in court this week in hopes of getting one final piece of vindication. Earl Washington Jr. sued the estate of former state police investigator Curtis Lee Wilmore, who died in 1994, claiming that Wilmore fabricated Washington's confession in the rape and murder of Rebecca Lynn Williams in 1982 in Culpeper. Washington's lawyers say Wilmore fed Washington nonpublic details about the case, which he used when giving a false confession. The details in that confession were the key reason Washington was wrongly convicted by a jury, his lawyers claim. "Earl Washington was innocent, wasn't there and didn't know any of the details of the crime," said Peter Neufeld, one of Washington's lawyers. "The nonpublic details of the crime were fed to him by Wilmore, and Wilmore deliberately misinterpreted to prosecutors that all the details originated with Earl Washington." The federal trial begins here Monday. William G. Broaddus, who is representing Wilmore's estate, said some of the details given in the confession were incorrect, and that if Wilmore were trying to "railroad a suspect" he would not have provided information that could be used to exonerate him. Curtis Todd Wilmore said he doesn't want his father's good name tarnished. "There's no way in the world that he would try and pin something on anybody whatsoever, white, green, red or yellow," Wilmore said. Washington, who is black, knows all about having his name tarnished. He served close to 18 years in prison. A first round of DNA testing all but cleared Washington of the crime, then in 1994 then-Gov. L. Douglas Wilder commuted his sentence to life. Additional testing in 2000 cleared Washington and implicated another man, Kenneth Maurice Tinsley, who is serving a life sentence in prison for rape. Even Wilmore's lawyers agree that there is no doubt Washington is innocent. In a stipulation filed last month in U.S. District Court in Charlottesville, defense attorneys agree--for the 1st time--that Washington is "factually innocent of the crimes," was not present when Williams was attacked and that DNA testing of semen left by the perpetrator excludes Washington and identifies Tinsley as the attacker. It also agrees that Washington had no connection to Tinsley. Washington's lawyers said they are looking forward to the chance to show at the civil trial how an innocent man could falsely confess and end up on Virginia's death row. "If we can prove the state police fabricated a confession to put a man on death row, it will raise serious questions about the legitimacy of other confessions in other cases," Neufeld said. "So the stake it high." For Washington, 45, he's working as a maintenance man in Virginia Beach and is happy for the 1st time in a long time. He is seeking unspecified damages. "I'd like people to know, like I been saying all these years, that I am an innocent man," said Washington, 45, now a maintenance man in Virginia Beach. "I want to see the jury do the right thing. I know I was wronged." (source: Associated Press) NEVADA----impending execution//volunteer Nevada prison officials change execution procedure after lawsuit In response to a lawsuit filed by a newspaper, the Nevada Department of Corrections has agreed to change its procedure for Wednesday night's scheduled execution of Daryl Mack. The department decided to allow authorized witnesses, including the news media, to view the entire process. The change was announced yesterday, 2 days after the Reno Gazette-Journal filed a lawsuit in Reno federal court challenging the limited viewing allowed by the department. In the past, prison officials would allow witnesses to watch the inmate be led into the execution chamber, but guards would close chamber curtains as intravenous lines were inserted into the inmate's arm. Then, guards would exit the chamber and the blinds would be reopened. In its lawsuit, the Gazette-Journal cited a 2002 ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that found the public has a First Amendment right to view the entire execution process. Mack received the death penalty for the 1988 sexual assault and strangling of a Reno woman. ************************** Children of slain Reno woman plan to witness Mack execution The children of a slain Reno woman say Wednesday night's scheduled execution of Daryl Mack is long overdue and they plan to witness it. Charles May, 48, and his sisters, Alana Coy, 42, and Denise Notinelli, 44, said they will show up at the Nevada State Prison's execution chamber in Carson City wearing buttons with a photo of their mother, Betty Jane May. They welcome the 9 p.m. execution, saying it would end constant reminders of Mack's actions. "It's long overdue," Charles May of Reno told the Reno Gazette-Journal. "That man took my mother and my best friend away from me. I want to see justice carried out." Mack, 47, has waived available appeals and says he wants to die even though he denies strangling and raping 55-year-old Betty May in her Reno home in 1988. Mack was serving a no-parole life term in prison for strangling Kim Parks in 1994 in a Reno motel when he was linked through DNA evidence to Betty May's murder. "This has been a 17-year nightmare for me and my family," Coy said. "The pain never goes away and will follow us the rest of our lives. But knowing that he can never get out and do it to someone else, there's a measure of peace in that." The execution would be the 1st of a black convict in Nevada since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty 30 years ago. Mack also would be the first to be executed in this state based solely on DNA evidence. Betty May was described by her children as a devoted mother who lived a simple life and never learned to drive. The divorcee also was an animal lover who took in stray cats. "Somehow the victim in these types of crimes is often lost," Coy said. "She wasn't a woman without a face, without a family ... She was our mother, and I want her memory honored. "(Mack) brought this on himself. What he's getting is far more benevolent than what he extended to our mother. She didn't have any rights. She got no mercy," Coy said. Unless Mack changes his mind, he'll become the 12th inmate to die in Nevada since the death penalty was reinstated. (source for both: The Associated Press) ******************* Challenges slow U.S. executions While Daryl Mack has dropped his appeals and is set to be executed by injection Wednesday, others on death row across the country have stalled the process through legal challenges that claim the procedures used in most executions infringe on their constitutional rights. No court has ruled that lethal injection violates a person's Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment, but the challenges are slowing the process and could lead to new methods or drugs aimed at ensuring that inmates do not suffer any pain. And with the large number of courts dealing with the issue, the question of the constitutionality of lethal injection could soon land on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Washington D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center. "It's an issue that's percolating out there," Dieter said. The high court has agreed to hear one case from Florida, but only on a procedural point, he said. The court may eventually take on the merits of lethal injection, he said. "The challenges are not new, but it's getting a lot more traction than it had, with judges responding to concerns about the procedures and the demands for greater protections," Dieter said. "They're viewing it as more than a frivolous, 11th-hour attempt to stop the execution." 37 of the 38 states that have capital punishment use lethal injection as the preferred method. But courts in at least 8 states are reviewing the process to determine whether it is being conducted in a manner that conforms with constitutional requirements. Closest to home, executions on California were placed on hold until May, after officials at San Quentin State Prison were unable to meet a federal judge's conditions requiring an anesthesiologist to oversee the process. Following suit in North Carolina, a federal judge told the Department of Corrections that it can go forward with a planned execution only if they provide "execution personnel with sufficient medical training to ensure that (the inmate) is in all respects unconscious prior to and at the time of the administration" of the 2nd 2 drugs. On Friday, an inmate was executed by lethal injection after officials used a brain-wave monitor to ensure that he was unconscious when the other drugs are administered. An appeals court in Missouri heard arguments this month from a condemned man's lawyers that lethal injection amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. And a federal judge in the District of Columbia ordered a stay in the planned execution of 3 federal death row inmates, pending the ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in a Florida case. Under the lethal injection protocol used in most states, an inmate is first given sodium thiopental, an anaesthesia designed to render him unconscious. Then a 2nd drug is started "'pancuronium bromide, which paralyzes the inmate. The 3rd drug used is potassium chloride, which causes a heart attack. With the amounts used, any one of these drugs could kill a person, according to Dr. Mark Dershwitz, a professor of anesthesiology at the University of Massachusetts who has testified in many of these cases. And the 1st drug ensures that the inmate is unconscious by the time the last drug, which would cause excruciating pain, is administered, he has said. But toxicology reports from autopsies done on 49 executed inmates show that the sodium thiopental levels were lower than would be required for surgery in 43 cases, "and 21 had concentrations consistent with consciousness," according to a often-cited article in the medical journal The Lancet. Therefore, the execution protocols do not ensure that the inmate is unconscious when the last painful drug is given, the appeals say. And since the inmate is under the influence of the second paralyzing drug, he or she can not cry out, struggle or show any physical discomfort being felt, the appeals say. Many of the appeals say the protocols also fail by not requiring that the sodium thiopental be administered by a person trained in anaesthesia. When Mack's lawyer, Marc Picker, was asked if similar issues would be raised in this case, Picker said it was unlikely. "Not from Mr. Mack. He's not planning any challenges," Picker said. When Picker was asked if he told Mack about the concerns being raised in other states about lethal injection, Picker declined to say. "I'm not at liberty to talk about what I talk to him about," Picker said. "Mack has said previously that he didn't want to remain on death row." (source: Reno Gazette-Journal) ************************ Mack's final day will follow Nevada prison protocol, from Valium to meal Nevada leads the nation in the number of death row inmates who "volunteer" to be executed. And if Daryl Linnie Mack does not change his mind, he'll make his last walk Wednesday, down the prison's concrete pathway to the state's death chamber. Mack would become the 12th inmate to be executed since Nevada reinstated capital punishment in 1977. He'll be the 11th volunteer. Mack, 47, was convicted and sentenced to death in 2002 in the murder of Betty Jane May, a divorced mom who lived alone in a Reno boarding home. She had been strangled and raped in 1988, but it wasn't until 1999 that DNA evidence linked Mack to her murder. She was 55. Mack recently told a judge he no longer wishes to fight his death sentence even though his case was early in the appeals process. He's scheduled to die 9 p.m. Wednesday at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City, not far from where he has lived for the last 18 months. According to prison protocol, Mack will be offered Valium to calm his nerves as he awaits the final hour. Sometime before noon, he'll be led from his cell to a holding room near the death chamber, where he can meet with a lawyer or family, make any calls and eat his last meal. Just before 9 p.m., he'll be led through the submarine door into the chamber, walled on three sides with windows. One side looks into a viewing room where witnesses and media will stand. Another has a one-way window behind which victims can stand. The third is a one-way window into the executioner's room. Led by prison personnel, Mack will be strapped to the gurney and will have intravenous tubes inserted and be linked to a heart-rate monitor. Then all others will leave and Mack will be alone. For the first time, the entire process will be viewed by witnesses. In the past, the prison closed the curtains when the IV lines were inserted. But the Reno Gazette-Journal sued the Department of Corrections claiming the public had a First Amendment right to observe the whole process. The department agreed last Friday to allow the execution to be open. If no protests occur and Mack does not stop the process, the director of prisons will give the OK for the executioner to proceed. Although the prison's protocol for lethal injection is confidential, the standard method used in other states involves 3 drugs. The 1st sedates the inmate. The 2nd paralyzes his or her muscle system and the 3rd stops breathing. Officials say inmates usually "line out" in about 90 seconds. At that point, a doctor will enter the chamber and confirm the inmate is dead. ******************* Northern Nevada inmates on death row Death row inmates from Northern Nevada and date sentenced, starting from most recent. 1. Robert McConnell: Washoe County - 08-28-03 -- McConnell pleaded guilty and was sentenced to die in 2003 for fatally shooting Brian Pierce on Aug. 7, 2002. Pierce was engaged to McConnell's former girlfriend. 2. Pedro Rodriquez: Washoe County - 12-03-99 -- Rodriguez was sentenced to death in 1999 for the April 5, 1998, murder of Kimberly Fondy. The 33-year-old woman had been shot as she sat in her wheelchair in her 19th Street home in Sparks. 3. Sioasi Vanisi: Washoe County - 11-22-99 -- Vanisi was found guilty and sentenced to death for killing a University of Nevada, Reno police officer in 1998. Sgt. George Sullivan had been struck at least 20 times with a hatchet in a parking lot on the UNR campus. 4. Shawn Harte: Washoe County - 05-07-99 -- Harte was sentenced to death for the 1997 shooting death of John Castro Jr., Reno cabby. 5. David Middleton: Washoe County - 09-18-97 -- Middleton, a former Miami police officer, was found guilty in 1997 of killing Sun Valley teacher Katherine Powell and Circus Circus Reno employee Thelma Amparo Davila. 6. Carlos Gutierrez - Washoe County - 08-10-95 -- Gutierrez was sentenced to death by a 3-judge panel after pleading guilty to beating to death his 3 1/2-year-old stepdaughter, Mailin Stafford, in Reno in 1994. 7. Michael Sonner - Pershing County - 10-28-94 -- Sonner, a North Carolina jail escapee, was convicted of killing Carlos Borland, a Nevada Highway Patrol trooper, during a stop in Interstate 80 east of Lovelock in 1993. 8. David Bollinger - Washoe County - 09-28-94 -- Bollinger was convicted in 1994 of kidnapping James Vertres, 79, and his wife Rose, 74, from their Sparks trailer park in April 1992, murdering them and setting their bodies on fire at a Colorado rest stop 800 miles from their home. 9. Avram Nika - Washoe County - 07-10-92 -- Nika was convicted killing Edward Smith of Fallon, after he stopped to help Nika whose car had broken down on Interstate 80 east of Sparks. Nika beat Smith and shot him in the head, then dragged his body off the side of the road. 10. Roger Libby - Humboldt County - 06-25-90 -- Libby was sentenced to death in 1990 for murdering two men whose bodies were found in the desert near Winnemucca. The bodies of Charles Beatty and James Robertson were found 19 months earlier. 11. William Leonard - Carson City - 08-25-89 -- Leonard was sentenced to die for stabbing fellow inmate Joseph Wright 21 times with a prison-made knife in 1987. It was his 3rd murder conviction and his second for a stabbing death of another prisoner. 12. John Bejarano - Washoe County - 05-11-88 -- Bejarano was sentenced to death for the March 1987 murder of Reno cabbie Roland Wright during a robbery. 13. Ricky Sechrest - Washoe County - 10-28-83 -- Sechrest was convicted and sentenced for the bludgeoning murders of 10-year-old Maggie Schindler and 9-year-old Carly Villa, who disappeared from the Meadowood Mall Ice Arena in May 1983 and were found in shallow graves in June. 14. Cary Williams - Washoe County - 01-13-83 -- Williams was sentenced to death by a three-judge panel in 1983 after pleading guilty to the 1982 torture and murder of a pregnant Reno nurse, Katherine Carlson. 15. Tracy Petrocelli - Washoe County - 09-08-82 -- Petrocelli was sent to death row for the 1982 murder of Reno auto salesman James Wilson. 16. Mark Rogers - Pershing County - 12-01-81 -- Rogers was sent to death row for the 1980 gunshot and stabbing deaths of an elderly couple, Emery and Mary Strode, and their daughter, 41-year-old Meriam, at their Pershing County mine. 17. Ronnie Milligan - Humboldt County - 08-03-81 -- Milligan and three other defendants were convicted in the robbery-killing of 77-year-old Zolihon Voinski in 1980. Only Milligan, identified as the person who hit the victim with a sledgehammer, got the death sentence. 18. Edward Wilson - Washoe County - 12-14-79 -- Wilson was sentenced to death in 1979 by a three-judge panel after pleading guilty in the murder of Reno police Officer James Hoff. One other inmate was from Elko County and Nevada's 56 other death row inmates are from Clark County. (source for all: Reno Gazette Journal)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., N.J., VA., NEV.
Rick Halperin Sun, 23 Apr 2006 18:52:21 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
