[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ILL., N.C.

[Rick Halperin]

April 23



ILLINOIS:

Forum considers life or death decision----Capital punishment debate weighs
legality, morality


The death penalty is justified for "evil" crimes, one of Peoria County's
top prosecutors argued Saturday at a forum sponsored by the League of
Women Voters of Greater Peoria.

"The term 'evil' has no content," countered Charles Schiedel of the Office
of the State Appellate Defender. "It has no scientific content. It has no
medical content. It's a metaphysical, it's a moral question."

An audience of roughly 50 people packed into a conference room at the
Radisson Hotel at 117 N. Western Ave. to hear Schiedel and Assistant
State's Attorney Nancy Mermelstein grapple with the moral and legal
implications of capital punishment. Mermelstein attended in place of
State's Attorney Kevin Lyons, who is recuperating from surgery, organizers
said.

A 25-year prosecutor who has handled several death penalty cases,
Mermelstein said that for some crimes, death is the only just punishment.

She cited the case of James Trent, a Peorian convicted in 1996 of beating
his girlfriend's 4-year-old daughter to death. Both Trent and the child's
mother, also charged in her death, escaped execution.

"When she was arrested, she had some of the little girl's teeth still in
her pocket," Mermelstein said.

A woman in the audience gasped.

Mermelstein conceded that the criminal justice system in Illinois has been
flawed in the past.

"There are reforms that should have been made, and they have been made,"
she said, adding that death penalty cases today are uncommonly thorough
and require special licensing for lawyers to argue them.

A more grievous error, she said, is when murderers are paroled only to
kill again.

"Great crimes deserve great punishments," she said, paraphrasing
Herodotus, the ancient Greek historian.

Schiedel began his arguments saying that for Herodotus, justice often was
dispensed from the gods with bolts of lightning.

"If you look at the past, at almost 30 years of death penalty litigation
in this state, you would come to the conclusion that it's basically the
same thing as lightning striking," he said.

He pointed out that innocent people - such as Anthony Porter, a Chicagoan
who was just two days away from execution when his sentence was overturned
in 1998 - have come within a hair's breadth of wrongful execution.

But wrongful convictions are "a pretty rare circumstance," he said, adding
that the more important issue is that human beings do not have the right
to condemn each other to death. "Asking people to decide whether someone
lives or dies requires abilities that we don't have."

And contrary to popular belief, he argued, the death penalty is not cost
effective, because what the state saves on room and board for the handful
of criminals who are executed is far outweighed by the millions of dollars
spent prosecuting capital cases.

The League of Women Voters' local chapter voted in January on whether the
group should adopt the position of the national and Illinois chapters,
which oppose the death penalty.

The Peoria league voted not to accept the national and state positions,
effectively voting in support of capital punishment.

The death penalty supporters won by a wide margin, said Bill Hall, the
Peoria League's president. "It was pretty overwhelming, much to my
surprise."

The League of Women Voters is a grass-roots, nonpartisan organization that
takes an active stance on a range of issues from redistricting to campaign
finance reform.

(source: Peoria Journal Star)






NORTH CAROLINA:

Moore puts fate in Chowan jurors' hands


William Joseph Moore believes he lost his right to decide his own fate
nearly two years ago when he viciously stabbed to death his girlfriend,
Pamela Joye Virzi, in her front yard in Edenton.

That's why he's placing his life squarely in a Chowan County jury's hands,
hoping they'll choose a punishment that's appropriate for what he's done.

"When I killed Pam I gave up the right to my own life," Moore said. "I put
that in the hands of the citizens of Chowan County to decide."

Moore, 48, will get his wish starting Monday when a jury of Chowan
citizens is empaneled for the sentencing phase of his capital murder trial
in Chowan County Superior Court.

Earlier this month, Moore spoke to The Daily Advance about his upcoming
trial, Virzi's murder and the nearly 2 years he's spent since Aug. 17,
2004 wondering why he killed the woman he says he loved. At the time of
his interview, Moore was incarcerated at the Craven Correctional
Institution in Vanceboro.

Having already pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in Virzi's death,
Moore plans to represent himself during the sentencing portion of his
trial. Normally, this isn't the way 1st-degree murder trials are supposed
to go, say lawyers familiar with Moore's case.

Last year, a team of capital defense lawyers was getting ready to defend
Moore. If a jury were to eventually find him guilty, they would have tried
to save his life. Failing that, they would have taken his case through a
standard series of appeals that would prolong Moore's life, perhaps for
several years.

And then, during a routine hearing Feb. 27, Moore pleaded guilty to
capital murder.

He had made the decision that morning in jail, he said. He did not tell
anyone about it beforehand.

"You could have heard a pin drop," said Chowan County Superior Court Clerk
Michael McArthur.

Moore pleaded guilty, he told The Daily Advance, because he is guilty.

But he won't say why he is representing himself. All he will say is that
it has nothing to do with his faith in appointed counsel. In fact, he has
accepted as co-counsel former Superior Court Judge James Vosburg, who now
works as a capital defender.

The reason he is representing himself will become clear to the jury on the
opening day of testimony, he said.

"Pamela and I - the woman I killed - were in love," Moore says. "The day I
killed her was the darkest day of my life. I was out of my mind. Now that
the fog has cleared and I am sober-minded, I don't want to do any more
damage to her family. I have written something I will read to the family
after I have been sentenced."

Moore also plans to read a letter he's written to the jurors selected to
decide whether he receives the death penalty or life in prison without
parole - the only two options he's facing given his guilty plea to the
1st-degree murder charge.

The letter, which Moore holds up to the glass partition separating him
from his interviewer, reads as follows: "I'll leave it to the citizens of
Chowan County to decide my fate, and whatever their decision is I'll
respect it. If indeed I am sentenced to be put to death, I'll honor that
decision with what integrity I have left."

It's not that Moore wants to die, as some have speculated. He is not
requesting the death penalty. In fact, he wants to live, he said. But
Moore believes he gave up the right to seek self-preservation when he
killed Virzi.

Others - those selected for the jury Monday - must now make that choice,
he says.

"I don't seek the death penalty for myself," Moore said. "I want to live.
But there is a quality of life ... and in prison there is no quality of
life. Pam is a daughter of Edenton ... and I leave it to them as to what's
to become of me."

A vicious murder

"There is no way to put into words the state of mind I was in that day."

That's how Moore describes what he was thinking as he approached Virzi's
house the evening of Aug. 17, 2004.

Moore wasn't supposed to be there at all. Virzi had taken out a
restraining order against him earlier the same day, and violating that
order almost certainly would send Moore, an ex-con, back to prison.

According to eyewitnesses, Moore approached Virzi as she was mowing the
front lawn of her home on Twiddy Avenue about 6:30 p.m.

After a brief discussion, which witnesses said seemed congenial at first,
Moore began hitting Virzi. She tried to run away from him, but he followed
and began stabbing her repeatedly. Virzi screamed for him to stop, but,
according to police, Moore continued to stab her until her screaming
stopped.

Moore says he remembers stabbing Virzi but not her screams.

"I read in the statements witnesses made she was pleading for her life,
screaming. I didn't hear any of it," he said. "It was like a low-pitched
hum. People were moving in slow motion."

Moore remembers feeling rage but doesn't know why he began stabbing Virzi.

"I don't know," he said. "I've asked myself that many times. I still don't
know. I remember us laughing. The conversation was such that we were a
little upset with one another - nothing too out of line. We were laughing
one moment and in the next I was stabbing her. ... For some reason, I just
went berserk. I remember stabbing her three times. They told me later it
was 12. It was as if it were a dream."

Moore says he remembers looking down and seeing Virzi bleeding badly. He
also recalls Virzi's neighbors coming out of their homes and staring at
him.

"I wondered, 'Why aren't they coming to help her?'" Moore said. "Then I
realized, it was because they were afraid of me."

Moore said he ran from Virzi's house to the old Albemarle Marina. On the
way, he saw a man with a cell phone. It was about 6:30 p.m. He said he was
thinking, "Phone. Help."

Covered in blood, Moore approached the man.

"I told him, 'I think I probably killed my girlfriend,'" Moore said.
"Please call 9-1-1."

Later, after he was arrested at the marina, he remembers asking about
Virzi.

"At that point, I asked (the police) to tell me how Pam was and they told
me she was dead - that I had killed her," Moore said. "I thought (the
investigator) was lying to me, and she convinced me that it was true."

Moore says at that point, he wanted to die.

Detective Sgt. Rhonda Copeland, the lead investigator in the case for the
Edenton Police Department, says Moore told her the same thing.

"When I arrested him, he was already asking for the death penalty,"
Copeland said. "He said he wanted to be put to death."

Copeland says Moore told her he didn't approach Virzi intending to kill
her.

"He said he did not plan it," Copeland said. "But he really couldn't
explain why he did it. He didn't go up to her with the intent to kill her,
he said. But when she started rejecting him and told him to leave, that's
when I think his anger mounted over his control. That's what I believe
happened."

Copeland said Moore was calm and seemed sincere when he said he wanted to
die.

"He was very coherent - talking," Copeland said. "After he admitted what
he had done, that's when he said he wanted to die. I think it was because
he wanted to be with Pam."

Moore said he remembers being interviewed by Copeland. But he claims
Copeland misinterpreted what he said.

"I made the statement 'I wish I was dead,'" Moore said. "And I do believe
in Jesus Christ. And my belief in Christ means I believe there is a place
for me in the hereafter - a good place called Heaven. And I believe I will
see her again there. But I am not asking a jury to kill me so I can be
with her. Let's make that clear. If that were true, I guess I could kill
myself."

A history of violence

There had been violence before that day in August 2004 when Moore murdered
Virzi.

"There was an incident where I slapped Pam around," Moore recalled. He
said he hit Virzi because he was jealous of her attentions to another man.

"We had been out to dinner and it was my opinion that Pam spent an
inappropriate amount of time speaking with another gentleman, and I was
jealous," he said.

Moore says Virzi reported the incident to law enforcement. However, when
it came time to testify in court about what had happened, Virzi did what
she often did in their relationship  she forgave him, he says.

"She was raised in a family where, when something happens like that, you
call the police. And she called the police," he said. "But on the day of
court, she talked on my behalf. I was given three weeks with time served
and probation."

Moore says his relationship with Virzi was brief.

"It was a quick romance," he said. "We were together 7 months and 7 days.
But we felt like we were one another's soul mate. ... But I had problems.
I had done time in prison before. And you have to understand that most
people in prison have problems. When they get out, the problems may be 100
times larger."

Before Moore met Virzi, he had spent approximately 12 years of his life in
prison, he said. He had been out of prison 2 years and 8 months when they
met.

It wasn't long before Moore's past began to catch up with them.

"Pam realized I had some problems," Moore said. "Through her coaching, I
sought help at Albemarle Mental Health (Center). I told the counselor I
was prone to rages. (The doctor) prescribed Prozac. I wasn't on it long
enough for it to help, though. I also had a drinking problem. And I told
him I had a drinking problem at the time, and that whatever medication he
prescribed I would still drink.

"He said, as a physician, he would prefer that I not drink, but that I
could drink taking Prozac. I have since learned that taking Prozac can
lead some people to become homicidal."

Moore said he doesn't blame the medication he was on for driving him to
commit murder. But he does claim he had been drinking heavily the day he
killed Virzi.

"That day I drank about 18 beers," Moore said. "For an alcoholic, though,
that's not a lot."

And, that morning, he and Virzi had been in court together. Earlier in the
day, District Court Judge J.C. Cole had issued a domestic protective
order, instructing Moore to stay away from Virzi.

Cole later would say that he wished he had locked up Moore. The reason he
didn't was Virzi. She wanted Moore to get counseling, not go to jail.

"When my dark side revealed itself she didn't back out," Moore said. "She
wanted me to seek professional help. ... She knew I was no good for her
and I knew it and we would try to stay apart and it would either be I
would call her up and told her I missed her or she would call me and we
would get back together."

Moore said Virzi chose to overlook a lot of the negative things about him.

"She wanted to just see the good in me," he said. "And I'm sorry it cost
her her life."

Understanding rage

In prison the past 2 years, Moore has had time to sober up. The time has
allowed him to reflect on Virzi's murder and what led him to kill the
woman he says he loved. He says coming to grips with what he had done was
difficult, he said, because "it was hard to believe."

Moore also had plenty of time to think about his own tendency toward
violence. He claims not to understand that, either.

"My father had a great deal of rage within him," Moore said. "And he
passed that on to me. And the time I spent in prison just intensified
that. But I didn't see that I had a problem."

Inside his prison cell, Moore said he's tried to understand what the life
he will place before a jury this week has meant. Moore senses that his
life has meaning. But, mostly, the pieces of it don't fit together, he
said.

"How my life has come to this is something I think about on an almost
daily basis," Moore said. "I have theories. But I can't see it. I've tried
to see it, but I can't. I do know that I have a purpose. We don't see
God's purpose. It is beyond us. ... But I see no good purpose in it. And,
of course, there is no purpose in taking the life of someone as precious
as Pam."

Like some people, Moore had sometimes wondered if he was capable of
killing another human being.

Now, his predicament is such that, not only does he know he is capable, he
has done it, and professes to miss the person he killed.

"She was my best friend," Moore said. "I wish I could turn back the hands
of time. But I can't. All I can do at this point is be accountable for
what I've done and not bring her sister, her mother, her daughter, any
more pain. ... She comes from a very loving family."

(source: The Daily Advance)