April 24 TENNESSEE: Public Defender To Supply Red Bank With Coverage After Judge's Order Public Defender Ardena Garth said she will once again begin supplying public defenders to court sessions in Red Bank after the city judge there put down an order. Judge Gary Disheroon directed in an order that the office supply an attorney to represent indigent defendants. Ms. Garth said her office stopped serving Red Bank last summer at a time when the office was dealing with several death penalty cases. She said one of those cases was tried and another was settled. But she said the office has picked up a new death penalty case. She said there is also an issue in court over whether her office should supply an attorney at Juvenile Court. Ms. Garth said her office remains short of the needed number of attorneys. She said, "I have been so busy keeping up with cases that we have not been able to work toward getting the additional funding for more attorneys." (source: The Chattanoogan) MARYLAND: Balto. Co. capital sentences on decline----Set of factors cited for drop mirroring nationwide trend Throughout Maryland's legal community, Baltimore County is known as the capital punishment capital of the state, sending more men to death row and seeking the death penalty more often than any other jurisdiction in the state. That reputation has sparked scrutiny in the weeks leading up to the last two state executions -- both for Baltimore County killings -- and has earned the county a mention in national death penalty reports and studies. But one aspect of Baltimore County's death penalty practices has gone largely unnoticed: It has been 6 years since prosecutors have won a death sentence that is still standing. Even that case is in limbo: Maryland's highest court is considering whether to uphold a judge's decision last year to grant convicted killer Lawrence M. Borchardt Sr. a new sentencing hearing. Taking Borchardt out of the mix, it has been nearly 12 years since Baltimore County's last standing death sentence was imposed. Legal experts as well as advocates and opponents of capital punishment say that Baltimore County's decline in death sentences mirrors a national decrease that is variously attributed to fewer homicides nationwide, the addition of life without parole as a sentencing option in most states and the hesitancy of jurors to impose the ultimate sanction in the wake of highly publicized DNA exonerations of death row inmates. Even Harris County, Texas -- which typically accounts for more death sentences each year than any jurisdiction in the country -- sent only 2 people to death row last year. "Baltimore County is sort of the Harris County of Maryland," said Richard C. Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. "I think Maryland has been part of that same national phenomenon." In 2002, researchers from Columbia, Rutgers and New York universities ranked Baltimore County 2nd among large counties nationwide in the rate at which convicted murderers are sentenced to death. A year later, a state-funded University of Maryland death penalty study found racial and geographic disparities in the state's use of capital punishment, including that Baltimore County prosecutors sought death sentences more often than others in Maryland. Baltimore County State's Attorney Sandra A. O'Connor has a well-known policy of seeking the death penalty in nearly every eligible case. Under Maryland law, prosecutors generally can seek death sentences for a convicted killer -- not an accomplice -- in cases with a so-called aggravating factor, such as the killing of a police officer or multiple victims, a killing by a prisoner, or a killing committed during a robbery, carjacking, kidnapping or rape. O'Connor maintains two exceptions: She does not seek death in eligible cases if the victim's relatives are not willing to endure the lengthy appeals process typical of death penalty cases or if prosecutors must rely on the testimony of a co-defendant. County prosecutors sought death sentences in 99 of the 152 death-eligible cases handled between August 1978, when Maryland's death penalty law took effect, and December 1999, according to the University of Maryland study. Stephen Bailey, one of O'Connor's deputies, says they sought death in 81 cases, attributing the difference to the number of cases that were retried and that researchers counted as separate cases. But since May 2000, when Borchardt was sentenced to death, none of the dozen murder cases in which Baltimore County prosecutors sought death has resulted in a death sentence that has withstood legal challenges, and the governor commuted one death sentence. 3 men received life sentences from judges who declined to impose the death sentences that prosecutors requested. 8 men and 1 woman ended up with life sentences after pleading guilty before trial or as a result of prosecutors' dropping their pursuit of the death penalty after an appeals court overturned an earlier death sentence. In at least 3/4 of those dozen cases in which death sentences were not imposed, prosecutors or judges attributed their decision, in part, to the toll that the appeals process in capital cases takes on victims' families. "People talk about cruel and unusual punishment regarding the death penalty. If there is anything that's cruel and unusual, it is cruel and unusual to make people wait 20-some years for closure," said Baltimore County Circuit Judge Dana M. Levitz, who decided twice in 2003 to sentence convicted killers to life in prison rather than impose death sentences. "That's cruel," he added. "Cruel to the victim's family, who already has been victimized. And I imagine it's cruel to the defendant's family, who have to go through the ups and the downs of all those appeals." Increasingly, Baltimore County prosecutors are accepting offers from defendants in death penalty cases to enter guilty pleas in exchange for a sentence of life in prison without parole -- a sentencing option added by the General Assembly in 1987. "The state's attorney's office has become more willing to plead death cases to life sentences because of all the uncertainty of what will happen, even after a death sentence is imposed," said F. Spencer Gordon, a criminal defense attorney who has worked on 4 Baltimore County death penalty cases. "Because the appeals go on endlessly and because death sentences often don't hold up, they're more willing to offer a result that will provide some finality for everyone involved." Gordon said he twice offered to have John Edward Kennedy Jr., the shooter in a botched armed robbery last year at Towson Town Center, enter a guilty plea in exchange for prosecutors' giving up on a death sentence. The first time, Bailey declined to discuss a plea agreement, saying county prosecutors do not file notice of their intent to seek a death sentence simply to use it as a bargaining chip. But the second time, months later, the deputy state's attorney told Gordon that prosecutors would take a plea offer to the victim's family but would not engage in back-and-forth negotiations. Kennedy, 19, pleaded guilty in December to killing William A. Bassett, a science teacher and faculty dean at St. Paul's School. As part of a binding plea agreement, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Bailey said that winning a guilty plea in exchange for a prison sentence with no possibility that a convicted killer will be paroled appeals to many victims' families in capital murder cases. "It's a real promise of an end to things," he said. "But you have to wonder if any defendant would ever offer to plead guilty to a binding sentence of life without parole unless there was a realistic possibility that they'd receive a death sentence." Also affecting the declining number of death sentences in Baltimore County is the high rate of reversals by appeals courts. The 2002 study by Columbia, Rutgers and New York universities found that nationally, less than 20 percent of death sentences that are overturned result in another death sentence being imposed. "The appellate process is really very exacting when it comes to death penalty cases," Bailey said. "It gets to the point that even people who previously wanted to see a death sentence imposed and carried out find themselves at their limit of what they can bear in terms of going through the process again." But critics of the county's death penalty practices say the reversals are not a reflection of a meticulous appeals process but of the policy's flaws and prosecutors' mistakes. "When you cast the net so widely, when you seek death so blanketly, you're bound to have more problems," said Jane Henderson, executive director of Maryland Citizens Against State Executions, noting that the only death row inmate exonerated by DNA evidence in Maryland was prosecuted by Baltimore County. "It is kind of amazing to think that they dominated the row for so long and now they're down to just two -- three, if you count Borchardt," Henderson said of the six men on Maryland's death row. "It's still half, numerically, but it's a much smaller number." But county prosecutors and death penalty proponents say overturned sentences and a winding appeals process should not deter capital prosecutions, so long as there is a death penalty statute on the books. County prosecutors are pursuing death sentences in 6 active murder cases and are considering seeking the death penalty in a 7th case. (source: Baltimore Sun) KANSAS: Does Kansas tilt capital cases?----US Supreme court is set to rehear a Kansas case that tests constitutional requirements in death-penalty sentencing. Before sentencing someone in a capital case, jurors are routinely instructed to consider both factors that argue in favor of the death penalty and those that argue against it. But if jurors find such factors equally balanced, should the guilty person get the death penalty? That is the question at the center of a Kansas capital case that the US Supreme Court is set to hear Tuesday. The case is important because it could force as many as a dozen states to rewrite their death-penalty statutes and make it more difficult to impose a capital sentence. In addition, the case provides a window into how the new lineup of justices on the Supreme Court will approach capital cases following the departure of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. She was a swing vote in death-penalty cases. The case, Kansas v. Marsh, was originally argued at the high court on Dec. 7. It was set for reargument after the arrival of Justice O'Connor's replacement, Samuel Alito. The rescheduling of the case suggests that the justices were sharply divided over the issue and that Justice Alito may be in a position to cast the deciding vote. The Eighth Amendment requires that in capital cases jurors make an individual assessment of aggravating and mitigating factors for a death sentence. The Supreme Court has generally left it to the states to decide how that assessment is to be carried out. "So long as the defendant can present his mitigating evidence and the sentencer considers it, the formula for decision is a matter of state law," says Kent Scheidegger, a death penalty expert at the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento, Calif., in a friend-of-the-court brief. Many states require that jurors may impose a death sentence only when aggravating evidence outweighs the mitigating evidence. But not all states have adopted that approach. The Kansas law required a death sentence whenever a jury determined that the aggravating circumstances were "not outweighed by any mitigating circumstances." That word choice left open the hypothetical possibility that jurors who gave equal weight to aggravating and mitigating factors would, in effect, have the decision to impose a death sentence made for them by the statute. The Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the possibility of such an outcome violated constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment. The ruling invalidated the death penalty statute in Kansas and thus undermined all 12 pending capital murder cases in the state. Rebecca Woodman of the Capital Appellate Defender Office in Topeka is arguing the case on behalf of Michael Lee Marsh II, whose death sentence was overturned by the Kansas Supreme Court. She says the Eighth Amendment requires a careful, individual assessment by jurors of the defendant and the crime before any death sentence may be imposed. "When a jury is in equipoise regarding the aggravating and mitigating features of a case, it is by definition unable to reach any conclusions about the defendant as a uniquely individual human being," Ms. Woodman writes in her brief to the court. Such an approach, she says, "flouts the Eighth Amendment requirement of individualized capital sentencing." Kansas has not embraced a presumption in favor of death, countered Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline in the original Supreme Court oral argument in December. "We are dealing with a hypothetical that we believe does not exist in jury deliberations," Mr. Kline said. "A juror steps back and decides whether they can live with the decision that is before them and then decides whether the death penalty is warranted." He added, "Kansas law leads them to that reasoned moral decision." A decision in the case is expected by late June. (source: The Christian Science Monitor) ****************** Death penalty law has been in limbo long enough Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline isn't defending only our states death penalty law Tuesday before the U.S. Supreme Court, in a rehearing of the case of Wichita murderer Michael Marsh. As a Christian Science Monitor article noted Monday, the case "could force as many as a dozen states to rewrite their death-penalty statutes and make it more difficult to impose a capital sentence." Thats because of the wording that has snagged the Kansas law on the Constitutions Eighth Amendment, by seeming to tilt a jury's decision toward execution when the factors that favor and disfavor a death sentence balance out. With another Kansas jury sentenced a ninth man to death in recent days -- Sidney Gleason in Great Bend -- all Kansans can hope that todays arguments will at last determine the fate of the states unused 12-year-old death penalty law. (source: Weblog, Posted by Rhonda Holman) MICHIGAN: Condemned give money to help survivors move on When Marie Minnich was 19 years old, her mother was murdered in her antiques shop in Evanston, Ill. It was Sept. 3, 1968, several days after the angry "Days of Rage" demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Suddenly, attendance at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle held little meaning. Minnich dropped out of college the following year, overwhelmed by the tragedy and responding to the need to take care of her father. Now, 38 years later, as the mother of 3 grown children and owner of an upscale interior design business in Ann Arbor, Minnich plans to complete her college degree with help from an unexpected source - inmates on death row around the country. The inmates raise money for scholarships to help family members of murder victims get through college. They generate funds through a bimonthly publication of prisoners' essays, letters and poetry, called Compassion. Minnich, who plans to graduate this fall with a bachelor's degree in interior design from Eastern Michigan University, found out about the group while searching for scholarships on the Web. Despite some initial skepticism, she submitted an essay. A year later, she received word from a man named Fred Moor, one of the program's outside organizers, that she had been awarded a $500 scholarship. "I was really moved," Minnich says. "I was moved at the connection between these inmates and my family. It was validation that human beings can be redeemed." In her essay, Minnich had noted that despite the tragedy and her anger, she had made an internal commitment to nonviolence that remains today. She opposes the death penalty and severe punishment, all of which reinforce violence. "It was a time of great upheaval in my life, both personal and political ..." she wrote in her essay. "Here I was, immersed in a hippie culture that was promoting 'peace and love,' and yet surrounded by violence everywhere." Minnich said she had no intention of exploiting her mother's tragedy for money. Rather, she was delighted to find her long-held philosophy reinforced in the prisoners' efforts at redemption. And, of course, she simply needed the money. The scholarships represent a form of "restorative justice," says Dennis Skillicorn, the editor of Compassion, who spoke in a phone interview from the Potosi Correctional Center in Missouri, where he is on death row. Skillicorn, 46, said he is serving a sentence for murder during a 1994 carjacking. "We try to restore some of the things we've torn down through our criminal behavior and thinking," he said. Skillicorn said that Compassion doesn't seek to sway people regarding capital punishment, nor do the prisoners have any illusions about extinguishing the suffering or pain they've caused. Rather, it's a way for inmates to contribute to the community while in a correctional institution. He says the best way to answer why they do what they do is to read essays such as Minnich's. "We trying to help her go forward,'' Skillicorn said, citing the strength it took to write such a piece. "My only regret is that we couldn't give more than $500." Compassion began publishing in 1991 has awarded $23,000 in scholarships. It is sent free to all 3,400 inmates on death row around the country. Funds come from subscriptions and donations from inmates, their families and other supporters, said Moor, a florist and member of St. Rose Parish in Perrysburg, Ohio. He is a member of an outside board of citizens that acts as a clearinghouse for submissions and handles all the money. Prisoners select the scholarship recipients based on essays, and are not given any addresses. Moor acknowledges that not everyone appreciates the inmates' efforts, but that many others have praised the publication. "These people on death row have done terrible crimes," he said. "A great many of them are striving - not to make amends, they can never do that - but to do some good in their lives, to change their focus. ... "To let them do that, while keeping them in prison to protect society, is a good thing." Minnich, who came to Ann Arbor 18 years ago, is a single mother who for the last few years has combined the hectic academic life with her business. Her professional work extends from her belief in the power of architecture and design to improve lives. In one EMU class, she's writing a paper on how prison space can affect inmate behavior. She loves to play the piano, and uses her free time to examine other works and creations. "Art is my life," she says. Minnich says her father, now 90 and living in California near one of his grandchildren, is excited at the prospect of her earning the degree she put on hold for him. For her part, Minnich says people can never get over such a tragedy, but they can get through it. "I'm really focused on what a wonderful thing this is," she says. "I do really appreciate what has happened there from the bottom of my heart." In her essay, she spoke of her philosophy, and the excitement at learning of the inmates' efforts. "Compassion is the only tool we have as human beings on this planet to heal and unite as opposed to separate and destroy," she wrote. "Despite the ugliness of some individual's behaviors, I am still committed to nonviolence and the teaching of it as the only viable philosophy for life ... "I couldn't believe it when I ran into your application on the Web. Perhaps there is some justice here." (source: Ann Arbor News) VIRGINIA: Moussaoui Jury Begins Deliberations on Possible Death Penalty A jury began deliberating whether to sentence Zacarias Moussaoui to death after a U.S. prosecutor urged his execution for the "unforgivable evil" of helping plan the Sept. 11 attacks and rejoicing in nearly 3,000 victims' deaths. "Let me be blunt, ladies and gentlemen, there is no place on this good earth for Zacarias Moussaoui," prosecutor David Raskin told the jury during closing arguments in Alexandria, Virginia. "Cruel, heinous, depraved do not even begin to tell the story" of what happened in the attacks, the prosecutor said. Defense lawyer Gerald Zerkin urged the jury instead to sentence Moussaoui to life in prison without parole. "You can confine him to a miserable existence until he dies," Zerkin said. "Not the death of a jihadist -- the long, slow death of a common criminal." Moussaoui, 37, pleaded guilty in April 2005 to conspiracy charges and is the only person charged in the U.S. in connection with the attacks. Moussaoui testified he knew about the plot when he was arrested a month before the attacks and lied to FBI agents because he wanted the mission to go forward. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema must impose the sentence decided upon by the jury. The trial entered its eighth week today. 'The Greatest American' In testifying earlier against his lawyers' advice, Moussaoui said he had no regrets for people who gave tearful testimony about relatives who died in the Sept. 11 attacks, saying he thought it was "disgusting" that they showed their grief at the trial. He called executed Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh "the greatest American." Moussaoui's lack of remorse was "proof that he wants you to sentence him to death," defense lawyer Zerkin said. "He clearly sees that as his last way to martyrdom." Raskin, though, urged the jury to reject the idea that Moussaoui wants to be executed so he can become a martyr. "Do you think that Osama bin Laden gives a damn about what happens here?" the prosecutor said. Raskin reminded jurors of testimony they heard from survivors of the attacks and relatives of those who died, and the videotapes and audiotapes they saw and heard of the attacks. "There was so much more that you didn't see and hear because the bodies are just completely gone," Raskin said. "The defendant rejoiced in all that pain, he told you himself," the prosecutor said. "The fact that the defendant wasn't on one of those planes is of no consequence." Al-Qaeda Money "He crossed the entire world using al-Qaeda money" and used e-mail and prepaid calling cards "to coordinate his role in the plot to kill Americans," Raskin said. "The attacks were planned years in advance and the defendant was a part of it." Zerkin, Moussaoui's defense lawyer, described him as "the operative who couldn't shoot straight" and "the only al-Qaeda operative inept enough to be captured before 9/11." Moussaoui is schizophrenic and delusional enough to think that President George W. Bush is going to free him, the lawyer said. The U.S. hasn't put on trial the higher-ranking al-Qaeda leaders it has in custody, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind, and Ramzi Binalshibh, another accused planner of the attacks, the defense lawyer said. The government offered Moussaoui as "the sacrificial lamb" for the attacks, he said. "It takes courage not to kill him in the face of the human contempt he has for suffering," the defense lawyer said. In urging the jury to sentence him to life in prison, Zerkin said, "He came to America to die for jihad and you are his last chance for it." Richard Reid Federal agents arrested Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, on immigration charges in August 2001 in Minnesota after FBI agents discovered he was taking lessons to become a pilot. Prosecutors said his lies to federal agents prevented them from uncovering the Sept. 11 plot. They said he was responsible for the victims' deaths when 19 terrorists hijacked commercial airliners and flew 2 of them into the World Trade Center and a third into the Pentagon outside Washington. A fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania. Last week, prosecutors agreed there was no evidence to support Moussaoui's claim that would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid was to join him in a hijacking on Sept. 11. Moussaoui testified that Reid was to be part of his crew on the day of the attacks to hijack a plane and crash it into the White House. Moussaoui's lawyers said his only role in Sept. 11 was "in his dreams." They said he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and came from a violent family. The lawyers acted over his objections, and he denounced them from the witness stand. He pleaded guilty to 6 conspiracy counts, three of which carried a possible death penalty. The case is U.S. vs. Moussaoui, 01cr455, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (Alexandria). (source: Bloomberg News) ****************** Death penalty 'would make Moussaoui a martyr' A lawyer for the September 11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui pleaded with jurors today to sentence his client to life imprisonment rather than give him the martyrdom he seeks through execution. Defence lawyer Gerald Zerkin said Moussaoui's contempt for the victims and the trial "is proof that he wants you to sentence him to death. He is baiting you into it. He came to America to die in jihad and you are his last chance." Mr Zerkin said the jury can instead "confine him to a miserable existence until he dies and give him not the death of a jihadist ... but the long slow death of a common criminal." Mr Zerkin also asked jurors to keep an eye on history, noting that even in the Nuremberg trials after the 2nd world war, only 11 death sentences were handed out for "the worst atrocities in the history of man." Moussaoui did not cooperate with his lawyers. Earlier prosecutor David Raskin said: "It is time to put an end to all this. It is time to put an end to his hatred and venom." Mr Raskin rejected the defence argument that Moussaoui is a schizophrenic. "Just because we can't comprehend this kind of evil doesn't mean he suffers a mental illness. We will never understand evil like this," he said. Although Moussaoui was in jail on September 11, the jury ruled that lies he told federal agents when he was arrested in August 2001 on immigration violations allowed the plot to go forward. Experts hired by the defence diagnosed him as a paranoid schizophrenic who suffers delusions, including his firmly held belief that George Bush will free him from prison. Even if the jury believes Moussaoui is schizophrenic, it still can decide he should be executed. In many trials, proof of mental illness is a determining factor in what happens to a defendant, but in this case it is just one of many factors for the jury to weigh. Moussaoui, who became the only September 11 plotter to be convicted over the attacks in the US after he pleaded guilty to all charges against him on Friday, shouted to jurors as they left for a break. "You'll never get me, America. Never ever," he said. Several dozen relatives of the victims have appeared in court during the trial to support the death penalty for Moussaoui, in often tearful testimony. Around a dozen relatives of victims also appeared to oppose the death penalty, although they were forbidden from explicitly requesting a life sentence and merely told the court that they did not think vengeance was the answer. Moussaoui is the only September 11 plotter to be convicted in the US for his involvement in the attacks. Following the release on appeal of German conspirator Mounir el Motassadeq in 2004, he is the only person in the world facing formal punishment for direct involvement in the bombings. Ramzi Binalshibh, who is thought to be one of the key architects of the attacks, was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 but has never been put before a court and is being held in a secret location by the US government. Moussaoui's guilty plea has meant that the minimum sentence available to the court is life imprisonment, and his defence team will argue against the death penalty in a hearing later today. He was arrested over immigration violations in August 2001 after a tip-off from a flight school where he was taking lessons, and was in prison at the time of the September 11 attacks. But the jury has ruled that he could face the death penalty after evidence was presented showing that he was responsible for at least one death because lies he had told to federal agents on his arrest had allowed the plot to continue undetected. (source: The Guardian) *********************** Prosecutors Make Final Plea For Death Penalty In Moussaoui Trial Hours before the jury was expected to receive the case in the death penalty trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, prosecutors called one last time for the confessed September 11 conspirator to be put to death. "Let me be blunt, ladies and gentlemen, there is no place on this good earth for Zacarias Moussaoui," prosecutor David Raskin said in closing arguments to the jury, quoted by Bloomberg News. Defence attorneys in their closing arguments said a sentence of life in prison would be worse for Moussaoui than death, which he would perceive as martyrdom. Moussaoui, 37, a Frenchman of Moroccan descent, pleaded guilty to six charges of conspiracy in April 2005 relating to the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. He was found eligible to die earlier this month by the jury in Alexandria, Virginia. That same jury will now have to decide whether Moussaoui is actually sentenced to death or life in prison without the possibility of parole. (source: Deutsche Presse-Agentur)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TENN., MD., KAN., MICH., VA.
Rick Halperin Mon, 24 Apr 2006 15:25:15 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
