[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, ARK., CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

June 4


Death penalty reflects Ohio's blood thirst


I am bemused by the many deep thoughts being offered by Ohioans on the
practice of executing criminals who have committed horrible crimes. I am a
citizen and resident of Ohio and have been for about 20 years. However, my
first 30 years were spent in Michigan, which never has had the death
penalty. So I am still a Michigander in spirit; I do not share the blood
thirst which seems to motivate so many Ohioans. I also have Christian
reasons for being against the death penalty.

If the State of Ohio did not have the death penalty, we would not have to
go through all these "agonizing reappraisals," such as Dr. Jonathan
Groner's May 27 Saturday Essay.

Lethal injection is supposed to be less inhumane than the electric chair
or hanging, both of which have been used in Ohio. Governments have used
the firing squad and the guillotine. The use of any of these historic
techniques would eliminate the need for physicians, except to act as
coroner.

Of course, one way to eliminate the problem Dr. Groner refers to would be
to discontinue the practice of the death penalty. But, in order to do
that, Ohioans would have to give up their blood thirst. Ohioans voted
overwhelmingly a decade ago to support a constitutional amendment to
curtail the appeal process so that murderers could not postpone their just
fate. Or is it just the Republicans who need to see blood? They seem to be
the loudest proponents of the death penalty.

CHARLES H. KAMP--Archbold, Ohio

(source: Letter to the Editor, Toledo Blade)






ARKANSAS:

West Memphis 3 Anniversary


Saturday, June 3rd, marks the 13th Anniversary of the day that 3 West
Memphis teens were arrested for the murders of 3 young children.

Several years ago, Jessie Misskelley, Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin were
arrested and later convicted of murdering 3 young boys.

To this day, supporters for the West Memphis Three believe they were
convicted because they were different. They wore black and listened to
heavy metal.

Saturday evening in Little Rock, supporters raised money for better
defense lawyers and raised awareness of what they call a major injustice.

"We don`t believe they are murderers and we believe there is no evidence
connecting them to this crime, and they were convicted and we're not
satisfied with those verdicts," Amanda Lamb says.

One of the three men, Jessie Misskelley confessed to the murders and gave
up the other 2 men in his confession. And after several appeals trying to
avoid the death penalty, Damien Echols is down to his last straw in the
federal courts.

(source: KARK News)






CALIFORNIA:

Serial killer seeks a lifeline----'NIGHT STALKER' APPEALS DEATH SENTENCE,
CLAIMING A FAULTY DEFENSE


More than 20 years after he terrorized Southern California in a grisly
killing spree, "Night Stalker" Richard Ramirez's challenge to his death
sentence is reaching the state Supreme Court.

But when lawyers argue one of the state's most notorious death row cases
in the Supreme Court's chambers Tuesday, Ramirez's devil worship and eerie
crimes will not be center stage. Instead, the focal point will be a pair
of San Jose defense lawyers whose inexperience in capital cases and
controversial behavior at trial are at the heart of the effort to get
Ramirez's death sentence set aside.

Ramirez, now 46, was condemned to die in 1989 for 13 Los Angeles-area
murders that stunned the state in 1984 and 1985. Ramirez, a Texas drifter
who warned when he was sentenced to death that he "will be avenged," also
was charged later with a San Francisco murder linked to his crimes, in
which he strangled, raped, shot and slashed the throats of his victims.

Now, his bid to avoid execution rests on the performance of lawyers Daniel
Hernandez and Arturo Hernandez, who were not related. They were retained
by Ramirez's family to represent him in a trial that dragged on for months
before a jury, after weeks of deliberation, found him guilty of the
murders. It is not surprising that the representation by Hernandez and
Hernandez is under fire on appeal -- their often bizarre behavior and
questionable qualifications threatened to unravel the trial at various
stages, and Ramirez's appellate lawyers now say the trial was a farce.

As a result, the Ramirez appeal, as it winds through the state Supreme
Court and possibly the federal courts, marks a test of how the courts
evaluate questionable representation in death penalty cases when lawyers
are hired, as opposed to appointed by the courts. Most murder defendants
are too poor to afford their own lawyer.

To death penalty experts, Ramirez's appeal also is a stark example of how
important it can be for courts to ensure that even the most nefarious
defendant gets adequate counsel at trial. A Mercury News investigation
several years ago found that incompetent representation is one of the
chief reasons the state and federal courts have reversed dozens of death
sentences since 1987.

"The more serious the crime, the more inflammatory the allegations, the
more critical it is that the lawyer know what he or she is doing," said
Elisabeth Semel, head of the death penalty clinic at Boalt Hall School of
Law. "There isn't something written in invisible ink in the Constitution
that says this right exists except when charged with a horrible crime."

Hernandez and Hernandez had a combined five years of experience when they
took over Ramirez's representation. (Daniel Hernandez died in 2003.) They
both had a history of being held in contempt in Santa Clara County for
their handling of cases, and their conduct resulted in the reversal of one
San Jose murder conviction.

During the course of the Ramirez trial, both lawyers were absent for long
periods. Daniel Hernandez was unable to attend for a crucial stretch,
citing stress-related illness. Arturo Hernandez was held in contempt for
his failure to show up -- in one instance, he was punished for misleading
the court when he said he was absent because he needed to attend his
brother's funeral in Mexico when in fact he was honeymooning in Europe.

At the outset of the trial, a Los Angeles judge warned Ramirez that the
two lawyers were not qualified to handle a death penalty case, but the
judge did not disqualify them, because they were chosen and retained by
the family. That is the central issue being argued Tuesday. While judges
have broad leeway to intervene when indigent defendants get
court-appointed lawyers, Ramirez's case is expected to test the Supreme
Court's standards for how judges review the qualifications of hired
lawyers in life-and-death capital trials.

Geraldine Russell, Ramirez's appellate lawyer, did not return a phone call
for comment. But in more than 400 pages of appellate arguments, she says
Hernandez and Hernandez undermined Ramirez's right to a fair trial. In
particular, she argues that the two lawyers' failure to put on any
evidence at the penalty phase of the trial, when the jury decides between
life and death, "guaranteed the jury would return a death verdict."

The trial judge, the appeal argues, had an obligation to bar the 2 lawyers
from the case.

"It was patently obvious even to the most casual observer that both Daniel
Hernandez and Arturo Hernandez lacked the necessary qualifications and
experience to handle one of the most notorious capital cases in the
history of both Los Angeles County and California," Russell argues.

Arturo Hernandez, still a practicing lawyer in San Jose, did not return a
phone call for comment.

The state attorney general's office, which is defending Ramirez's death
sentence, says he got a fair trial, noting the ``overwhelming evidence''
of guilt. Prosecutors say the judge was correct in allowing the San Jose
lawyers to stay on Ramirez's case.

The California Supreme Court seldom reverses a death sentence at this
stage of the appellate process, which is likely to drag on for an
additional decade in Ramirez's case.

"Our position is that Ramirez received constitutionally adequate
assistance of counsel," said Deputy Attorney General Margaret Maxwell, who
will argue for the state.

(source: Mercury News)