May 25 CALIFORNIA: S.C. Upholds Death Sentence in Killing of Local Reporter-----Victim's Opposition to Death Penalty Irrelevant to Sentence, Justices Rule in Unanimous Decision The California Supreme Court yesterday unanimously affirmed the death sentence imposed on a local resident for the 1996 murder of a 1-time reporter for KPFK radio. Witnesses, primarily his 2 accomplices, testified that Andrew Lancaster kidnapped and shot Michael Taylor in a dispute over a transmitter and other equipment for a planned microwave radio station. Justice Carol Corrigan, writing for the high court, rejected all of Lancasters challenges to the conviction and sentence, including a claim that Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Pounders should have allowed penalty-phase testimony about Taylor's passionate opposition to the death penalty. There was no merit, Corrigan said, to the defense argument that Taylor's choice to "embrace mercy and compassion" was a mitigating circumstance. "The gravity of defendants crime was not extenuated by his victim's idealism," nor could such evidence be deemed proper rebuttal to testimony by the victims relatives in support of the death sentence. Taylor, 45, was a former homeless resident of Los Angeles and an African American activist whohad hosted "Community Forum" on the left-leaning FM station. After leaving KPFK, he had planned to start an unlicensed radio station with 2 friends, Robert Marston and Tyrone Floyd, the pair testified. Planned Radio Operation Marston and Floyd explained that Lancaster, who also went by Hodari Lumumba but took the name Mustafa Ibn Talib after converting to Islam while in custody, was an associate of Mzee Shambulia, an activist who supposedly had offered to help fund the "people's radio station." Marston said he and Taylor became concerned that Shambulia really did not want to work with them, and also that he wanted to start a commercial operation rather than a donor-financed, independent station, so they decided not to deliver any equipment to Shambulia's group. When Shambulia sent Marston a $220 money order in April 1996, Marston returned it. Taylor, Marston testified, told him that Lancaster had called him and threatened that "things would get rough" if they did not produce the equipment. A couple of days later, Taylor disappeared; a witness who heard gunshots called police, who found his body. Trial Testimony Police eventually arrested Lancaster, Shawn Alexander, and Jornay Rodriguez. Alexander, who pled guilty to manslaughter in exchange for a stipulated 15-year sentence, and Rodriguez, who pled guilty to 1st degree murder without special circumstances, carrying a 25-year-to-life sentence, both testified for the prosecution. Friends of Taylor said that he had befriended all three men at a homeless shelter before bringing them into the radio-station plan. Alexander and Rodriguez admitted kidnapping Taylor from his Crenshaw-area home at gunpoint and driving him to the crime scene, a lot in Compton. Both testified that Lancaster was the shooter. Lancaster did not testify in the guilt phase, which resulted in his being convicted of 1st degree murder and kidnapping for purposes of extortion, with a kidnap-murder special circumstance. In the penalty phase, prosecutor Eleanor Hunternow a Los Angeles Superior Court judgepresented a witness who testified that Lancaster raped her in Maryland in 1986, when he was 14 and she was 9. Witnesses also testified that while in custody, Lancaster was found on one occasion in possession of a shank and that on another occasion, jail-made handcuff keys fashioned from small pieces of metal were found in his cell. Lancaster testified that he was innocent, and that it was Shambulia, not him, who confronted the victim. He had political differences with Taylor, he said, but did not confront him over the radio station. Jurors returned a death penalty verdict, and Pounders denied the automatic motion to modify the verdict, which followed a dramatic session at which Lancaster, who was carrying a Koran, according to a news account, admitted the crime, contrary to his testimony, and expressed remorse, while insisting that Taylor "was no saint." Among the defense contentions on appeal was that the trial judge had "compelled" him to give up his right of self-representation and accept the appointment of Ron Rothman, who had originally been named as standby counsel, to try the case. The argument was "meritless," Corrigan said, because the record showed that Lancaster, after wavering several times between expressing a desire to be represented by counsel and to represent himself, in part because of restrictions placed on his access to materials after he was caught with the knife, ultimately accepted Rothmans appointment. Corrigan agreed with the defense on one evidentiary pointthat Pounders should not have allowed testimony about the handcuff keys. Absent an actual escape attempt, such possession does not constitute criminal activity and thus is not an aggravating factor, the justice explained. The error was, however, harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, the justice said, because it was "trivial" in the context of the record as a whole. The case was argued on appeal by Deputy Attorney General Zee Rodriguez and by court-appointed defense lawyer Roger Teich of San Francisco. The case is People v. Lancaster, 07 S.O.S. 2633. (source: Metropolitan News Company) *********************** Brain-damaged killer doesn't deserve death penalty, lawyers argue A brain-damaged man who has already served prison time for killing his half-sister and 2 other teens in 1984 does not deserve the death penalty, his attorneys argued Thursday in court. Mauricio Silva, 47, was previously sentenced to death for the slayings of 16-year-old Walter Sanders, 17-year-old Monique Hilton and Silva's 17-year- old half-sister, Martha Kitzler. The California Supreme Court overturned his death sentence in 2001, finding that a judge had wrongly excluded the defense from a hearing in which the prosecution explained why it had used its peremptory challenges to dismiss five Hispanics from the jury pool. The state's highest court, however, did not overturn his conviction for the 1st-degree murders of Hilton and Kitzler and the second-degree murder of Sanders. A new jury now must decide whether to recommend death or life imprisonment without parole for Silva. Mark Zavidow, one of Silva's attorneys, told jurors during closing arguments that his client had severe brain damage that affected every region of his brain. He also said his client, who suffered from gigantism as a child, has strong headaches and was born with a cleft palate, which makes talking difficult. Silva's childhood in Mexico was one marked by an "absolute absence of affection" at home, he said, describing the grandmother who raised him as a "cold, harsh, self-interested person." Another of Silva's attorneys, Upinder Kalra, told jurors the evidence shows that Silva did not sexually assault his half-sister, as prosecutors alleged. The cuts found in Kitzler's vaginal area were superficial and there was no physical evidence Silva had sexual intercourse with Kitzler, Kalra said. Kalra also told jurors that Silva's DNA, which was found on one of Kitzler's breasts, was most likely moved by law enforcement investigators who contaminated the crime scene by moving Kitzler's body with their bare hands, he said. "I'm asking you not to kill him," Kalra told the panel. "I'm asking you to show mercy." The killings occurred within a month of Silva being freed from prison for the January 1978 slaying of 18-year-old Troy Crovella, Deputy District Attorney Linda Loftfield told jurors last month. After he was paroled from prison on May 7, 1984, for that killing, Silva met Sanders on a bus from Sylmar to downtown Los Angeles, Loftfield said. The 2 became friends and spent the week together before Silva took him to the desert and killed him with a shotgun, according to the prosecutor. Silva met his next victim, Hilton, at a bus stop on Santa Monica Boulevard, and gave her a ride before driving her out to the desert, ordering her out of the car and firing numerous shots at her, Loftfield told jurors. Silva's half-sister was choked, then stabbed to death on May 28, 1984, at the family's Hollywood home. "You can see that the defendant chose to cover up her face and expose her most private area," the prosecutor said of a photo showing Kitzler with her sweatpants partially pulled down. Loftfield said Silva then called a friend, told her he had killed 3 people and asked her to call the police. She eventually talked him into surrendering, and he confessed to law enforcement that he had killed the 3, according to the deputy district attorney. (source: North County Times) FLORIDA: Offord gets life in prison----Killers death sentence commuted The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday said Christopher Offord's death sentence for killing his ex-wife with a hammer was excessive compared to other death cases in the state. "We conclude that when the totality of the circumstances of this case is compared to other capital cases, death is a disproportionate punishment," Chief Justice R. Fred Lewis wrote in the unanimous opinion. "We therefore reduce Offords sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole." Offord, 31, beat to death Dana Noser, 40, on July 31, 2004, because he wanted to watch sports on TV and she wanted him to come to bed. "The defendant struck his wife approximately 70 individual blows after spending a happy interlude with her," Circuit Judge Dedee Costello said at Offords sentencing. "Her desire to cuddle after sex does not justify the extremely violent, brutal response of the defendant." Costello followed a 12-person jury's unanimous recommendation for the death sentence. But the high court decided that the legal basis for the jurys recommendation that the murder was heinous, atrocious or cruel was not sufficient to overcome Offords mental health issues. Lewis wrote that the court has found the death penalty to be appropriate for that statutory aggravator on 3 occasions in its history. Compared to those cases, Lewis wrote, Offords did not rise to the same level. "In this case, there is no question that Offord committed a brutal murder," Lewis wrote. "Offords mental illness undoubtedly contributed to this tragic crime." Offord pleaded guilty to the murder on March 23, 2005, and went to a penalty phase trial, where his lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Walter Smith, presented evidence that Offord had serious mental illnesses since the age of 6. Offord, however, denied mental problems and said hed been fooling doctors for years. "Offord's case is notable," Lewis wrote, "because it is one of the most documented cases of serious mental illness this court has reviewed." Lewis concluded by saying the death penalty is reserved for "only the most aggravated, the most indefensible of crimes," and Offords case did not fall within that category. Offord had asked Costello to impose the death sentence. Smith said Thursday that Offord showed his mental illness by trying to be a "death volunteer." "The Supreme Court sees a lot of these death volunteer cases; it's not that uncommon," Smith said. "They recognize that many of these death volunteers are mentally ill people." He said the bottom line is Offord committed a domestic violence killing that didn't stand apart from the heinous crimes the court routinely sees. Smith said Offord's sentence was typical of those the Supreme Court usually overturns. He said the high court is averse to approving the execution of people with mental illness and based on a single aggravator. This case, however, is one that jurors aren't as sympathetic toward. "Jurors don't consider mental illness to be a mitigating factor," Smith said. "When they hear mental illness, what flashes in their mind is 'psychotic killer.'" State Attorney Steve Meadows said in a prepared release he was disappointed with the court's action. "The court has substituted its judgment for that of the 12 citizens who took on the very difficult task of reviewing the evidence and recommending the appropriate penalty," he said. "The tragedy continues for Dana Noser and family, especially her young daughter." (source: News Herald)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF. FLA.
Rick Halperin Fri, 25 May 2007 17:08:08 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
