May 30 WEST VIRGINIA: Death penalty-----Monstrous wrongs Federal jurors recommend execution of George "Porgy" Lecco and Valerie Friend for the ruthless murder of 33-year-old Carla Collins. Lecco, 57, of Red Jacket, Mingo County, sold drugs out of his pizzeria. He promised dope to Friend, 44, of North Matewan, for killing Collins, a federal drug informant. During the trial, jurors learned that Friend shot and beat Collins in an abandoned trailer near Newtown. Collins was 33 and had 3 children. Her children described visiting the shallow grave where her body was found months after she disappeared. This murder was heinous and horrifying. Naturally, it stirs the normal human desire for revenge and retaliation. But we never think that government should stoop to the level of killing in return. Government is supposed to represent the finest ideals of intelligent citizens, not become a killer itself. Almost every other civilized country along with many American states, including West Virginia has abandoned the practice of putting people to death. There are logical arguments for ending executions. Killing criminals does not restore their victims. It does not reform anyone. Worse, courts and police sometimes make mistakes. Investigators, prosecutors, defense attorneys, doctors, judges can all make errors leading to conviction of an innocent person. Death is an irreversible judgment. In addition to all those reasons, retaliatory killing seems nearly as reprehensible as the original crime. Unfortunately, society includes monstrous villains who are not good candidates for rehabilitation. Society must protect itself from such people. Locking them in steel cages until they die both protects the public and punishes the killers, without staining the rest of society with more blood. (source: Opinion, Charleston Gazette) ******************** Valerie Friend could be first woman ever sentenced to death in West Virginia Pending an appeal and a formal hearing in federal court, Valerie Suzette Friend could be the 1st woman ever to be sentenced to death in West Virginia. Ninety-four men were executed by the state from 1899 until 1965 when Gov. Hulett Smith led a push to abolish capital punishment, according to the state Division of Culture and History. Now this week, after four days of deliberation, a federal jury sitting in Charleston on Tuesday recommended Friend, 45, and George "Porgy" Lecco, 58, both of Mingo County, be put to death for their roles in the 2005 murder of Carla Collins. Collins was acting as a confidential informant for authorities investigating a cocaine-dealing ring headed by Lecco and run out of his pizza shop in Red Jacket. The jury found that Lecco ordered Friend to murder Collins to prevent her from working with the authorities. The cases are the first federal executions recommended in West Virginia since Congress reinstated the federal death penalty law in 1988. The U.S. Supreme Court had ruled all state and federal death penalty laws unconstitutional in 1972. West Virginia lawmakers have never revived the state law, making it one of a dozen that doesnt have state-sponsored capital punishment. But federal courts in West Virginia still can hand down the sentence. Friend and Lecco have 30 days to ask for new trials. A formal sentencing hearing is set for Aug. 23. If appeals fail and U.S. District Judge John T. Copenhaver carries out the jurys recommendation, Friend will be only one of two women sitting on federal death row, says Richard Dieter, executive director of the national Death Penalty Information Center. Dieter says there are only about 50 women currently sitting on state and federal death rows of an estimated 3,300 inmates who have been sentenced to death. The majority have been convicted of some type of aggravated murder. "It's just a fact of life that women rarely commit those types of murders," Dieter said. The only woman currently on federal death row is Angela Johnson, who was sentenced to death in 2004 by a federal jury in Iowa, which also has no state death penalty law. Johnson was convicted of helping drug kingpin Dustin Honken carry out 4 murders in the early 1990s. If her execution is carried out, Johnson will be the first woman to be put to death by the federal government in more than 50 years, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Bonnie Brown Heady was the last woman to be executed by the federal government. She died in a Missouri gas chamber in 1953 for her part in the kidnapping and murder of 6-year-old Bobby Greenlease, the son of prominent Kansas City Cadillac dealer Robert Greenlease. When it comes to Friends and Lecco's cases, Dieter said Judge Copenhaver wouldn't have much choice in sentencing other than to accept the jurys recommendation of the death penalty. Copenhaver likely will order that the pair be executed by lethal injection at a federal facility in Terre Haute, Ind., Dieter said. The judge also could order they be electrocuted in Nebraska, the only state that still uses that method of execution, Dieter said. Prior to the repeal of West Virginia's state law, all executions in the state were carried out by either hanging or electrocution at the state penitentiary in Moundsville. Elmer Bruner of Cabell County was the last man to sit in the electric chair at Moundsville. He was executed on April 3, 1959. Bruner was sentenced to death in 1957 for tying up 58-year-old Ruby Miller at her home in Huntington and then beating her to death with a claw hammer. Shep Caldwell, a 25-year-old man from McDowell County, was the 1st person to be executed by the state of West Virginia. He was hanged on Oct. 10, 1899, for murder. (source: Charleston Daily Mail) LOUISIANA: New judge denied in death penalty case A Baton Rouge judge denied a request Tuesday for a new judge in the appeal of Henri Broadway, convicted in the 1993 ambush killing of a Baton Rouge police officer. Broadways attorney had asked a new judge be appointed because he said state District Judge Mike Erwin handed down a ruling in January before listening to all the evidence. Attorney Richard Duplantier also complained in court Tuesday that Erwin has warned Duplantier he could be reported to the Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board because allegations raised in a motion filed by the defense attorney against a prosecutor and the trial judge might not be true. Duplantier has been appointed to handle the appeal of Broadway, convicted of 1st-degree murder and sentenced to death in 1995 in the shooting death of Cpl. Betty Smothers. Smothers was shot at midnight Jan. 7, 1993, while driving grocery store manager Kimen Lee to make a night deposit at a Jefferson Highway bank. Lee survived the ambush despite being shot several times. The motion to have Erwin taken off the case was argued Tuesday before state District Judge Richard Anderson, who denied the request. During the hearing, Erwin testified he cut short the Jan. 30 hearing because there was no reason to hear from additional witnesses. The hearing was scheduled to get testimony about co-defendant West Paul, who had long claimed prosecutor Prem Burns coerced him into falsely testifying against Broadway. The brief filed by Duplantier also alleges the trial judge, then-state District Court Judge Ralph Tyson, knew Paul was going to lie on the witness stand and did nothing to stop it. On Jan. 30, Paul recanted his claims against Burns and maintained he was only trying to stop Broadways execution. Erwin testified that after Paul recanted, he saw no reason to go forward. The judge testified he gave Duplantier a chance to withdraw the allegations against Burns and Tyson because "there could be some ethical violations." Burns said Tuesday the motion filed by Duplantier alleges she committed felonies by suppressing evidence and by coercing false testimony from Paul. Burns said there should be ramifications, including a possible report to the disciplinary board, for including in court filings allegations not substantiated beforehand. Duplantier told Anderson he has twice been threatened in this case with being reported to the disciplinary board and he has had to hire an attorney to represent him on such claims. Duplantier said the threats are meant to get him to drop claims he has raised on Broadway's appeal. (source: The Advocate) NEW YORK: New Yorkers support death penalty for cop killers By a nearly 2-to-1 margin, New York voters oppose a pay increase for state legislators, and they support reinstituting the death penalty for those convicted of killing police officers, according to a new Siena College Research Institute poll released Tuesday. Reinstituting the death penalty for those convicted of killing law enforcement officials is supported by a margin of 52-42 %. More than 3/4 of Republicans support it, a majority of Democrats oppose it and independent voters are nearly evenly divided. It has strong support in the downstate suburbs and upstate, but is opposed in New York City. (source: Empire State News) MISSISSIPPI: Death row inmate wants 2nd chance Death row inmate Thomas Loden Jr. contends he didn't know he gave up his right to appeal by pleading guilty to capital murder, his lawyer told the Mississippi Supreme Court on Tuesday. Loden asked the Supreme Court to throw out his guilty plea and death sentence. Andre de Gruy of the Office of Capital Defense Counsel told the justices that the error was not Loden's alone. De Gruy said it appeared from the court record that Loden's attorney and the trial judge also believed Loden could appeal his guilty plea. However, Assistant Attorney General Marvin White Jr. said the court record showed Circuit Judge Thomas J. Gardner III repeatedly asked Loden whether he understood no appeal was available from a guilty plea. White said the court record showed that every time Loden answered that he understood. Loden has 2 appeals pending before the court. One is from his sentencing in which Gardner ordered the death penalty; the other is a post conviction petition in which Loden argues that his lawyer should have done a better job of advising him on the guilty plea. Loden, a former Marine recruiter, was sentenced to death in 2001 in Itawamba County for killing 16-year-old Leesa Gray. He also was sentenced to 30 years on kidnapping and rape counts. Gray disappeared June 22, 2000, while on her way home from work as a waitress at her family's restaurant in the Dorsey community. She was found dead of strangulation the next day in Loden's van, according to court documents. Gray was last seen driving out of the restaurant parking lot. Relatives found her car hours later, her purse still inside, hazard lights flashing. Loden waived a jury trial and pleaded guilty. He agreed to allow Gardner to handle sentencing. De Gruy said Loden believed he could still appeal even though he pleaded guilty rather being convicted by a jury. "But for the advice of counsel the plea would not have been entered. He would not have pleaded guilty and would have proceeded to trial," de Gruy said. "Mr. Loden was confused about what was going on." White said Loden's arguments on appeal did not follow what was contained in the court record. "He got his change of heart ... and is now throwing errors in everybody's direction," White said. "It was fully explained to him what he was giving up when he pleaded guilty. He knew what he was doing." (source: Associated Press) INDIANA: Death row inmate agrees to resumed hearing----Stay prevented 2005 parole board vote An inmate facing execution next month for the shooting death of a Muncie police officer approves of the state parole board's plan to pick up his clemency hearing where it left off 2 years ago, his lawyer said Tuesday. Attorneys for Michael Lambert agreed that the board should resume where it left off in June 2005 rather than start all over again, said Alan Freedman, one of his lawyers. Hours before the parole board was scheduled to vote on Lambert's clemency request in 2005, a federal appeals court in Chicago stayed the execution. The board has heard testimony from Lambert, his family and friends and from the family of Muncie officer Gregg Winters. "We suggested to them that both families prefer not to go through this again," Freedman said. The board has given those involved until June 6 to submit additional comments. The board plans to vote June 8 on its recommendation to Gov. Mitch Daniels regarding Lamberts request that his death sentence be commuted. Lambert faces lethal injection June 15 at the Indiana State Prison for fatally shooting Winters on Dec. 28, 1990. Lambert told the parole board 2 years ago he was so drunk he could remember only brief snippets around the time of the shooting. The parole board has recommended clemency for a condemned prisoner only once since Indiana reinstated the death penalty in 1977. Freedman expects to file further appeals for Lambert in the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. Freedman pointed to Justice Robert Rucker's dissent from other members of the Indiana Supreme Court in a ruling last week in which he said he believed Lambert's "sentence of death is constitutionally infirm under both state and federal constitutions." (source: Associated Press)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----W. VA., LA., N.Y., MISS., IND.
Rick Halperin Wed, 30 May 2007 14:32:08 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
