Aug. 22 CALIFORNIA: O.C. prosecutor to again pursue death penalty for white supremacist----A new execution hearing for a white supremacist gang member convicted of killing a founder of the group will start next year. He also faces the possibility of life in prison without parole. An Orange County prosecutor said Tuesday he would again seek the death penalty for a white supremacist gang member convicted of killing a founder of the organization. This month, a jury deadlocked on whether Michael Lamb should die for killing Scott Miller in 2002 in retaliation for giving away some of Public Enemy Number One's secrets on a local television news program. The Southern California gang openly promotes white power. Lamb, 33, and codefendant Jacob Rump, 31, both of Huntington Beach, were also convicted of trying to kill an undercover police officer who was on their trail 3 days after Miller was found dead in an Anaheim alley with a gunshot wound to the back of his head. The prosecution and the defense agreed Feb. 4, 2008, would be the start date for the new penalty phase. Lamb's attorney, Marlin Stapleton, said he was disappointed by the prosecutor's decision, maintaining that he believed it was wrong to seek the death penalty in this case mainly because the victim was not only a fellow gang member, but also a founder. "This was a guy who set the rules, at least originally," Stapleton said. The defense attorney said he believed the prosecution would have a distinct advantage in the new execution hearing. With a new jury hearing the case, the defense must try to re-create doubt about whether Lamb or someone else was the triggerman in Miller's death. During the original trial, jurors cited lingering doubt as a main reason for their deadlock, he said. Deputy Dist. Atty. Ebrahim Baytieh said he was retrying the penalty phase because "it's the right thing to do." He rejected the notion that Miller's life was less valuable because of his criminal past, and said Lamb deserved the death penalty for any one of the serious crimes for which he was convicted. "I disagree that we're going to say Mr. Lamb should get a break because a man [he killed] wasn't the nicest person who ever lived," Baytieh said. "To me, the mere fact of him trying to kill a police officer [is enough]." Rump faces life in prison without parole at his Aug. 31 sentencing. (source: Los Angeles Times) USA: Bush's Bid for a Death Penalty Fast Track The Bush administration is preparing to speed up the executions of criminals who are on death row across the United States, in effect, cutting out several layers of appeals in the federal courts so that prisoners can be "fast-tracked" to their deaths. With less than 18 months to go to secure a presidential legacy, President Bush has turned to an issue he has specialised in since approving a record number of executions while Governor of Texas. The US Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales -- Mr Bush's top legal adviser during the spree of executions in Texas in the 1990s -- is putting finishing touches to regulations, inspired by recent anti-terrorism legislation, that would allow states to turn to the Justice Department, instead of the federal courts, as a key arbiter in deciding whether prisoners live or die. The US is already among the top 6 countries worldwide in terms of the numbers of its own citizens that it puts to death. 52 Americans were executed last year and thousands await their fate on death row. In some instances, prisoners would have significantly less time to file federal appeals, and the appeals courts significantly less time to respond. On the question of whether defendants received adequate representation at trial -- a key issue in many cases, especially in southern states with no formal public defender system -- the Attorney General would be the sole decision-maker. Since Mr Gonzales is a prosecutor, not a judge, and since he has a track record of favouring death in almost every capital case brought before him, the regulations would, in effect, remove a crucial safety net for prisoners who feel they have been wrongly convicted. Elisabeth Semel, a death penalty specialist at the University of California law school in Berkeley, said the intention of the proposed regulation was clear: "To make it more difficult for people who have been sentenced to death in state courts, including those sentenced without adequate representation and resources, to avoid being executed." The regulations, first made public by the Los Angeles Times, will be subject to a public comment period extending into September. They will then be enacted "as quickly as circumstances allow," according to a Justice Department spokeswoman. The administration's enthusiasm for capital punishment runs counter to the recent trend away from the death penalty in many states. Last year saw the lowest number of capital convictions across the country -- 114 -- since the death penalty was reintroduced in the early 1970s. The development of DNA testing has raised uncomfortable questions about the safety of many capital convictions, prompting Illinois to call a halt to all its executions and triggering reviews in many other states. Over the past two years, doubts have also arisen over the most popular method of execution -- death by lethal injection -- because medical research has suggested prisoners may die in agony. One of the cocktails of drugs typically administered, pancuronium bromide, paralyses the body, masking any pain without necessarily alleviating it. California and half a dozen other states imposed moratoriums pending a study of a new cocktail of drugs that would overcome the constitutional ban on "cruel or unusual" punishment. Some states, including Tennessee, South Dakota and Florida, have either resumed executions or are planning to do so. But California, which has 600 prisoners on death row, shows no signs of executing anybody in the near future. President Bush has always been a death penalty enthusiast. The 152 prisoners he dispatched to their deaths in his 8 years as governor of Texas set a high-water mark unmatched before or since. According to official memos, Governor Bush would give the green light to executions based on no more than a half-hour briefing from Mr Gonzales. Mr Gonzales, in turn, often omitted mitigating evidence. At no time has Mr Bush seen any contradiction with his avowed commitment to the sanctity of life. As President he has even instituted a National Sanctity of Human Life Day, which, he has said, "serves as a reminder we must value human life in all its forms, not just those considered healthy, wanted, or convenient". If the regulations come into effect, they would raise serious questions about the ability of wrongfully convicted prisoners to overturn sentences. Kenny Richey, a Scot who has been on Ohio's death row for close to 20 years, is still alive -- and, it appears, on the verge of having his sentence quashed -- because of the intervention of a federal appeals court on his behalf. 4 years ago, a Missouri man, Joe Amrine, was released after 17 years on death row after the collapse of all evidence that led to his conviction for a jail murder. The state argued, with a straight face, that even the establishment of innocence was not a reason to stop his execution, because nothing had been procedurally incorrect about his original trial. Again, it was a federal appeals court that weighed in on Amrine's behalf. To date, 123 prisoners sentenced to die have been proved innocent and released. Anti-death penalty activists and lawyers have raised serious doubts about hundreds of others. Supporters of a quicker legal process argue that it is unacceptable to sentence someone to die and then wait 17 or 18 years, on average, for the sentence to be carried out. Keeping prisoners on death row is expensive -- about $90,000 a year, on average -- as are the legal costs of appeals. 2006 executions China: 1,010+ Iran: 177 Pakistan: 82 Iraq: 65+ Sudan: 65+ USA: 53 Saudi Arabia: 39+ Yemen: 30+ Vietnam: 14 Kuwait: 10+ [source: Amnesty International, based on 2006 figures] + symbol indicates that the figure is a minimum one; the true figure may be higher due to state secrecy or a lack of available information. (source: The Independent) ********************* US Attorney General Gonzales to wield new death penalty authority The US Justice Department is finalizing regulations that would give Attorney General Alberto Gonzales new authority in capital cases to shorten the time death row inmates have to appeal their convictions in federal court. The new provisions, added to last years reauthorization of the "anti-terror" USA Patriot Act, grant the attorney general the power to decide whether individual states are providing adequate legal counsel to capital defendants. Federal judges now hold that authority. The rules will be written into law after the September 23 deadline for "public comment" has passed. In essence, the attorney general will be given the sole authority to "fast track" death penalty procedures, severely restricting the time condemned inmates have to appeal their convictions after their cases have been settled in state courts. Wrongfully convicted condemned inmatesand those who have received inadequate legal representationface the prospect of being sent to their deaths with outstanding issues as to their innocence. Kathryn Kase, a Houston lawyer and co-chair of the death penalty committee for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, commented to the Los Angeles Times, "This is the Bush administration throwing down the gauntlet and saying, 'We are going to speed up executions.'" The new rules constitute a flagrant violation of constitutional protections of due process, particularly the right of habeas corpus to seek relief from unlawful detention. They place life-and-death decisions affecting condemned death penalty defendants in the hands of the governments top prosecutor. Elisabeth Semel, director of the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of California law school in Berkeley, told BBC News, "It's like giving control of the hen house to the fox, because it's the attorney general in the state going to the attorney general of the US and getting permission to do something that kills the chicken." The credentials of this particular attorney general, moreover, are a significant matter, when one takes a measure of his history in regard to capital punishment and democratic rights. As general counsel to George W. Bush when he was Texas governor, Gonzales drafted execution memos in 57 cases. These memos, sent to the governor on the morning before a scheduled execution, would summarize complex issues in each case in several paragraphs, leaving a box at the bottom for the governor to decide on granting clemency by checking next to the word "grant" or "deny." Bush almost without exception ticked the "deny" box. By the time Bush left the Texas governor's office and headed for the White Houseand Gonzales had moved on to become the state's attorney general and serve on its Supreme CourtBush had sent 152 people to their deaths, more than any other governor in US history. These condemned individuals included the mentally retarded, those convicted of crimes committed as juveniles, foreign nationals denied consular rights, and two women. Following his close partnership with Bush in Texas, Gonzales served as White House counsel from 2001 to 2005. In that post, he crafted a now infamous memo to the president legitimizing torture in the "war on terror." He was appointed attorney general in February 2005, and is currently under scrutiny for his role in the US attorney firings, and for his visit to former attorney general John Ashcrofts hospital bedside to pressure him on implementing domestic spying operations. Equally as sinister as the office and individual now being entrusted with making critical decisions on the death penalty is the substance of the new Justice Department procedures. These provisions were tucked away into the Patriot Act reauthorization bill signed into law by President Bush on March 9, 2006. The measures deal with rules set down in the federal Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), enacted under the Democratic Clinton administration, which set up a system in which states could streamline death penalty appeals in federal court. The time allowed for a defendant to appeal in federal court after their case was resolved in state court was trimmed to a year, or to 6 months if states could prove that defendants had received adequate legal representation. Beginning in the late 1990s, California and several other states sought authorization for the faster-paced, 6-month limit, but were denied this designation in the federal court system, which was authorized under AEDPA to make the ruling. In fact, no state has ever been approved by the federal appeals court as meeting the requirements of providing adequate defense for death penalty defendants. With the new regulations, the Bush administration is attempting to fashion an end-run around what they perceive to be obstacles to speeding up the machinery by which condemned prisoners are sent to their deaths. The attorney general from each state will now simply apply to the Justice Department to be included in the program. Upon approval by Gonzales that they are providing adequate counsel, any capital defendant in that state will be put on the legal "fast track" to execution. In addition to the six-month limit on appeals, the new rules would also impose strict guidelines on federal judges in deciding these inmates petitions. Federal district judges would be required to rule in 450 days; appeals courts judges would have only 120 days. Representative Dan Lungren (Republican, California) and Senator Jon Kyl (Republican, Arizona) campaigned for the new regulations to be inserted into the Patriot Act reauthorization bill last year. Death penalty proponents have been particularly frustrated with decisions by the 9th Circuit Court, based in San Francisco, which consistently has ruled against providing states with the "fast-track" designation, and has blocked many executions. That power will now be given to the attorney general. Only the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, whose 12 judges are appointed by the president, has the authority to overrule Gonzales. This provision was obviously designed as a purely cosmetic check on the attorney generals decision-making powers. Opponents of the new regulations have also criticized the standards by which states will be approved for the expedited appeals process in the federal court system. In order to qualify, states would only be required to demonstrate that they have a "mechanism" for supplying lawyers to death row inmates. They would not have to show that the lawyers representing capital defendants were competent, or that they received adequate funding from the state. In Arizona and California, for example, there are state-sponsored programs that support defense counsel in capital cases, but there are too few attorneys for the defendants who need representation. Lawyers representing death row inmates in these states also say that they receive insufficient funding from the state to mount adequate defenses for their clients. Numerous studies have shown that capital defendantswho are overwhelmingly working class and poorreceive substandard and in many cases abysmal legal representation. A study released in 2000 examining every capital conviction and appeal between 1973 and 1995nearly 5,500 judicial decisionsshowed that courts found reversible error in nearly seven out of ten capital cases during this period. The study"A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases," by James S. Liebman and Jeffrey Faganshowed that factors leading to overturning capital sentences were not mere technicalities, but serious legal errors. The most common reasons for overturning death sentences were: egregiously incompetent legal representation; prosecutorial misconduct, often including suppression of evidence of innocence; and faulty instructions to jurors. The study also found that 7 % of those whose convictions were overturned were also found to be not guilty of the capital crime. The average amount of time taken for these cases to make their way through the appeals process was 9 years. Under the new regulations, the portion of time allowed for appeal in the federal courts would be severely restricted, with the effect that defendants might not be able to present DNA and other evidence to prove their innocence or demonstrate that their legal rights had been violated. Death penalty supporters object to the amount of time spent on death penalty appeals. While in the early 1980s, the average time between sentencing and execution was 4 years, it now averages 11 years. They want to speed this process up, which would inevitably result in the execution of those who are innocent of the capital crime, and/or whose legal and constitutional rights have been violated during prosecutions. 98 people were sent to their deaths in 1999, the highest number since the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. That figure has steadily declined, with 53 executed in 2006, and 33 executed so far this year. The drop has been fueled in part by declining public support for the death penalty. According to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), since 1973, 124 people in 25 states have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence, including 22 in Florida and 18 in Illinois. The latest case documented by DPIC is that of Curtis Edward McCarty, the 201st person in the US exonerated through DNA evidence, and the 15th of those who has served time on death row. His case puts a human face on the appeals process disparaged by the Bush Justice Department as inefficient and frivolous. Curtis McCarty spent 21 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, and was sentenced to die three different times for the 1982 rape and murder in Oklahoma of teenager Pamela Kaye Willis. DNA evidence in recent years has shown that another person raped the victim. On May 11, 2007, District Court Judge Twyla Mason Grey ordered that the charges against McCarty be dismissed, ruling that the case against him was tainted by the questionable testimony on semen and hair evidence by former police chemist Joyce Gilchrist. Judge Grey said that Gilchrist had acted in "bad faith" and "most likely did destroy or intentionally lose" hair evidence that was crucial to McCarty's conviction. Joyce Gilchrist was the lead forensic analyst in 23 cases that ended in death sentences. 11 of these defendants have been executed. District Attorney Robert H. Macy prosecuted McCarty at both of his trials. In his 21 years as Oklahoma County DA, Macy sent 73 people to death rowmore than any other prosecutor in the nation. 20 of these individuals have been executed. He has stated publicly that executing an innocent person is a sacrifice worth making to maintain capital punishment in the US. Since the US Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, 1,090 people have been executed in the United States. 11 of these have been woman; 22 were executed for crimes committed when they were juveniles. 38 of the 50 US states, as well as the federal government, still sanction the death penalty, a barbaric practice that has been outlawed by the vast majority of industrialized countries, including all of Western Europe. The move by the Bush administration to grant the attorney general these new, thoroughly undemocratic powers in relation to the death penalty exposes a regime increasingly at odds with civilized, humanitarian norms. (source: World Socialist Web Site) CONNECTICUT: Killer Won't Face Death Penalty Federal prosecutors will not seek the death penalty for a Chester man convicted of shooting his friend to death and dumping his body in western New York in 2005. The prosecutors filed papers in August 2006 in U.S. District Court in Rochester, N.Y., seeking the execution of Noah Gladding if he was convicted of capital murder in the death of Jason Argersinger, 24, a former shoreline high school soccer player turned drug dealer. But during a hearing in federal court in New York last week, prosecutors said they had changed their minds, a decision Gladding's defense attorney, William Easton, said Tuesday was "factually, legally and ethically the right thing to do." Officials in the western New York office of the U.S. attorney said the decision not to seek the death penalty was made in the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. Officials there could not immediately give a reason for the decision. A state jury in Batavia, N.Y., in August 2006 convicted Gladding, 27, of four counts of first- and second-degree murder and kidnapping. During the trial, jurors learned about the signed confession Gladding made to Connecticut state police. In it, Gladding said he kidnapped Argersinger on Feb. 28, 2005, so he could deliver him to drug suppliers at an upstate New York Indian reservation. The dealers were angry about more than $400,000 in cash and drugs Argersinger owed them, some of which was lost in a 2001 bust of a large-scale marijuana ring police said Argersinger helped the dealers run from the Canada-New York border to the Connecticut shoreline. Gladding said in the confession that Argersinger "wasn't going to go willingly so he would have to physically take him," court records said. Gladding told police that shooting Argersinger to death on a remote roadside in Stafford, N.Y., west of Rochester, wasn't part of the plan. In November, Gladding was sentenced on the New York state charges to 25 years to life in prison without possibility of parole. Once the state's case was over, Gladding's legal fight moved to federal court, where he was met with an even tougher battle to keep himself off death row. In several volumes of court motions, Easton fought vigorously against the possibility of the death penalty, calling the government's decision to seek execution for Gladding "irrational." Easton said Gladding's family was "greatly relieved" by the government's change of heart. A trial date in the federal case has not yet been scheduled. Gladding also faces kidnapping charges in Connecticut. Gladding's alleged accomplice in the kidnapping, Eric J. Connolly, 24, also of Chester, faces federal and Connecticut criminal charges in connection with Argersinger's slaying. Court records say Connolly helped Gladding attack Argersinger and stuff him into the trunk of Argersinger's Audi, which was then used for the trip to New York. Police said Connolly did not go with Gladding to New York. Gladding, Argersinger and Connolly all attended Valley Regional High School where Argersinger was a star soccer player. Of the three, only Argersinger graduated. Another man, Josiah Wilcox Howenstine of Killingworth, is accused of supplying the handgun Gladding used to kill Argersinger. Court records say Howenstine told police he gave Gladding the gun so Gladding could use it for protection against drug dealers. Two others, Mitchell "Big Nug" LaFrance and Anthony "Paisan" Marinaccio, who are not from Connecticut, were indicted as part of the drug ring prosecutors say operated along the Connecticut shoreline from 2001 until Argersinger's death. In exchange for their guilty pleas to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 100 kilograms or more of marijuana, LaFrance and Marinaccio each received a 10-year prison sentence earlier this year. (source: Hartford Courant) KENTUCKY: Fletcher to sign death warrant for Baze Gov. Ernie Fletcher plans to sign a death warrant tomorrow that will set Sept. 25 as the execution date for Ralph Baze Jr. Baze, one of 40 inmates on Kentucky's death row, was convicted in the 1992 shooting deaths of Powell County Sheriff Steve Bennett and Deputy Arthur Briscoe. The governor's office released a statement yesterday saying that Fletcher will sign the death warrant. "Justice demands a judicial process that affords the accused a fair and impartial hearing," the statement said. "Baze received just that. Justice likewise requires imposition of the penalty commensurate with the offense. Here, a jury found that Baze planned and murdered a sheriff and a sheriff's deputy. Imposition of the death penalty is therefore appropriate." Last month the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Baze's final appeal. And last week Attorney General Greg Stumbo asked Fletcher to sign a death warrant for Baze. State Public Advocate Ernie Lewis released a statement that said the Department of Public Advocacy, which represents Baze, hopes the governor will grant him clemency. "There are significant reasons why clemency should be granted in this case," Lewis said. "Ralph Baze was suffering from extreme emotional disturbance, believing that Deputy Briscoe showed up at his residence to arrest him falsely and at the behest of the other family members who Ralph Baze believed were harassing him. Judge Guy Cole of the Sixth Circuit (Court of Appeals) found these circumstances so compelling as to register a dissent in Baze's case." Baze was sentenced to death before the legislature passed a law establishing lethal injection - rather than electrocution - as the state's method of execution. That law provides that anyone who had already been sentenced to death would have the choice of either method, said David Fleenor, general counsel for the governor's office. Kentucky has executed 2 men, the last one in 1999, since reinstating the death penalty in 1976. (source: Courier-Journal) OHIO: Jury to consider possible death sentence in fatal fire A death sentence is possible for a Toledo man found guilty of setting a house fire that killed his former girlfriend and three others. The penalty phase of Wayne Powell's trial is scheduled to begin this afternoon. Yesterday, the jury convicted him on 11 counts in last November's fire, including aggravated murder and aggravated arson. Just hours before the fire, Powell had an argument at the home with Mary Rose McCollum, with whom he'd had an on-and-off relationship for about 10 years. McCollum died along with 2 children and her mother. (source: Associated Press)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., USA, CONN., KY., OHIO
Rick Halperin Wed, 22 Aug 2007 10:50:38 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
