[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 4


PENNSYLVANIA----new death sentence

Sanchez given death penalty


As the family of the convicted murderer sat tensely in the courtroom
alongside relatives of the slain, a Bucks County judge addressed the jury
Thursday, making the day's business clear.

"Here are 2 choices before you," said Judge Alan M. Rubenstein. "Life
imprisonment. Or death."

11 hours later, the jury sentenced convicted 1st-degree murderer Alfonzo
Sanchez, 26, to death for shooting and killing Lisa Diaz, 27, at a
Warminster apartment last October.

That night in the Bucks Landing apartment, Sanchez also murdered Mendez
Thomas, 22, shooting him in the head at point-blank range.

For that act, the jury sentenced him to life in prison. But the ultimate
penalty imposed for the slaying of Diaz takes precedence, and Sanchez will
soon be moving into a cell on death row.

Pointing to the facts that came to light in a 6-day trial, Rubenstein told
the jury candidly, "No one can have a quarrel with your verdict."

Prosecutor Gary Gambardella praised the jurors for having the "courage" to
sentence Sanchez to death. "Clearly this case cried out for that verdict,"
Gambardella said. "This man tore apart many lives."

Mendez Thomas's family, including his sister and mother, clung to each
other after the verdict was read. "Justice was served," said Deborah
Thomas, Mendez's mother.

Tears were evident among Sanchez's supporters. Four people testified on
his behalf Thursday. They included a day care owner whose daughter had
dated Sanchez for years.

A woman whose son was best friends with Sanchez while growing up flew from
Arizona overnight to testify for him. Both she and her daughter
characterized Sanchez as a caring, respectful, non-violent person. "He's a
teddy bear," said Jennifer Gitlin.

Jack McMahon, Sanchez's lawyer, argued he did not deserve death because he
does not have a violent criminal history and was drunk and high when the
slayings occurred, rendering him incapable of realizing the ramifications
of his actions.

The jury didn't agree.

A death sentence was warranted in the murder of Diaz because he killed her
just after murdering Thomas in the presence of Thomas' two young children
while committing a burglary, the jury ruled.

Diaz was at Thomas' apartment baby-sitting the night of the murders.
Thomas' girlfriend, Jessica Carmona, was shot in the leg as she tried to
shield her 2-year-old son.

Sanchez and Steven Miranda, 20, and another man, Alexander Martinez, 23,
of Warminster, went to the apartment that night on the pretext of buying
drugs.

Miranda faces the prospect of life in prison for his actions that night.
Martinez pleaded guilty to lesser crimes and testified against the others.

(source: Bucks County Courier Times)






USA:

Opinion: Death penalty comes at too high a cost


As the warden of San Quentin, I presided over 4 executions. After each
one, someone on the staff would ask, "Is the world safer because of what
we did tonight?"

We knew the answer: No.

I worked in corrections for 30 years, starting as a correctional officer
and working my way up to warden at San Quentin and then on to the top job
in the state  director of the California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation. During those years, I came to believe that the death
penalty should be replaced with life without the possibility of parole.

I didn't reach that conclusion because I'm soft on crime. My No. 1 concern
is public safety. I want my children and grandchildren to have the safety
and freedom to pursue their dreams. I know from firsthand experience that
some people are dangerous and must be removed from society forever  people
such as Robert Lee Massie.

I presided over Massie's execution in 2001. He was 1st sentenced to death
for the 1965 murder of a mother of 2. But when executions were temporarily
banned in 1972, his sentence was changed to one that would allow parole,
and he was released in 1978. Months later, he killed a 61-year-old liquor
store owner and was returned to death row.

For supporters of the death penalty, Massie is a poster child. Yet for me,
he stands out among the executions I presided over as the strongest
example of how empty and futile the act of execution is.

I remember that night clearly. It was March 27, 2001. I was the last
person to talk to Massie before he died. After that, I brought in the
witnesses. I looked at the clock to make sure it was after midnight. I got
a signal from 2 members of my staff who were on the phone with the state
Supreme Court and the U.S. attorney general's office to make sure there
were no last-minute legal impediments to the execution. There was none, so
I gave the order to proceed. It took several minutes for the lethal
injections to take effect.

I did my job, but I don't believe it was the right thing to have done. We
should have condemned Massie to permanent imprisonment  that would have
made the world safer. But on the night we executed him, when the question
was asked, "Did this make the world safer?" the answer remained no. Massie
needed to be kept away from society, but we did not need to kill him.

Why should we pay to keep him locked up for life? I hear that question
constantly. Few people know the answer: It's cheaper  much, much cheaper
than execution.

I wish the public knew how much the death penalty affects their wallets.
California spends an additional $117 million each year pursuing the
execution of those on death row. Just housing inmates on death row costs
an additional $90,000 per prisoner per year above what it would cost to
house them with the general prison population.

A statewide, bipartisan commission recently concluded that we must spend
$100 million more each year to fix the many problems with capital
punishment in California. Total price tag: in excess of $200 million a
year more than simply condemning people to life without the possibility of
parole.

If we condemn the worst offenders, like Massie, to permanent imprisonment,
resources now spent on the death penalty could be used to investigate
unsolved homicides, modernize crime labs and expand effective violence
prevention programs, especially in at-risk communities. The money also
could be used to intervene in the lives of children at risk and to invest
in their education  to stop future victimization.

As I presided over Massie's execution, I thought about the abuse and
neglect he endured as a child in the foster care system. We failed to keep
him safe, and our failure contributed to who he was as an adult. Instead
of spending hundreds of millions of dollars to kill him, what if we spent
that money on other foster children so that we stop producing men such as
Massie in the 1st place?

As director of corrections, I visited the Watts district in Los Angeles
and met with some ex-offenders. I learned that the prison system is
paroling 300 people every week into the neighborhood without a plan or
resources for success. How can we continue to spend more than $100 million
a year seeking the execution of a handful of offenders while we fail to
meet the basic safety needs of communities such as Watts?

It is not realistic to think that Watts and neighborhoods like it will
ever get well if we can't  or won't  support them in addressing the
problems they face.

To say that I have regrets about my involvement in the death penalty is to
let myself off the hook too easily. To take a life in order to prove how
much we value another life does not strengthen our society. It is a public
policy that devalues our very being and detracts crucial resources from
programs that could truly make our communities safe.

(source: Opinion; Jeanne Woodford is the former director of the California
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the former warden of San
Quentin State Prison. She wrote this article for the Los Angeles Times)