[Deathpenalty] [POSSIBLE SPAM] death penalty news----TEXAS, GA., FLA., USA

[Rick Halperin]

May 29


TEXAS:

HIP HOP ACTIVIST WALKS 1700 MILES TO TEXAS TO PROTEST DEATH PENALTY


Andre Lattalade, also known as Capital "X", a hip hop artist and activist,
will be in Houston on Friday, May 30, as the last part of a 1700 mile walk
which started on March 31, 2008. The walk started in New Jersey where the
death penalty has recently been abolished. It is ending in Texas, the
leading death penalty state in the nation with 405 executions since 1982.
Texas currently has 14 (!) executions scheduled, the first one being
Derrick Sonnier on June 3.

Called the "Walk 4 Life", Capital "X" has walked through 10 of the 12
states with the highest execution rates in the U.S. He is walking to
protest the death penalty and to shed light on the inhumane treatment of
prisoners on death row. Capital "X" can be contacted directly at
281-818-8935 and at projectrevolution2010 at gmail.com .

On May 30, at 8am, Capital "X" will begin a walk through downtown Houston
(starting at Jackson and Commerce Streets) which will end at KPFT Radio,
419 Lovett Blvd, around 10 am.

Also on May 30, at 10pm, a Salute to Capital "X" Concert will take place
at Advant Garden, 411 Westheimer, in Houston. Capital "X" and several
other artists will perform at the concert.

On June 3, Capital "X" plans to protest the execution of Derrick Sonnier
at the Walls Unit in Huntsville.

(source: TCADP)

*********************************

No decision on death penalty in capital murder case


Prosecutors are nearing a decision as to whether to seek death by lethal
injection for a Mesquite man, indicted on a charge of capital murder in
connection with a fatal stabbing in Greenville last November.

Hunt County District Attorney F. Duncan Thomas said he is leaning toward
seeking the death penalty for John William Trotman III, should Trotman be
convicted of capital murder, based in part on his conversations with the
family members of the victim in the case.

"I've spoken with them twice and the family thinks the death penalty is
appropriate," Thomas said. "At this point, we probably will be seeking it.
We'll probably make that decision in the near future."

Trotman, 26, remains in custody at the Hunt County Jail in lieu of $1
million bond on a charge of capital murder in connection with the Nov. 12,
2007 death of Ryon Rhoden of Greenville. An interim hearing was conducted
Wednesday in the 196th District Court, at which time Judge Joe Leonard
scheduled another interim hearing for June 25. Trotman has pleaded not
guilty.

Trotman was arrested following what the Greenville Police Department
claimed was a combination robbery and homicide at a residence in the 3700
block of Bourland Street. A capital murder charge is filed when the murder
alleged is committed in connection with the commission of a second major
felony, such as robbery, kidnapping, rape or another murder. Those
convicted of capital murder face a sentence of either life in prison or
death by lethal injection.

A criminal complaint filed as part of court records indicated Rhoden was
at the residence with his sister when Trotman was alleged to have entered
the home carrying a knife and demanding money. Rhoden was in the restroom
at the time and the sister told authorities she thought Trotman was joking
at first. Rhoden came out of the restroom and he and Trotman began
fighting, according to the complaint. The sister joined in, but the two
were unable to overpower Trotman. Rhoden received several stab wounds,
including one to his upper right chest, as well as lacerations. The sister
also received several cuts before Trotman left the residence.

Rhoden was transported to Presbyterian Hospital of Greenville where he was
pronounced dead.

The vehicle in which Trotman was riding was later found at his girlfriends
house. Blood was found inside the vehicle and on some items of clothing
Trotman was allegedly wearing the day of the murder. The girlfriend told
officers Trotman threatened to kill her if she told anyone about the
incident.

Officers took Trotman into custody initially for the offense of
terroristic threat/family violence and later charged Trotman with the
capital murder offense.

(source: The Herald-Banner)






GEORGIA:

Hope grows to save Davis----Advocates push for commutation of his
sentence.


Advocates fighting the execution of Savannah's Troy Anthony Davis are
seeing a hopeful sign in the State Board of Pardons and Paroles'
commutation of another convicted murder's death sentence.

Samuel David Crowe was granted clemency May 22 just hours before he was
scheduled to be put to death for the 1988 slaying of Joseph Pala. He
became just the third person to have his death sentence commuted in 17
years.

The move could signal a willingness by the board to halt the execution of
Davis, whose backers insist he is innocent; most of the eyewitnesses at
his trial have since recanted at least parts of their testimony.

"I think it's hopeful in that it shows the board was considering the plea
for mercy in a very serious way," said Laura Moye of the Georgia office of
Amnesty International, which is opposed to the death penalty. "With Troy's
case, it's not even an issue of mercy. It's an issue of huge doubts about
his guilt."

Davis, convicted in the 1989 killing of Savannah off-duty police officer
Mark MacPhail, won a 90-day stay from the board last year before the
Georgia Supreme Court agreed to hear his appeal.

The Supreme Court ruled in March that Davis' execution could go forward,
though no new date has been set and his attorney could still file an
appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court.

Courts have repeatedly turned away affidavits from new witnesses, saying
they didn't shed enough doubt on Davis' guilt to grant him a new trial.

Scheree Lipscomb, a spokeswoman for the board, cautioned against trying to
interpret the ruling in Crowe's case as a sign of what the panel might do
when Davis' case comes up again.

"They make their decisions independently of any other case," Lipscomb
said. "One decision isn't based on something that may happen for another
case. The value of each case is weighed separately and individually."

In its 2007 decision to stay Davis' execution - which drew a bitter
reaction from MacPhail's family - the board seemed to signal it would
listen closely to his arguments.

"The members of the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles will not allow an
execution to proceed in this State unless and until its members are
convinced there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused," said the
board's order, signed by Chairman Garland Hunt.

The board did not say in that order whether it believed Davis was guilty.

Members have rarely granted clemency since the death penalty was
reinstated in 1976.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, seven convicted
Georgians have had their death sentences commuted since capital punishment
was reinstated.

None, though, gained commutations because of doubts about their guilt,
according to summaries of the cases on the center's Web site.

But only 3 of those inmates, including Crowe, have received clemency from
the board since 1991.

The board has heard 24 appeals for clemency since 1995.

(source: Times-Union)






FLORIDA:

Man won't face death penalty in girl's death


Prosecutors say the man charged with killing a 13-year-old Tampa-area girl
in 2005 won't face death row if he's convicted.

Hillsborough County prosecutors filed notice Friday that they won't seek
the death penalty. David Lee Onstott's public defender calls the decision
a good one.

Sheriff's deputies say Onstott confessed to killing Sarah Lunde.

But prosecutors can't use that confession at trial in August. A state
appeals court agreed with a judge who threw out incriminating statements
Onstott made after his arrest. The judge said investigators didn't give
him proper access to an attorney.

(source: Associated Press)






USA:

Television Review----Documentary listens in 'At the Death House Door'


There must be a moment of giddiness when filmmakers realize they've found
the perfect subject: someone eloquent and emotional, bound to a major
issue of our time, possessing the perspective and the artifacts to give
his story heft.

For Steve James and Peter Gilbert, co-directors of the moving documentary
"At the Death House Door," that man is the Rev. Carroll Pickett. The
longtime chaplain at a Huntsville, Texas, prison, Pickett spent the final
day - and final moments - with 95 inmates sentenced to die by lethal
injection. After every execution, he made a cassette tape, recording the
details of the day along with eloquent, poetic thoughts.

James and Gilbert, who collaborated on the award-winning documentary "Hoop
Dreams," met Pickett while following somebody else: two Chicago Tribune
reporters investigating the case of Carlos De Luna, who may have been
wrongly executed in Huntsville. Pickett was present for De Luna's
execution, a botched procedure that took 11 long minutes and surely caused
the inmate pain. It was a key step on Pickett's own journey from death
penalty supporter to opponent. His cassette recording describes his
experience watching De Luna's brown, questioning eyes.

In the film, which premieres tonight at 9 on IFC, Pickett guides us
through his own deeply personal tale, beginning with an early experience
as minister to two female Huntsville prison workers who were killed in a
brutal inmate siege. Over time, he changes from dispassionate observer to
unwilling participant - albeit one conditioned, by an abusive father, to
suppress his own emotions. For many years, Pickett made those tapes alone
in an empty house: His first wife divorced him over his devotion to his
work. When he remarried, his new wife discovered that Pickett still needed
his recorder after every execution. "Those tapes," she tells the
filmmakers, "must be his tears."

This isn't merely Pickett's story; James and Gilbert also follow the
reporters as they trace De Luna's case, and watch De Luna's sister join
forces with Pickett and other death-penalty opponents. But the film
wouldn't have half the impact without this flawed, spiritual man as
centerpiece. It's hard to imagine a person with a better perspective on
the death penalty, and it's striking that Pickett doesn't regret his
presence at so many deaths.

"The system's broke," he says, "but no man should die without a friend."

(source: Boston Globe)

******************************

Witness to death sentences:


When the Supreme Court ruled last month that Kentucky's lethal-injection
execution protocol was constitutional, lifting a nationwide execution
moratorium, the Rev. Carroll Pickett was one of the most disappointed men
in America.

Pickett has observed 95 lethal-injection executions. Execution-day
ministering was part of his job from 1982 to 1995, as prison chaplain at
the Walls prison unit in Huntsville, Texas, but he is an outspoken
adversary of the death penalty.

The first time he saw the injection procedure misfire came in 1989 when
Texas executed a man who is now almost universally believed to be
innocent. The moving story of the case, and moreover Pickett's story, is
presented tonight on cable's Independent Film Channel at 9 p.m. From the
makers of the Oscar-nominated Hoop Dreams, it's called At the Death House
Door.

(The network is available on most, but not all, Comcast regional systems,
usually at channel 91 or 164.)

"I really would like to see all nine members of the Supreme Court go watch
an execution," Pickett said in a telephone interview this week.

"Walk with the person through the door of the death chamber, watch them be
strapped down - especially where you have to insert different needles when
the first ones don't work - and watch, and tell me that that's not cruel
and unusual punishment.

"I don't think America would be proud of it. I don't think Texans would be
proud of it. I know I am not proud of it."

Three people - Kevin Green in Virginia, Earl Wesley Berry in Mississippi,
and William Earl Lynd in Georgia - have already been executed since April
16, when the Supreme Court lifted a de facto stay invoked last fall when
it agreed to hear the Kentucky case.

Pennsylvania, at 228, has the fourth-largest number of inmates on death
row of any state, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, but
no scheduled executions. Texas, ranking third on the list behind
California and Florida, with 370 inmates, has responded most aggressively
to the end of the moratorium: The Texas Department of Criminal Justice
lists 11 executions scheduled this summer.

Their crimes are horrible: One man raped a woman and killed her and her
2-year-old son. Another killed his adoptive parents and stole their money
and jewelry.

The Pew Research Center regularly finds that a majority, between 62 % and
68 %, of Americans support the death penalty.

"Americans like to live with retaliation," said Pickett. Texans, he said,
support the vigorous death-house agenda because "we still live here with
the mentality that founded the Wild, Wild West. . . . The judicial system
is very strong, and we give out the hardest punishment convicts can get.
We think that's what makes the people happy."

Pickett, a Presbyterian minister, was a staunch death-penalty advocate
when he was called, in extraordinary circumstances detailed in the movie,
to the prison ministry. His grandfather had been murdered, and his father,
a strong disciplinarian, instilled this philosophy in his son: "Hang 'em
fast. Hang 'em high."

As he had increasing personal contact with the criminals and the death
procedures, his opinion changed. He had always kept it to himself, first
because he felt advocating for the death penalty would lose him the
confidence of his inmate flock, and then because advocating against it
would lose him his job, of which the death watch was only one facet.

"Jesus says thou shall not kill. Period. [But] God doesn't believe that
anybody should die alone . . . I also worked in the hospital, where
hundreds of inmates were dying, but I'm not in favor of cancer, and I'm
not in favor of AIDS."

He retired from the Texas Department of Corrections 12 years ago, at the
age of 62.

Fighting the death penalty, he said, is a different calling. "I think this
is still a ministry, to speak to as many people as I can minister to."

The producer/directors, Steve James and Peter Gilbert, set out to film the
story of a wrongly executed inmate, but when they interviewed Pickett,
they knew that their story must change.

At the Death House Door is a personal portrait of a good man's struggle
with great matters. Intimate and intense, it's one of this season's most
powerful TV presentations.

(source: Column, Jonathan Storm, Philadelphia Inquirer)