[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CALIF., N.Y., N.J., FLA.

[Rick Halperin]

April 14


TEXAS:

Houston group helps families grieve for slain children----Support group's
wish is for justice and answers to long-unsolved crimes


 The Houston chapter of Parents of Murdered Children meets the second
Tuesday of every month from 7 to 9 p.m. at St. Paul's United Methodist
Church, 5501 S. Main. For information, call Gilda Muskwinsky at
713-522-9045.

 The Heights chapter of Parents of Murdered Children meets every third
Tuesday from 7 to 9 p.m. at 1245 Heights Blvd.

For information, call Ruth Marin-Eason at 713-392-8236.

They meet in the basement of St. Paul's United Methodist Church, in the
same room as Alcoholics Anonymous, every 2nd Tuesday.

They sit in stiff high-backed chairs, arranged in a horseshoe around a
wooden lectern, sipping coffee from styrofoam cups as sepia portraits of
Jesus look on forlornly and fluorescent lights flicker overhead.

At the April meeting of the Houston chapter of Parents of Murdered
Children earlier this month, nearly two dozen people talk about loss,
grief, anger and justice. They have sought out the only other people who
really understand what they're going through, and the only ones  apart
from friends and family  who really care, they say.

They share stories of homicide investigators who hardly gave them the time
of day and a justice system that has left most feeling betrayed. They
bemoan news coverage that trailed off as soon as the blood dried.

Half of them have never seen an arrest made in their cases. For them, the
story is not over.

They held a rally Sunday at the Metropolitan Multi-Service Center on West
Gray in hopes of bringing new light and leads to the unsolved slayings.

"The grief is only intensified when justice is lacking," said Andy Kahan,
director of the Mayor's Crime Victims Office.

Curtain of grief

The Houston Police Department's cold case unit has solved 57 homicides
since it formed in 2006, some of them decades old. In many of those cases,
phone calls from relatives or witnesses provided the final puzzle piece,
said Lt. Craig Williams, who heads the unit.

But more than 3,000 other cases remain unsolved.

The support group draws relatives of many of those victims, some still
reeling from slayings so fresh they haven't sunk in yet, and others for
whom losses decades earlier still hang heavy.

Some are outraged and outspoken, their emotions bubbling close to the
surface of every sentence. Others sit back in their chairs and stare ahead
without speaking, their eyes shaded from the rest of the room by a curtain
of grief.

"New members, we're happy to have you here," said Claudie Neal, who lost
her son in 1999. "Not because of the circumstances, but because we hope
you feel welcome here."

Arcinia Burley wears a red name tag at her first meeting. Her son was
killed March 17. There are no leads in the shooting that killed
22-year-old Calvin "Chris" Dillard, an apparently random attack in his
cousin's apartment complex.

Burley carries a file folder to the meeting, filled with documents on her
son's case. She calls the homicide investigators exactly once a week.
More, she thinks, might irritate them. She asks for advice from the group
on how best to handle the investigation.

She stays composed. But she is talking about details, not about her son.
When it comes time for her to introduce herself to the group, she wavers.

"My son Chris was murdered last month," she begins, before her voice
breaks. "Oh, God, I can't do this."

"You don't have to," Neal said.

'He's still with us'

Marcos Cisneros still struggles to talk about his son's death.

Sunday marked the five-year anniversary of Javier Cisneros' death and
another year that the homicide case has stalled without leads. Javier was
23 when he was found shot to death in a ditch a few blocks from his north
Houston home, his pickup idling in the street nearby.

Javier still lived with his parents at the time. They have preserved his
room the way it was: his bed, his TV, souvenirs from Astros and Rockets
games.

"I still call it Javier's room," Cisneros said at the rally. "He's still
with us."

Cisneros acknowledges that police may never find his son's killer. They
found few clues to begin with, and each passing year makes solving the
case less likely. The detective who first investigated the case has
retired.

"If they never find who killed him," he said, "I figure God will take care
of it."

Cisneros' grief doesn't drown out his thoughts anymore, but it never shuts
off. He has largely stopped attending support meetings, although he stays
in touch with the group.

"What little I could say, helped," he said. "We went to grief counseling,
too, through the Catholic Church. We went for a year, until I thought:
That's enough."

Cisneros and his wife, Berta, plan to retire soon. They will move back to
South Texas, where they are from. While Javier was alive, they had planned
to stay in Houston because he didn't want to leave.

"Now that he's gone, there's nothing to keep us," Cisneros said.

When they go, he will bring Javier's belongings along.

"He'll still have his room, next to our room," he said. "We'll always have
him with us, wherever we go."

On Sunday, Marcos Cisneros helps inflate dozens of helium balloons
symbolizing the victims of unsolved murders. He has come to the rally from
the cemetery, where he and his wife placed flowers on their son's grave.

About 100 people take seats in the basketball court at the community
center. Most of the support group shows up, plus legions of loved ones.

Belia Alvarez brings pictures of both of the sons she has lost. One case
was solved; the other was not.

"Sometimes I think I'm already dead, or this is just a bad nightmare," she
said.

She wants to wake up from it already, she said. But the grieving process
never really ends for murders, even when the killer goes to jail, said Meg
Crady, director of Baylor College of Medicine's Trauma and Grief Program.

"This concept of closure and justice is an ideal," she said.

Still, it's something.

Marcos and Berta Cisneros approach HPD's Williams after the rally.

"Our son's case is 5 years old," Berta said. "We called the detective a
few weeks ago, but they never called back."

"Call me tomorrow," Williams said. "I will look at it. I promise you."

Outside the building, Marcos holds his balloon in the air, then lets go.
His eyes follow it upward for a moment before his gaze falls to the
ground.

(source: Houston Chronicle)

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

Texas musicians take on death penalty


In Texas, home of the busiest death chamber in the Western Hemisphere, the
question is generally when, not whether, to execute condemned killers.

But 25 years after the death penalty was reinstated in Texas -- and after
405 executions -- a group of homegrown artists and entertainers say it's
time to take another look at capital punishment.

Spearheaded by Austin singer-songwriters Sara Hickman and Trish Murphy,
the entertainers are staging concerts and town-hall meetings around Texas,
taking advantage of an unofficial moratorium on executions to get people
talking about the issue.

The concert series has been dubbed "Music for Life," and, as the name
suggests, it's an anti-death penalty crowd on stage. But organizers will
settle for anything short of silence on an issue they say has generated an
almost stunning lack of controversy.

"The whole point is just to open up a dialogue," said Murphy, whose albums
include Crooked Mile and Rubies on the Lawn. "I don't think it's going to
be done overnight, but that's no reason not to make the effort."

Scheduling a concert in a different Texas city each month, the
artists-activists have an event set in Fort Worth at the Jefferson Freedom
Cafe in the fall.

Former death row chaplain Carroll Pickett and Kinky Friedman, the
musician-turned-writer-turned-politician, are among the speakers scheduled
to participate in some of the forums. Hickman, a folk-rock singer whose
albums include Motherlode and Shortstop, said the events sometimes spark
heated, heart-wrenching debate.

"It's definitely the hardest undertaking I've ever had, and it is very,
very emotional for me. The music is very emotional," said Hickman, who
performs a provocative song called The One, written from the perspective
of an infamous killer's mother. "I just felt called to do it."

For Friedman, who lost a bid for Texas governor in 2006, it's an
opportunity to test the waters again: If he runs for governor in 2010, he
says, he'll make abolition of the death penalty his top issue.

"No other politicians are going to steal my idea here," he said. The
former stand-up comedian said that Texans shouldn't give life-or-death
power to the same politicians who "can't build a border fence, run a post
office or evacuate New Orleans."

Executions have been on hold nationwide since September, when the U.S.
Supreme Court agreed to hear a constitutional challenge of execution by
lethal injection. Texas inmate Michael Richard was executed the same day
the court agreed to hear the case. No executions have been carried out in
the state since. At issue in the Kentucky case is whether the drugs used
can inflict excruciating pain and thus violate constitutional protections
against cruel and unusual punishment.

Robert Black, a spokesman for Gov. Rick Perry, predicted that executions
would resume after the Supreme Court's review. Perry, who has presided
over more executions than any other U.S. governor, believes that capital
punishment has been applied fairly in Texas and that most Texans support
it for heinous crimes, Black said.

"As long as he is governor, he will defend it," Black said.

(source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram)






CALIFORNIA:

Killer exhausts appeals in 30-year-old murder


The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a Los Angeles man's last
remaining challenge to his death sentence for the murder of a student
librarian in 1978, one of the oldest cases on California's death row.

Stevie Lamar Fields had won a reversal of his sentence in 2000 from a
federal judge, who ruled that he should get a new penalty trial because
the jury foreman cited biblical passages to his fellow jurors after a
majority had voted in favor of a life sentence. But a federal appeals
court reinstated the death sentence last year, and the high court denied
review of the case without comment Monday.

Defense lawyer David Olson said he would consult with Fields about the
possibility of further appeals and about whether to seek clemency from
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Fields is one of a handful of the 669 prisoners on California's Death Row
to have exhausted the appeal process. Executions in California are on hold
while a federal judge reviews changes to the state's lethal injection
procedures after finding that the former methods lacked safeguards against
a prolonged and agonizing death.

Fields, now 52, went on a 3-week spree of violent crimes in September
1978, 2 weeks after he was paroled from prison on a manslaughter sentence.

He was convicted of three rapes, one robbery, 2 kidnappings and the murder
of Rosemary Cobb, a 26-year-old graduate student and librarian at USC.
According to the trial record, he tied her to the rails of his bed, forced
her to write checks to him, ordered her into a car, then shot her six
times and beat her until she died.

The jury that convicted Fields of murder was deadlocked 7-5 for a life
sentence after a day of deliberations, Fields' lawyer said. The next
morning, the foreman returned with a list of reasons for and against
death. The rationales for execution included several biblical passages,
such as "He that smiteth a man, so that he dies, shall surely be put to
death."

Jurors voted unanimously for a death sentence later that day.

Defense lawyers argued that the deliberations violated Fields' right to be
judged solely on courtroom evidence and improperly injected religion into
the case. But the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 9-6 ruling
last September, said the biblical language merely expressed a common moral
viewpoint that jurors could consider in reaching their verdict.

While it would be improper for a prosecutor to invoke the Bible in support
of a death sentence, jurors are entitled to rely on their life's
experience and personal morality in deciding between life and death, the
court majority said. The judges also said the prosecution had a strong
case for death and the foreman's conduct had not been the deciding factor.

Fields' appeal to the Supreme Court was supported by the California
Council of Churches, a group of liberal denominations that argued against
any use of religious material in capital case deliberations.

Olson said Monday that the appeals court ruling weakened previous barriers
against jurors' reliance on religious invocations.

"People shouldn't be executed or convicted based on extrinsic evidence
such as biblical quotations," he said. "But for this misconduct, I feel
firmly that Mr. Fields would have gotten a life-without-parole sentence."

The case is Fields vs. Ayers, 07-8724.

(source: San Francisco Chronicle)






NEW YORK:

Funds for a dead office ----How the state's unused and moribund death
penalty statute costs taxpayers plenty


Using the pen of a slain cop and flanked by relatives of murder victims,
Gov. George Pataki fulfilled a campaign promise on March 7, 1995: He
restored the death penalty.

13 years and 1 month later, the law is effectively off the books -- yet
still costs taxpayers.

Last week, the new state budget included $368,000 for the Capital
Defender's Office, which coordinated the legal representation of all
defendants facing execution.

The service lasted from 1995 until last year, when New York's highest
court rejected the final effort to impose the penalty. Unlike any one of
its clients, the office is now sure to die.

But some costs linger on.

The money will pay for the required storage of files, said Kevin Doyle,
New York's capital defender since 1995. Yet he said he doesn't expect any
additional funding will be needed in the future. As recently as 2003,
state leaders were funding the office in excess of $13 million a year.

"It's a job I was happy to do, but I'll be happy to be out of," said
Doyle, a longtime opponent of capital punishment.

The statute was all but overturned in 2004, when the Court of Appeals
found a key portion unconstitutional. The ruling came when the judges
vacated the death sentence for Stephen LaValle, who raped and murdered a
jogger in 1997. The court decided that jury instructions in death penalty
cases violated the state constitution.

Jurors in this and other capital cases were offered two sentencing
options: the death penalty, or life without parole. But before they
deliberated, judges told them should they be deadlocked, a required
sentence of 20 or 25 years to life -- which included a chance for parole
-- would be imposed. In a 4-3 ruling, the high court found the
instructions could persuade jurors to impose a death sentence out of fear
that a killer might go free again.

Last October, the law was given a final blow when the Court of Appeals
rejected arguments from Queens prosecutors who hoped the gunman convicted
of the 2000 Wendy's massacre could be put to death. They maintained that
the controversial jury instructions were not given.

But the Court of Appeals rejected the argument and left it to the
Legislature to amend the law or leave it unusable. The GOP-led state
Senate has passed legislation to address the court's concern. The
Democratic-controlled Assembly -- which held hearings on the issue in
2005, calling 170 witnesses -- has no desire not to follow suit.

Some foresaw problems from the get-go. On the day Pataki signed the law in
1995, New York City attorney Ronald J. Tabak told the Times Union he
believed the law was unconstitutional and raised "the danger of pressuring
juries to unanimously vote for death to avoid the possibility of parole."

On Thursday, Tabak recalled a law he believes was rushed onto the books in
a politically charged climate. 5 months earlier, Pataki defeated Gov.
Mario Cuomo on a campaign steeped in bringing back capital punishment.

"We brought these problems to their attention," said Tabak, a member of
New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty who has handled several capital
cases, "and they chose not do anything about it."

By 2005, the state had spent at least $200 million on capital cases
without a single execution taking place, according to the Web site for New
Yorkers Against the Death Penalty.

While New York's death penalty is, for now, for all intents and purposes
off the books, that doesn't mean defendants cannot be put to death for
killing police officers in New York state.

Ronell Wilson, 25, a Staten Island gang member, is facing execution for
the 2003 murder of 2 New York City detectives in a case prosecuted under
federal law, which is not affected by the Court of Appeals ruling. New
York's last execution was 45 years ago, when Eddie Lee Mays died in the
electric chair at Sing Sing.

(source: Albany Times-Union)






NEW JERSEY:

GOVERNOR CORZINE SPEAKS ON THE ELIMINATION OF THE DEATH PENALTY IN NEW
JERSEY


Governor Jon S. Corzine today spoke at the Legislative Abolition of the
Death Penalty in New Jersey Conference to reflect on the process of
abolishing the death penalty in the state. The conference was held at The
Newark Club. The Governor signed legislation in December of 2007 ending
the death penalty in New Jersey and today offered the following
sentiments.

"There were many reasons to ban the death penalty in New Jersey. It is
difficult, if not impossible, to devise a humane technique of execution
that is not cruel and unusual, and to develop a foolproof system that
precludes the possibility of executing the innocent. New Jersey spent more
than a quarter of a billion dollars to maintain its capital punishment
system since 1982, even though it had not carried out a single execution
for more than 4 decades, demonstrating little collective will or appetite
to enforce this law.

"But for me, the question was more fundamental. State-endorsed violence
begets violence and undermines our commitment to the sanctity of life. We
in New Jersey are proud to be the 1st state to prohibit the death penalty
since it was permitted by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976, and we are proud
to serve as leaders on this profound issue of conscience."

Former New Jersey Supreme Court Chief Justice James Zazzalli offered the
following praise in his introduction of Governor Corzine at the
conference.

"I think today we desperately need leaders who are people of commitment
and courage, the exception is Jon Corzine. He has demonstrated his
commitment to equal justice under the law. This is an honorable man doing
an honest job under tremendous difficulties and not only the state of New
Jersey but indeed the whole country and all of humanity owe you a huge
debt of gratitude."

(source: PolitickerNJ)






FLORIDA:

Death Row inmate gets sentence modified to life


Florida's Death Row will soon have one fewer resident. John Chamberlain,
sentenced to death for a triple murder in West Palm Beach on Thanksgiving
1998, is scheduled to have his sentence modified to life in prison at a
court hearing on Tuesday.

The death sentence of Thomas Thibault, his co-defendant and the shooter in
the bloody robbery, was reduced to life in September 2005 after a
procedural technicality prompted prosecutors to offer Thibault life
imprisonment as long as he didn't appeal his conviction.

Chamberlain's lawyer then argued that his sentence should not be harsher.

"It was our position that he was equally or less culpable," said Suzanne
Keffer, Chamberlain's appellate lawyer, who works in the Fort Lauderdale
office of the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, which represents
indigent death row inmates.

In a motion she filed to vacate Chamberlain's sentence, Keffer cited other
cases in which a death sentence was reduced on grounds of
disproportionality because a co-defendant received a life sentence. Among
them was a 1975 Florida Supreme Court ruling reversing the death sentence
of a man because his co-defendant, the triggerman in a murder, got life.

"We pride ourselves in a system of justice that requires equality before
the law," the justices said. "Defendants should not be treated differently
upon the same or similar facts."

Circuit Judge Lucy Chernow Brown has agreed with that argument in
Chamberlain's case, even though the Florida Attorney General's Office
maintained that he should still get death because Thibault's life term was
the result of a plea negotiation, not a jury's recommendation. On Tuesday,
Brown is expected to formally resentence Chamberlain.

There are 389 men and one woman on Florida's death row, according to the
Florida Department of Corrections. Chamberlain is one of 10 men whose Palm
Beach County crimes landed them there. The last execution for a Palm Beach
County murder was in 1992, when Nollie Lee Martin was electrocuted. His
crime was killing a college student working a summer job at a Delray Beach
convenience store.

Chamberlain, of West Palm Beach, will become the second man on Death Row
for a Palm Beach County crime in the past 3 years to be resentenced to
life in prison. In March 2005, Cleo LeCroy got a reprieve when the U.S.
Supreme Court banned executions of people whose crimes were committed when
they were under 18.

The triple murders on Thanksgiving 1998 were set in motion when Thibault
went to the house at 6507 Norton Ave. to sell cocaine to a woman, Amanda
Ingman, who lived there with the victims. He was accompanied by
Chamberlain and another man, Jason Dascott.

They drove to the house in Chamberlain's father's car.

Once there, Thibault, Chamberlain and Dascott decided to rob the home's
residents of electronics. Thibault held 2 of them, Bryan Harrison, 21, and
Daniel Ketchum, 27, at gunpoint in the bathroom while his cohorts stole
items.

Ketchum rushed him, and Thibault shot him dead in the ensuing struggle,
according to court testimony and records.

Ingman testified that Chamberlain said "no more witnesses" and urged
Thibault to kill Harrison. Thibault claimed that he left the decision up
to Ingman, whose boyfriend, Harrison, was one of the other 2 people in the
house. She favored getting rid of them, he said.

Ingman and Thibault then awakened Charlotte Kenyon, 26, sleeping in
another room. They placed her in the bathroom with Harrison.

Thibault later testified that he "emptied the gun" into Kenyon and
Harrison with Chamberlain at his side.

Harrison was still breathing, however, so Chamberlain went to the car and
got more bullets. Once again Thibault began firing. The three victims were
shot 10 times altogether.

Thibault was convicted of 3 counts of 1st-degree murder and sentenced to
death in 2001 by Circuit Judge Marvin Mounts. Chamberlain's trial was
next. He was convicted of the same charges and also sentenced by Mounts to
die.

Dascott pleaded guilty to 2nd-degree murder and was sentenced to 10 years
in prison. Ingman was never charged.

Thibault was resentenced to life in September 2005 because nobody,
including Mounts, had ever asked him if he waived his right to a jury
during the sentencing phase of his case. That opened the door for
Chamberlain to ask that his sentence also be modified.

Today, Thibault is 32 and incarcerated at Glades Correctional Institution
in Belle Glade. Dascott was released from prison last month, a day before
his 29th birthday. He is living in the Florida Keys, where he is on
probation for the next 5 years.

(source: Palm Beach Post)