April 26 TEXAS: Death penalty distraction Re: "Switching sides on justice Exposure to horrific crime changed mind of DA now at ease as part of state 'death machine,' " Sunday news story. Walker County District Attorney David Weeks says that the death penalty is justified for certain heinous crimes and that it deters criminals from murdering again. It is true that certain crimes are heinous, but the death penalty does nothing to reduce violent crime. It may exacerbate it. It is clearly an expensive distraction from true crime-reducing methods. When Texas executes someone, it becomes a killer itself, no better than the murderer who is being executed. If there was ever a premeditated, cold-blooded murder, it is an execution. The criminal justice system is fraught with inconsistencies and probably always will be. There is no way that we should allow the ultimate punishment with such an imperfect system. David Atwood, Houston (source: Letter to the Editor, Dallas Morning News) USA: NAACP Meeting Discusses Death Penalty Race, the death penalty and Kansas were the topics at the NAACP monthly meeting Saturday. The Topeka branch welcomed long time death penalty opponent Bill Lucero as their guest speaker at the Brown vs Board of Education National Historic Site. A native of Topeka, Lucero co-founded the Kansas coalition against the death penalty after his father was murdered He is also a charter member of murder victims' families for reconciliation and has served on the National Board. (source: WIBW News) TENNESSEE: Death penalty sought in veteran's killing----State cites suspect's role in similar crimes Prosecutors want Christopher Davis to pay the ultimate price in the slaying of an Iraq War veteran last summer during a robbery attempt. Assistant District Attorney Roger Moore told a judge on Friday that the state will seek the death penalty against Davis, 20. He is charged with fatally shooting Herbert Clayton Jr., 26, who was using an ATM on Murfreesboro Pike. Davis allegedly shot Clayton in the eye after he refused to give Clayton any money. "Following a review of the case, the history and background of Mr. Davis, our office felt it was an appropriate punishment," Moore said. Davis' conviction in another county for similar crimes bolstered the state's decision. In Trousdale County, Davis was sentenced to 49 years for aggravated robbery, carjacking, attempted first-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping. In that case, Davis and three other men committed a carjacking in Hartsville. The men were trying to get the victim to withdraw money, but he escaped while they were duct-taping him. The victim called the police, which eventually led to the arrests of the 4 men. But not before Clayton was shot once through the eye when he was at the Bank of America at 2669 Murfreesboro Pike. The shooting at 12:45 a.m. June 13 was captured on video. Clayton was found dead with his car still running. Court ruling called no factor Prosecutors say their decision has nothing to do with a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in which the justices upheld the constitutionality of Kentucky's lethal-injection method, which is similar to Tennessee's process. Tennessee, like Kentucky and many other states, administers a 3-drug cocktail at executions: a sedative, then a paralytic and finally a drug to stop the heart and lungs. The courts were concerned whether there are enough safeguards in place to guarantee that the drugs are administered properly and in the right order. Regardless of the Supreme Court's decision, the state was going to seek the death penalty for Davis, Moore said. "I think we have a thorough protocol," he said. "In fact, we are held up as a state model when it comes to administering the death penalty." 3 other men also have been charged with Clayton's killing. Charged with criminal homicide are James E. Phillips and Michael Miller, of Castalian Springs, and Marcus Bradford, of Antioch. Their case was severed from Davis'. (source: The Tennessean) ********************* Shooting Suspect Faces Death Penalty The man accused of killing Herbert Clayton, Jr. is facing the death penalty. The man accused of fatally shooting an Iraqi War veteran last summer is facing the death penalty. Prosecutors said they will seek the death penalty against Christopher Davis. Davis and 3 other men are charged in the shooting death of Herbert Clayton Junior, 26. Clayton died while using an ATM on Murfreesboro Road in Antioch last June. (source: NewsChannel5) CALIFORNIA: Death-penalty play A death-penalty performance piece based on the artwork of Vacaville-based artist Malaquias Montoya will be staged Thursday at Jesuit High School in Carmichael. Montoya, who is an art professor at the University of California, Davis, will sign books after the 1st performance, which begins at 7 p.m. at the 900 Gordon Lane parochial school. The 2nd performance is at 8:30 p.m. Admission is free for Jesuit students, $5 for other students and $10 for adults. The performances are part of the school's 2008 Social Justice Summit and a portion of the proceeds benefit Death Penalty Focus. (source: The Reporter) *************** California takes lead on DNA crime-fighting technique----The state will search its database for relatives of unidentified suspects in hopes of developing leads. Critics voice privacy concerns. California will adopt the most aggressive approach in the nation to a controversial crime-fighting technique that uses DNA to try to identify elusive criminals through their relatives, state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown announced Friday. Employing what is known as familial or "partial match" searching, the policy is aimed at identifying a suspect through DNA collected at a crime scene by looking for potential relatives in the state's genetic database of about a million felons. Once a relative is identified, police can use that person as a lead to trace the suspect. On the trail of partial matchesThe new plan makes California a leader in such searches, which several states permit but do not vigorously pursue. Colorado has recently begun to examine its database for relatives of unknown criminals as part of a research project. Brown said the new approach was justified by violent crime plaguing the state. He emphasized that it would be used only when all other leads had been exhausted. "We have 2,000 murders a year in California -- that is 10,000 since the Iraq war started -- and that is a lot of killing," Brown said. "When you see it and see the victims and have to go to funerals, it is pretty serious stuff." But Tania Simoncelli, science advisor to the American Civil Liberties Union, called Brown's decision a disappointment and said the organization is exploring its legality. The group has not decided whether to challenge the policy in court. "The fact that my brother committed a crime doesn't mean I should have to give up my privacy," she said. At a recent FBI conference on familial searching, Jeffrey Rosen, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University, warned: "I can guarantee if familial searching proceeds, it will create a political firestorm." The policy, which takes effect immediately, is designed to work like this: The state's crime lab will tell police about DNA profiles that come up during routine searches of California's offender database and closely resemble, but do not match, the DNA left at a crime scene. (Previously, the state refused to tell police about these partial matches.) The lab will then perform calculations and tests to determine the likelihood of a biological relationship between the person found in the database and the unknown offender believed to have left DNA at the crime scene. When such partial matches do not surface or fail to produce a lead, a more customized familial search can be done in which computer software scans the database proactively for possible relatives. The software measures the chance of 2 people being related based on the rarity of the markers they share. California appears to be the first state in the nation to use this 2nd technique as a matter of policy. Drafted with the heavy involvement of lawyers, the new policy requires a series of meetings with police and prosecutors to ensure that the relative's name is vital to the investigation and that all other leads have been exhausted. Once a relative has been identified, police can interview him or construct a family tree based on existing records. If a suspect is identified, police can obtain a warrant for his DNA, or even gather it surreptiously from an abandoned drink or cigarette butt. The suspect's DNA sample would then be compared to the crime scene sample and possibly used as evidence. "The people of California will know that we are using the database to try to solve as many crimes as we can, unlike virtually every other state in the country," said retired Alameda County Dist. Atty. Rockne P. Harmon, who consulted with the state on the policy. Civil libertarians oppose using DNA databases to search for relatives of unknown offenders, saying it puts family members under "genetic surveillance" for crimes they did not commit. For now, all the people in the state's database are convicted offenders, but the state plans to expand the database next year to include arrestees, heightening concerns over privacy. Critics say familial searching could expose sensitive and secret genetic relationships. A son, for example, could learn that his father was not his biological parent. DNA databases also reflect the racial and ethnic biases of the justice system, exposing minority communities to more surveillance than others, critics maintain. FBI officials in charge of the national database network have also expressed concerns, making them unlikely allies of civil libertarians on familial searching. They urge a cautious approach, worrying that the courts will balk at this type of sleuthing. No law specifically authorizes it, and some legal scholars consider it unconstitutional because they say it amounts to an unreasonable search. Brown called such objections hypothetical. The policy forbids the release of the names of relatives until genetic tests and analysis convince the state that the person is indeed a relative. "It is still not going to be a fail-safe system, and we are going to make mistakes," said Simoncelli, the ACLU science advisor. "We are opening the door to using the database in such a fundamentally different way than the purpose for which it was established." No one knows how well the state's plan will work. Harmon said he was absolutely convinced that it would provide at least some new leads for police. Lance Gima, the state's top forensic scientist, agreed. But he conceded that the search for relatives would be a longshot because many unrelated people share genetic markers. He said he hoped the state's decision would spur technology to improve the accuracy of such searches. Britain has done familial searching for years, using more sophisticated software. With a 10% to 14% rate of identifying perpetrators, Britain's searches have had limited but dramatic results, cracking some sensational crimes. A serial rapist whose DNA was not in Britain's national database was caught because he was genetically similar to his sister, whose DNA was taken after a drunk-driving arrest. The so-called shoe rapist had a fetish for stiletto heels. When police captured him, they discovered scores of high heels he had stolen from his victims. Police in the U.S. have used genetic relationships to help catch criminals in a different way, and on a much smaller scale. After Kansas police zeroed in on the serial killer who dubbed himself BTK -- initials for bind, torture, kill -- they obtained a court order for the pap smear of his daughter. Without her knowledge, police performed a DNA analysis of the specimen, obtained from a medical laboratory. The genetic similarities indicated they had the right man, Dennis Radar. (source: Los Angeles Times)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----TEXAS, USA, TENN., CALIF.
Rick Halperin Sun, 27 Apr 2008 00:36:47 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
