[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----TEXAS, WASH., ARIZ.

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 20



TEXAS----4 new execution dates set (including 1 female)

4 new execution dates have been set in Texas for early next year, 2007:
all should be considered very serious----

Donald Miler, for February 27; Joseph Nichols for March 7; Vincent
Gutierrez for March 28, and Cathy Henderson for April 28.

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)






WASHINGTON:

Yates appeals death sentence, cites Ridgway plea agreement


Convicted serial killer Robert Yates Jr. points to a more notorious serial
killer in arguing that his Pierce County death sentence should be
overturned.

Lawyers for Yates, sentenced to death in Pierce County for killing 2
women, contend capital punishment is unfair. They point to Green River
serial killer Gary Ridgway, who got life in prison despite confessing to
killing at least 48 women.

The Washington Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in the appeal
Nov. 30.

Yates was sentenced to 408 years in prison in 2000 after confessing to 13
killings in a plea deal with Spokane County prosecutors that included
information on the Pierce County deaths.

Pierce County moved separately to charge Yates. He was convicted of
killing 2 women in that county and sentenced to death in 2002.

In seeking to overturn his Pierce County sentence, Yates' lawyers allege
he was misled by Spokane County Prosecutor Steve Tucker into believing
that the 2 Tacoma-area slayings were part of his Spokane plea agreement.

It wasn't, Pierce County argued.

A key part of his appeal is that Yates, 54, didn't get the death penalty
in Spokane, despite a larger number of victims.

"Mr. Yates' (death) sentence is arbitrary, wanton ... freakish and random
in light of his Spokane County sentence," his lawyers argued in court
documents.

The court in April narrowly upheld the death sentence of a man who fatally
stabbed his wife and two children. That case also pointed to the disparity
with Ridgway's sentence.

In that 5-4 case, the court acknowledged the extraordinary circumstances
of Ridgway's case, but said no matter how unfair it may seem, his plea
deal does not automatically invalidate the state's death penalty for
everyone else.

Yates' lawyers also argue that he should serve the Pierce County sentence
only after he completes the Spokane sentence. In other words, his
execution should wait until after he's served the 408 years.

Yates, an aluminum smelter worker and Air National Guard helicopter pilot,
was arrested in Spokane in April 2000 after years of unsolved deaths of
local women, many of whom were prostitutes.

Within weeks of his arrest, Yates' public defender was trying for a plea
agreement with Tucker. Through the lawyer, Yates started revealing
information about his victims and his crimes.

Tucker has repeatedly said he thought he had then-Pierce County Prosecutor
John Ladenburg's permission to include the 2 Pierce County cases in the
plea deal.

Ladenburg has said he told Tucker in a conference call that a plea deal
was "ill-considered and premature" and to leave the Pierce County cases
out of any deal that didn't include the death penalty.

Tucker said he has no recollection of Ladenburg saying that.

Shortly after Tucker sent the proposed plea deal to Ladenburg, Yates was
charged with the Pierce County homicides.

"By filing the cases in Pierce County, Mr. Ladenburg took public
jurisdiction and control over what was rightfully his," the county's
current prosecutor, Gerald Horne, wrote to the high court.

Washington state is one of 38 states with the death penalty, and has
executed 4 people since the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for capital
punishment in 1976.

(source: Associated Press)






ARIZONA:

Prasertphong given life sentences for Pizza Hut murders


A former death row inmate was given two consecutive natural life sentences
for 2 murders that occurred during the robbery of a Pizza Hut 7 years ago.

Pima County Superior Court Judge Frank Dawley sentenced Kajornsak "Tom"
Prasertphong to life without the possibility of parole for the January
1999 shooting deaths of James Bloxham and Melisa Moniz.

Prasertphong already was serving a life sentence for the shooting death of
Robert Curry during the same robbery.

Prasertphong was sentenced to death for the slayings of Bloxham and Moniz,
but those sentences were overturned after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled
that juries, not judges, should impose death sentences.

Prosecutors dropped seeking death for Prasertphong after his codefendant,
Christopher "Bo" Huerstel, was acquitted of 1st-degree murder in a
retrial.

(source: Tucson Citizen)