July 2 PENNSYLVANIA: Easy living on death row Ken Hairston is confident he won't die in prison. Which says a lot, considering Hairston, 56, sits on death row at the state prison in Franklin Township, Greene County, convicted of bludgeoning to death his wife and 14-year-old son in June 2001. He might not be far from the truth. Pennsylvania hasn't executed anyone since Gary Heidnik on July 7, 1999. Heidnik, who tortured women in his Philadelphia basement, is one of only 3 killers executed since 1995, when the state changed from the electric chair to lethal injection. The appeals process takes years. And in May, state Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Highland Park, and the American Civil Liberties Union proposed a 2-year moratorium on executions until the state's death-penalty law can be reviewed. Similar proposals in 2001 went nowhere. Critics argue the death penalty is unequally applied among whites and minorities, and point to advances in DNA technology -- and, in some cases, exonerations -- as reasons to halt executions. "Since the '80s in Pennsylvania, six people have been exonerated on death row," said Ferlo, who opposes the death penalty. "Constitutionally, morally, we have this perception of equal justice under the law. But you can see class, race and money can come into play." District Attorney James Martin, of Lehigh County, president of the state District Attorney's Association, disagreed. "You have checks and balances built into the sytem," Martin said. "I think the safeguards are already in place. ... Effectively, we've had a moratorium. "I don't think you can conclude, in what DNA has done in certain cases, that the system is somehow broken beyond repair. DNA is a scientific fact of life, and it works far more in our advantage than our disadvantage." The death penalty actually serves as a deterrent to murder, according to a series of studies, including one last year by an economics professor from the University of Colorado at Denver. But Stephanie Walsh, executive director of the Pittsburgh-based Center for Victims of Violence and Crime, endorsed a moratorium. "There needs to be a discussion," she said. "Victims and witnesses of crime, they want justice. "They don't want any more injustices." Ferlo's proposal is a move that could have a profound impact on the state's 225 death-row inmates. But what's it like waiting to die? Held captive in a 7-foot-by-13-foot concrete cell? With only a narrow window to look out into the world? Allowed outside your cell for just one hour a day? Permitted one shower a week? Pretty good, if you ask Hairston. "My life is great," he said. "I'm sober. My mind is alert. "It's nowhere near what I expected. It's clean. The food is decent. We have our own rooms, color TV. I have cable." Handcuffed and wearing the traditional orange prison uniform, Hairston, formerly of Garfield, painted himself as a reformed man. Different than the one who used a 10-pound sledgehammer to fatally beat his wife and son. Different than the man sentenced in 2002 to up to 122 years in prison for repeatedly sexually assaulting his stepdaughter. A year and a half ago, he says, he found at the bottom of his storage box a Bible that his sister had sent him. "One day a voice told me to take it out and read it," he said, his voice echoing through a glass window partition. Hairston says he has read it three times over since November. And he prays. He prays a lot. For his family. For his wife's family. For world leaders. For those who prosecuted him. He didn't care that he sounded like a cliche. "It doesn't mean I'm praying because I'm sorry," he said. "I haven't prayed for forgiveness. I pray for deliverance for people and myself." He doesn't pray for his wife, Catherine, or son, Sean, who was just 14 when he died. "Praying for my wife and son now is too late," he said. "It's my desire that they are in heaven with God." He spends about 6 hours a day reading the Bible, he said, in between catching episodes of "The Price is Right," "Jeopardy," "Wheel of Fortune" and any of the 3 "Law and Order" shows. He gets 43 channels on his 13-inch color TV, cable he pays for with money his family in North Carolina sends him. "I'm comfortable, very comfortable," said Hairston, a self-described alcoholic who smoked pot every day before being arrested. "It doesn't feel like I'm in prison. "I can't wait to get up in the morning." He is served 3 meals a day and has a menu of options, from pastries, cereal and coffee for breakfast to pizza, spaghetti, soup and cake for dinner and dessert. When he was free, he said, he was lucky to eat 2 meals a day. "I don't miss nothing that's out there in the world," said Hairston, who turns in for bed by 8 most nights. "I don't miss sex. I don't miss drugs. I don't miss alcohol. I have everything I need." Besides his Bible and game shows, one other desire fills Hairston's days, one that has gone unfulfilled -- he wants to talk with Catherine's family. "I would like to stand in front of them and speak to them," he said. "I've been working on what I would say." Only one thought consumes Catherine's family when it comes to Kenny Hairston, as her survivors call him: Kill him. "He's scarred my wife, my children; my wife will never be the same. My mother-in-law will never be the same," said Theodore Jones, 58, of Friendship, Catherine's brother-in-law and family spokesman. "I want to go and witness him being executed. My tax dollars should not go to keeping Kenny Hairston (alive), to maintaining Kenny with a color TV and three meals a day." An execution date hasn't been set for Hairston. If one is, he said, he would request his last meal be a Wendy's burger, cheesecake and a Frosty. But he doesn't believe it will come to that. "I think God has a plan for me," he said. "I'm here for a reason." Death row Besides Kenneth Hairston, 10 other death-row inmates were convicted in Allegheny County. Here's a look at who they are and why they were sentenced. Richard S. Baumhammers Age: 42 Date of sentence: Sept. 6, 2001 What he did: The former Mt. Lebanon lawyer, targeted and killed six racial and ethnic minorities in a shooting spree April 28, 2000. Robert Bryant Age: 56 Date of sentence: March 31, 1987 What he did: Bryant stabbed and killed a fellow inmate at the State Correctional Institute in Pittsburgh on May 15, 1984. He was serving a life sentence for murder at the time. His death sentence was vacated in 1998, and he awaits a new penalty-phase hearing Sept. 24. Leroy Fears Age: 45 Date of sentence: Feb. 7, 1995 What he did: Fears admitted he molested and strangled 12-year-old Shawn Hagan on the banks of the Monongahela River on June 18, 1994. Anthony J. Fiebiger Age: 43 Date of sentence: March 1, 1999 What he did: Fiebiger strangled to death his live-in girlfriend, Norma Parker, in 1989 and fatally stabbed 16-year-old Marcia Jones in 1982. Thomas McCullum Age: 63 Date of sentence: Nov. 1, 1989 What he did: McCullum raped, robbed and fatally beat 83-year-old Tillie Katz at a Squirrel Hill nursing home five months earlier. Wayne C. Mitchell Age: 29 Date of sentence: Dec. 8, 1999 What he did: Mitchell fatally stabbed his wife, Robin Little, 19, Sept. 10, 1997. Salvador Santiago Age: 44 Date of sentence: June 7, 1993 What he did: Santiago shot and killed clerk Patrick Huber during a robbery of a South Side print shop in 1986. Ronald Taylor Age: 46 Date of sentence: Jan. 11, 2002 What he did: Taylor killed 3 people March 1, 2000, during a racially motivated shooting spree in Wilkinsburg. Gerald Watkins Age: 38 Date of sentence: Dec. 13, 1996 What he did: Watkins received 3 separate death sentences for killing his ex-girlfriend, her son and Watkins' infant daughter July 20, 1994. Connie J. Williams Age: 56 Date of sentence: March 25, 2002 What he did: Williams dismembered his wife, Frances Williams, in their Crafton Heights home Aug. 18, 1999. He served 20 years in prison for the murder of his North Side landlord in 1974. (source: Tribune-Review) OHIO: Family sues over execution The mother of a condemned inmate who told an execution team "it dont work" while they struggled to inject him with lethal drugs sued the head of Ohios prisons on Monday. It took almost 90 minutes to carry out the execution of Joseph Clark in May 2006. The lawsuit in a Cincinnati federal court said the execution amounted to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment. In a separate lawsuit, a group of 15 inmates are challenging the states injection process, arguing the procedure may cause prisoners to suffer during an execution. Prison staff had problems finding a useable vein on Clark and one vein they did use collapsed. The execution team also apparently tried to administer the lethal drugs through the original IV line by mistake, according to written accounts of the execution. During the 1st injection attempt, Clark finally pushed himself up and said, "It dont work." During the 2nd attempt at finding a vein, he asked, "Can you just give me something by mouth to end this?" Clark, 57, was sentenced to die in November 1984 for killing gas station attendant David Manning in Toledo. The problems during the execution led the state to change its lethal injection process. But in May, an execution team again struggled to find veins in another inmate's arm. Christopher Newton died nearly 2 hours after the scheduled start of his execution. A message seeking comment was left for the prisons department. (source: The Enquirer) GEORGIA----impending execution Troy Davis deserves to die I was glad to see the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the 1991 conviction and death sentence for Troy Anthony Davis, who shot and killed 27-year old Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail in the parking lot of the Greyhound bus terminal in 1989, in a robbery gone awry. I remember this event. Davis was caught with the gun in his hand, gloating over the fallen officer's body. I will never forget the sneer on his face your photographer caught when taking a picture of the cops hauling him off to jail. He looked so proud of what he had just done; it was disgusting. He had no clue how stupid he was, or how hurtful he had just been, to an innocent human being who was just doing his job -- trying to protect the rest of us from such a low-life like himself. For Troy Davis to claim innocence, now, when he was caught red-handed, is cowardly and despicable. For Amnesty International to decry the Supreme Court's refusal to review this crime and the resulting sentence as "revealing catastrophic flaws in the U.S. death penalty machine" is pathetic and inane, and just goes to show that they wouldn't know justice if it bit them on the leg. Larry Cox, director of Amnesty International, should be on the receiving end of a gun held by such a thug as Troy Davis, before he makes such pompous and asinine comments. There was never any doubt that Troy Davis shot Officer MacPhail deliberately and for no good reason whatsoever. The only travesty in this case is that Davis still lives, while Mark MacPhail's wife and kids have had to learn to live without their husband and father. RAPHAEL B. SEMMES (source: Letter to the Editor, Savannah Morning News) ********************* Death Clock Ticking for Troy Anthony Davis; But Is He Really Guilty? Attorneys for Troy Anthony Davis, an African American convicted of killing a White Georgia police officer in 1989, say that if their client is put to death in less than 3 weeks, it would be the biggest miscarriage of justice ever. Davis is scheduled to die the week of July 17, according to the death warrant, for killing Officer Mark Allen MacPhaill, 27, who was shot repeatedly after responding to a fight outside a bus station. But not only is the physical evidence lacking in the case, but 6 of the 9 prosecution witnesses who implicated or named Davis as the killer have recanted their testimonies. "I never had any gun powder residue, strange for someone who committed 3 separate shootings in one night," Davis says on his Web site (www.troyanthonydavis.org). "They never tested Mr. C., also none of the shell casings matched the initial shooting. No one publicized the fact that I voluntarily turned myself in to the Sheriff's Department. The police department was not satisfied with that; they brought me to the police station downtown, to make it look like I was captured and paraded me in front of the news cameras for their glory. "My plan was to finish working this job in Atlanta, Georgia, save a little money and join the United States Marine Corps. Many people told me I should have ran but I said no, that is not the answer for an Innocent Man; you must stand up and make the justice system work. I would also never put my family through such an ordeal, I love them and the idea of never seeing them would have been death for me." On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Davis' final appeal. "This is a travesty," Jason Ewart, one of Davis' lawyers, told The Associated Press. "We have the vast majority of witnesses at trial who recanted. We have other new evidence that shows Troy is innocent. No judge has ever looked at it." In Davis' latest appeal, his lawyers have been unable to get this testimony considered. Ewart said that he and other attorneys will seek a stay of execution and may even ask the state Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute the death sentence based on Davis' claims of innocence. But Russ Willard, a spokesman from the Georgia Attorney General's Office, said the federal courts have considered "all of these alleged inconsistent statements" and rejected them, AP reported. "The state has no problem carrying out the lawful sentence against Troy Davis," Willard said. (source: Bet.com)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., OHIO, GA.
Rick Halperin Mon, 2 Jul 2007 15:25:45 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
