July 17 CALIFORNIA: Morales signs gone ---- Anti-death penalty signs removed from windows of county building Anti-death penalty signs that had been posted in a San Joaquin County public defender's window have been removed. The signs, which included a "Save Morales" poster referring to the killer of Tokay High School student Terri Lynn Winchell, had hung for months in windows near the entrance to the Juvenile Justice Center in French Camp. Winchell's family members learned of the signs last week and publicly voiced their outrage Thursday. The signs were removed Friday morning, said Sunny Acevedo, a management analyst in the county administrator's office. They appeared to violate a county employee rule barring political activity at work. Jeff Wellerstein, the veteran public defender who had hung the signs in his windows, was on vacation last week when the issue arose. He was out of the office Monday afternoon, and a call to Public Defender Jim Larsen was not immediately returned. Wellerstein had represented Ricky Ortega, the cousin of Michael Morales. Both were charged with murder in the January 1981 death of Winchell, who was 17. Ortega, who drove the car and had instigated the murder because he had been sexually involved with Winchell's boyfriend, is serving a life sentence in prison. Morales, who strangled, beat, raped and stabbed Winchell, was sentenced to death. The case has received national attention because Morales was scheduled to be executed in February 2006 when a judge halted the process. The judge ultimately ordered California officials to revamp the state's lethal injection process and all executions are currently on hold. Winchell's mother, Barbara Christian, said she was relieved to hear that the signs had been removed from public view. On Thursday, she had begun e-mailing various public officials about the signs, and she said word of the signs had reached the governor's office. (source: Lodi News-Sentinel) USA: President's evolution When George W. Bush was governor of Texas he supported the death penalty for the mentally retarded. Today he considers a 30-month sentence for Lewis ''Scooter'' Libby too harsh. His evolution as a compassionate conservative is truly inspiring. JOE McCREIGHT ---- Austin (source: Letter to the Editor, Austin American-Statesman) **************** A Confederacy of Hypocrites -- Troy Anthony Davis: Dead Man Walking UPDATE: 8:00 p.m. EST Just minutes ago, the Georgia state parole board issued a 90-day stay of execution for Troy Anthony Davis. ******* Troy Anthony Davis, 38, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection tomorrow, Tuesday, July 17, at 7:00 p.m. for the murder of Savannah, Georgia police officer, Mark Allen MacPhail. Lawyers, family members and a representative from Amnesty International, in a last ditch effort to save Davis' life, today spent nearly five hours pleading for clemency before the Georgia parole board. Davis has been on death row for over 17 years. He has maintained his innocence from the start. Seven of the nine witnesses who helped implicate Davis in the murder of MacPhail have recanted their testimony. There is evidence to corroborate that some of the witnesses had been intimidated or coerced into fingering Davis as the shooter. No murder weapon was found. And yet, a jury found him guilty and sentenced him to death in 1991. A few weeks ago, Libya sentenced 6 medics to death. In recent statements, President George Bush made it clear to the Libyan government that he believes that the 5 Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor found guilty of deliberately infecting over 400 children with HIV tainted blood, should be released. The U.S. "strongly supports the release of the Bulgarian nurses in Libya," Bush said, adding that their release is a "high priority" for the United States. Bush's vehement response to the Libyan government is unwavering conviction that he believes the lives of the six medics should be spared from a firing squad, although they were sentenced in a court of law. Evidently, the lives of 426 innocent children, knowingly infected with tainted blood carrying the deadly HIV virus, was not a strong enough case to send these medics before a firing squad. As Bush is a man of God, and has been known to proselytize, his mission is to spread peace and freedom around the globe. For Bush and his clan, the sanctity of life is above all else. Even embryonic stem cell research is not morally sound, as it is the taking of precious life -- God-given life. However, in the United States of America, or Confederacy of Hypocrites, the life of Troy Anthony Davis, somehow, is not as precious or valuable as embryonic stem cells or the 6 medical professionals who determined that the lives of 426 children were expendable. If the Georgia parole board refuses Mr. Davis' plea for clemency, denies life to a man quite possibly innocent of the crime of which he was convicted, he will be given a lethal injection at 7:00 p.m. tomorrow. The clock is ticking. He will will be strapped to a gurney, like a caught animal in a steel trap, as a cold needle tears through his veins. Onlookers will witness the death of a young man. They will witness the death of a son and a brother and a friend. And more importantly, of a fellow human being who may or may not have taken the life of officer Mark Allen MacPhail. As Davis takes in his last breath at the hands of his executioners, Mr. Bush will be protecting his precious embryonic stem cells in research labs across the nation. He will continue to condemn Libya for their barbaric decision to put to death medics who may have possibly killed over 400 orphaned children. He will continue to send young American men and women into battle for a war that had nothing to do with terrorism in the United States of America. He will be responsible for the deaths of hundreds more, thousands of innocent human beings. Life is precious. Just ask Bush. (source: Op-Ed News; a native Californian, Jan Baumgartner is a freelance writer currently living in Maine. Her background includes scriptwriting, comedy writing for the Northern California Emmy Awards, and travel writing for The New York Times. She has worked as a grant writer for the non-profit sector in the fields of academia, AIDS, and wildlife conservation and research for NGO's in the U.S. and Kenya. Her articles and essays have appeared in numerous online and print publications. Her travels in Africa are the inspiration for much of her work. She's finishing a memoir about her husband's death from ALS) *********************** Times Writers Group: Details dictate death penalty view I've held strong views on both sides of the death penalty. Most recently, I thought I was opposed to it, but then Elijah Page's face and story hit the news. His case rekindled my internal debate as I learned the sickening, gruesome details of how he and his cohorts killed 19-year Chester Poage in South Dakota 7 years ago. To death penalty proponents, Page deserved to die. To opponents, he should be allowed to live behind bars for the rest of his life. For me, the Page case showed how I can't give unqualified support to either side. Circumstances behind each case do matter. For Page, the end came last week when he died for his crime, in South Dakota's first execution in 60 years. When I first thought about writing on this topic, I noted to my editor that although I once had strongly favored the death penalty, now (after the Page case) I sit just as strongly on the other side where I plan to stay. Are you confused? Me, too. My thoughts Like a lot of others, I'm struggling with this. The subject has been a controversial one. Questions I've posed to myself are: Because God grants life, shouldn't he be the one who takes it? On the flip side, Page cruelly tortured Poage to death. Doesn't he deserve to die? Largely responsible for my belief in the death penalty was my three-year secretarial stint with the six-member major case squad a while back in my hometown of Quincy, Ill. Our unit was formed to jump on major crimes as soon as they occurred; then, through careful, thorough investigation, bring in the bad guy. We were phenomenally successful in both arrests and convictions of murderers, arsonists, forgers, drug dealers and robbers. I saw the aftermath of senseless crimes, like the bar owner who was shotgunned to death at point-blank range. We caught the shotgun-happy men who did the deed within 18 hours. They didn't get the death penalty, though most of us thought they deserved it. Protecting friends, loved ones and neighbors from them and people like them was our reasoning. So what about the John Wayne Gacys, the Richard Specks, who killed repeatedly? Did they deserve the death penalty? Why? How about the Michael Foster Vineses? You didn't know him, but I did. He was a 17-year-old itinerant English musician who blew into Quincy and performed at a downtown nightclub for a few nights, then left. But not before he'd met Marcia Edwards, a 32-year-old meter reader, and brutally murdered her. A few years later, he repeated the crime in Dallas and was arrested. My boss, the chief of detectives, traveled to Dallas to interrogate him. Vines admitted to killing Marcia. He also told my boss he'd taken out 50 girls with the express purpose of killing them. A noise, or a person walking by who could identify him, forced Vines to "scrub the mission," as he put it. Did he deserve to die? Again, we thought so, but he didn't get the death penalty in either Texas or Illinois. He did die years later in prison. Change of heart Late in 1998, Northwestern University held the first of its kind conference on wrongful convictions and the death penalty, and that's when I began to view the death penalty as an opponent. Investigation into the cases of 30 inmates proved they were innocent of the crimes that had put them on death row. They could have died for something they didn't do, and that compelling evidence really got my attention. How many others had already been put to death wrongfully? For good reasons, I was strongly in favor of the death penalty; then, for different good reasons, I was strongly opposed. For the indefinite future, I'm strongly on the fence. Details of Elijah Page's grisly crime shook my belief that there's only one right answer. (source: Opinion, St. Cloud (Minn.) Times; this is the opinion of Natalie Miller Rotunda, a freelance writer living in St. Cloud) OHIO----female faces federal death sentence Slain doctor's wife faces death sentence The wealthy doctor liked to select his wife's clothes -- and her shoes, perfume and purses, as well as where she and her relatives sat at the dinner table, family members testified. Dr. Gulam Moonda expected Donna Moonda to have a plate of fruit ready for him when he came home from work, then wanted complete silence as he rested, they said. "Gulam, he made the decisions," Dorothy Smouse testified Monday during a sentencing hearing for her 48-year-old daughter, who was convicted earlier this month of hiring her lover to kill her 69-year-old husband. A forensic psychologist was expected to testify Tuesday about Donna Moonda's mental state, and a jury was to begin deliberations Wednesday on whether to sentence her to life in prison or the death penalty. Moonda could become just the 3rd woman on federal death row. She never complained to her mother, sisters or friends about her husband, they testified. Nor did she reveal she was having an affair, was abusing painkillers and had lost her nursing license. But she confided in boyfriend Damian Bradford that the doctor was like a "prison guard." She persuaded the 26-year-old Bradford to shoot her husband on the Ohio Turnpike by promising to share half of his multimillion-dollar estate, he testified during her trial. Bradford, of Monaca, Pennsylvania, was sentenced last week to 17 years in prison. In exchange for testifying against Moonda, he pleaded guilty to following the couple from their home in Hermitage, Pennsylvania, on May 13, 2005, and shooting the doctor in the head after Donna Moonda pulled over. Her attorney, David Grant, pointed out that Bradford could get out of prison before age 40 with good behavior. Given Bradford's sentence, "It's simply not right and not just to impose the death penalty in this case," Grant told jurors. Prosecutors called Dr. Faroq Moonda, a nephew of the victim, to testify about the man he called "Doctor Uncle," who was a great influence in his life. He told jurors how his uncle immigrated to the United States to become a doctor and help his impoverished family in India. "My uncle was a very gentle human being, very generous ... to see the way that it happened doesn't make any sense," he said of his uncle's death. Grant described Donna Moonda as a hardworking nurse-anesthetist who went into a depression and started abusing drugs after her father died. She lost her job in 2004 because of the drug problem, and when she met Bradford in counseling she was suffering from "dependent personality disorder," Grant told the jury. He said such people are easily manipulated and depend on others to make major decisions. Assistant U.S. Attorney Nancy Kelley told the jury that Moonda encouraged Bradford to kill her husband and paid him to do it. "This was not a plan hatched in the heat of the moment," she said. Donna Moonda's 3 sisters described her as a former high school cheerleader who was ambitious about her education, worked diligently as a nurse, never flaunted her husband's wealth and never complained. The death of their father in 1998 hit Moonda particularly hard, they said. She became despondent, lost weight and, unbeknownst to them, started abusing fentanyl. (source: CNN) ALABAMA: Alabama death row inmate loses appeal Alabama death row inmate Darrell Grayson lost a federal court appeal Monday that could have delayed his scheduled execution in 10 days. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta upheld a lower court's dismissal of a lawsuit that Grayson filed against state prison officials. His suit challenged how Alabama carries out lethal injections. In denying Grayson's appeal, a 3-judge panel of the 11th Circuit noted that he waited to challenge Alabama's execution procedures until 24 years after his conviction and 4 years after the state enacted lethal injection to replace the electric chair. Siding with U.S. District Judge Keith Watkins, the appeals court said Grayson offered no justification of why he could not have brought his legal challenge earlier and said the real purpose behind his claim is to delay his execution. The Alabama Supreme Court has scheduled Grayson for execution on July 26 at Holman Prison in Atmore. Grayson was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to die for killing 86-year-old Annie Laura Orr during a burglary of her Montevallo home on Dec. 24, 1980. He was 19 at the time of the slaying. A co-defendant, Victor Kennedy, was executed on Aug. 6, 1999. (source: Associated Press) FLORIDA: Judge Will Decide If Couey Faces Death Penalty A Miami jury recommended the death penalty for John Couey, but a judge will have the final say. According to police, Couey kidnapped, raped, and buried 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford alive in 2005. He was convicted in March 2007. Since the murder, Jessica's father, Mark Lunsford, has toured the country pushing for tougher sex offender laws. The judge in the case is now left to decide whether Couey is mentally incompetent and if he will die for his crimes. Under Florida law, if Couey is found mentally handicapped, he cannot be executed. Mark Lunsford is expected to testify in Tuesday's hearing in Citrus County. Couey's formal sentencing is scheduled for August. (source: WESH News) SOUTH CAROLINA----new death sentence 'Patriot' Crimes----Jury Sentences Zealot to Death in S.C. Shootout Raised on a steady diet of 'Patriot' teachings about property rights, Steven Bixby was convicted of murdering law enforcement officers Danny Wilson and Donnie Outz in a gun battle that left his home destroyed. A South Carolina jury rapidly sentenced Bixby to die. If Steven Bixby ever had a chance of avoiding the death penalty for murdering two South Carolina law enforcement officers in 2003, it surely disappeared under the torrent of 1,500 pages of letters he wrote a girlfriend while awaiting trial. Signing each of his missives "chaotic patriot Steve," the 39-year-old New Hampshire transplant wrote Alane Taylor that God had sent him and his father "to get rid of the evil in Abbeville," S.C., where the pair were involved in a massive shootout and standoff with police. He identified himself as the triggerman in the deaths of Abbeville County Sheriff's Deputy Sgt. Danny Wilson and State Constable Donnie Outz. He boasted that he could have killed eight additional officers. And Bixby even described how, after shooting Wilson through a window of the family home, he handcuffed the dying officer and dragged him inside. Then, the antigovernment "Patriot" explained, he read Wilson his Miranda rights. "What we did in Abbeville on Dec. 8 was right," Bixby said. A South Carolina jury didn't see it that way. Bixby, 39, was convicted in February of the 2 murders, kidnapping, conspiracy and 12 counts of assault. Days later, the jury sentenced Bixby to death. His father Arthur, said by family members to be suffering from Alzheimer's, is likely to be tried on the same charges later this year. His mother, who is not eligible for the death penalty, is also expected to face trial on accessory charges. Rita Bixby was not present during the explosive Dec. 8, 2003, confrontation at the Bixby home, but is accused of helping to plan it. Incredibly, the murders stemmed from a dispute between the Bixbys and state highway workers who wanted to widen a road that ran in front of the Bixbys' house. Although the state had purchased the 20 feet of frontage in question years before the Bixbys moved there, the family furiously vowed to defend the land with force. Wilson was shot through the armhole of his bulletproof vest as he approached the Bixby home to talk to the family about the dispute. Outz was shot in the back as he stepped out of his car after coming to check on Wilson's welfare. A 14-hour standoff ensued, with hundreds of shots fired, and Arthur Bixby was left badly wounded. The Bixbys had been involved in tax-protest and other radical groups in New Hampshire before moving to Abbeville. Rita Bixby home-schooled her son with a special emphasis on the Constitution, teaching him, as she testified in his defense, that he had "the right to protect his property by any means necessary." (source: Intelligence Report)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., USA, OHIO, ALA., FLA., S.C.
Rick Halperin Tue, 17 Jul 2007 16:21:41 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
