[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----OHIO, TENN., CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

July 30


OHIO:

Spirko gets 7th reprieve from execution----Strickland grants time for more
DNA testing


John G. Spirko Jr.Convicted killer John G. Spirko Jr. will get another
120-day reprieve from execution, his 7th, to allow more time for DNA
testing.

Gov. Ted Strickland signed the reprieve for Spirko today, spokesman Keith
Dailey said.

Spirko, 60, was scheduled to be executed Sept. 18 for the August 1982
kidnapping and murder of Betty Jane Mottinger, 48, postmistress of Elgin,
a small town in northwestern Ohio.

His original execution date was Sept. 19, 2005.

As with the other 6 delays, this one was granted to allow additional DNA
testing on a number of items, including clothing, cigarette butts and duct
tape found at the post-office crime scene and the farm field where
Mottinger's body was found 6 weeks after her abduction.

If any DNA is found, it is tested against samples from Spirko and other
individuals.

As of March of this year, state officials said the testing, which has cost
taxpayers in excess of $50,000, has been inconclusive.

(source: Columbus Dispatch)






TENNESSEE:

Christa Pike back in court appealing death sentence


Convicted murderer Christa Gail Pike was in court Monday, appealing the
sentence that put her on death row.

Monday's is the 1st of 3 days of hearings for Pike, who's asking for a new
judge in the case.

Criminal court Judge Mary Beth Leibowitz has refused to take herself off
the case.

Pike was convicted of the 1995 murder of a fellow Job Corps student,
Colleen Slemmer.

In January, a neurologist testified in court that Pike has a damaged brain
and suffered sexual and physical abuse in her childhood, as well as
abusing drugs.

The neurologist said it's like Pike's brakes aren't working because the
frontal lobes of her brain aren't put together properly.

The final day of the hearings is scheduled for December 10.

In 2002, Pike attempted to stop her appeals before changing her mind
later.

(source: WATE News)






CALIFORNIA:

Convictions upheld for former Berkeley official


The state Supreme Court today upheld the convictions of a former Berkeley
city official who was sentenced to death for murdering and decapitating a
friend to prevent him from testifying against him in a 1988 beating of a
couple.

The 6-1 decision said Enrique Zambrano, who had served as a Berkeley
waterfront commissioner, had failed to prove that the judge and prosecutor
in his trial had committed misconduct and prejudiced the jury.

Zambrano was convicted in Alameda County Superior Court of killing Luis
Reyna and beating UC Berkeley immunology professor Robert Mishell and his
wife, Barbara, whom Zambrano suspected of making harassing telephone calls
to his wife about an affair with another woman.

Zambrano had told Reyna, who was his friend and fellow Berkeley waterfront
commissioner, about the January 1988 beatings. Reyna kept silent at first,
but then went to Berkeley police with the story.

A jury found that Zambrano made bail and then murdered Reyna in July 1988
to silence him as a witness in the Mishell case, then cut off his head and
hands and dumped the body parts in rural Lafayette to give him time to
flee to Mexico with his lover, Linda "Celebration" Oberman.

In his appeal, Zambrano claimed that a number of discussions and
conferences among the attorneys and Superior Court Judge Stanley Golde
went unreported, including conversations during jury selection.

Among other things, Zambrano cited problems with jury selection, accused
Golde of giving the jury faulty instructions and said the prosecutor,
Martin Brown, engaged in misconduct during closing arguments in the
penalty phase of the trial.

In an opinion released today, the state's highest court, led by Justice
Marvin Baxter, rejected Zambrano's arguments but agreed that the
prosecutor improperly told jurors that the Bible not only makes it man's
duty to impose the death penalty but "demands it" to preserve the sanctity
of human life.

"We recently have suggested or assumed that prosecutorial arguments
substantially similar to the one at issue here are improper," Baxter
wrote. Still, he added, Zambrano "suffered no prejudice" as a result of
Brown's remarks.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Joyce Kennard said Zambrano's death
sentence should be reversed because the prosecutor's references to the
Bible as an authority for the death penalty "prejudiced defendant,
undermining confidence in the fairness of the penalty phase of defendant's
capital trial."

Kennard also wrote that she believed Golde erred in refusing defense
counsel's request to ask prospective jurors "if they would invariably
impose the death penalty in a case involving dismemberment of the murder
victim's body."

Zambrano and Oberman lived as fugitives, 1st in Mexico and then in Palm
Springs, until their arrest in September 1989. Oberman pleaded no contest
to harboring a criminal and later testified at Zambrano's trial that he
admitted murdering Reyna and did not regret it.

Zambrano said that Reyna pulled a gun on him and it discharged
accidentally as the men struggled. Zambrano, a contractor, admitted using
his own tools to saw off Reyna's head and hands, saying he wanted to give
himself more time before police caught up with him.

Barbara Mishell's injuries were so severe that she has lost the ability to
speak.

The case is People vs. Enrique Zambrano, S035368.

(source: San Francisco Chronicle)

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

Conspiracy, Lies Reported By The New Yorker Magazine In Execution Of
Stanley Tookie Williams----High-Level California State Officials
Collaborated in Secret Media Campaign


The New Yorker magazine, July 30 issue, features an article, "Dean of
Death Row," about former San Quentin State Prison spokesperson Vernell
Crittendon and his abuse of institutional power:

* The New Yorker shows that Crittendon misrepresented statements to the
media about children's book author, Nobel Peace Prize nominee and
condemned prisoner Stanley Tookie Williams in the months and days leading
up to Williams's controversial execution on December 13, 2005.

* The article also reports that Crittendon's untrue allegations about
Williams were made with full approval of authorities at the California
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) and the California
State Attorney General's Office. The article implies that the Office of
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger knew about the intended media campaign to
turn the public against clemency for Williams. These institutions have a
legal responsibility to verify as accurate all information released to the
public and the media.

* The article further asserts that Crittendon and these institutions of
law enforcement conspired with each other as early as 2004 to implement
attacks against Williams with false information to build widespread public
support for killing the anti-gang author.

The article, by long-time New Yorker features writer Tad Friend, disproves
the following allegations that were made by Crittendon against Williams
and were widely reported in the media prior to his being killed:

1. Williams was orchestrating unspecified "gangland crimes" in the very
recent past and was not the redeemed man that his work -- to deflect young
men from the gang life he had led  indicated; "...he [Crittendon] also
eventually acknowledged that Williams hadn't actually been orchestrating
gangland crimes."

2. Williams did not counsel his youngest son, Stanley Tookie Williams IV,
by writing letters to him. But when pressed by Mr. Friend, the New Yorker
writer, Crittendon admitted, "...I can't say for sure he [Williams] wasn't
writing his son." Williams, in fact, did regularly write and send pictures
to young Stan.

3. Williams had a "suspiciously large" prison bank account. In an
Associated Press article (November 17, 2005) Crittendon used that
accusation as one of several examples to support, according to Crittendon,
that Williams was "a con." Crittendon stated: "A con always will say one
thing to you while the whole time he has another agenda...I'm concerned
that possibly this marketing [of Williams] that's going on...leads the
public to hear the words but not to see that sleight of hand." Ironically,
these are statements we now know describe Crittendon himself and his
behavior, not Williams. Only $1,682 was in Williams account, based on
prison records.

Barbara Becnel, executor of Williams's estate, responds to these
revelations: "Now we know that the State Attorney General's Office and the
CDCR approved Crittendon's public lies about Stan's remarkable
rehabilitation. Now we know that San Quentin Prison, the CDCR and the
State Attorney General's Office conspired to develop a media campaign
intended to destroy Stan's credibility, undermine his fight for clemency,
and pave the way to make his execution more 'acceptable' to the public.
These are the same institutions that maintained throughout that Stan was
guilty despite evidence to the contrary. What else have the
representatives of these institutions hidden from the public? What else
have they lied about? Was the Governor complicit as well?"

CONTACT:

Crystal Bybee

Campaign to End the Death Penalty

Phone: 510-333-7966 or 510-235-9780

Fax: 510-235-3112

Crystal at nodeathpenalty.org

(source: Blacknews.com)