Aug. 10 TEXAS: Death row inmate volunteers to be executed Michael Rodriguez is set to be the 1st of the "Texas 7" to be executed Rodriguez and 6 others escaped from a maximum security prison in December 2000 Rodriguez, reflecting on his crimes: "I am willing to pay" Michael Rodriguez remembers the exhilaration of newfound freedom when he hid in the back of a stolen truck as he and six of his buddy convicts staged one of Texas' most notorious prison breaks. Texas death row inmate Michael Rodriguez has dropped all appeals of his execution. Then he recalls seeing his photo on national TV and grasping the reality that their Hollywood-style plan to rob a Nevada casino had gone terribly awry. He and his fellow fugitives were being hunted everywhere as the killers of a police officer, Aubrey Hawkins, at a store they robbed outside Dallas. This week, Rodriguez is set to become the 1st of the 6 surviving members of the infamous "Texas 7" -- all of them now on death row -- to go to the death chamber. "I'm glad we got caught, so no one else would get hurt," Rodriguez said, discussing with a reporter for the 1st time his involvement in the crime spree 8 years ago. "It was so thrilling that we actually got away with it," he said of the December 2000 escape from a maximum security prison. "But after Mr. Hawkins got killed, and I saw (ABC's) Peter Jennings on the TV news with our pictures, I thought: 'Oh my God, Oh my God. Am I in trouble!"' After some 6 weeks of evading an intense manhunt, the fugitives were captured in Colorado. One of the 7 killed himself as authorities closed in on him. "I'm glad it ended when it did. It would have been a mess." Rodriguez, 45, said he welcomes this week's execution, set for Thursday. "I have a lot of people here telling me how unfair the system is," he told The Associated Press in what he said would be his 1st and last media interview. "At some point in our lives, you have to have some sort of accountability. I can't see how people in my situation deny that." Rodriguez, who first went to prison with a life sentence for arranging the 1992 slaying of his wife in San Antonio, worked for more than a year to convince the courts he was competent to drop his appeals and volunteer for execution. "I'm just moving forward," Rodriguez said from a small visiting cage at the Polunsky Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, site of the state's death row. "Look. I'm guilty of what they said -- everything." And he said he wants the family of his former wife, Theresa, and the relatives the slain police officer "to know how truly sorry I am and I am willing to pay." "I think it's a fair sentence," he added. "I need to pay back. I can't pay back monetarily. This is the way." The slain police officer's wife, Lori Hawkins, calls Rodriguez's apologies "a little too late." Rodriguez and 6 other inmates overpowered workers at the state prison system's Connally Unit near Kenedy in South Texas on December 13, 2000, took the workers' clothes, grabbed guns from the prison armory and fled in a prison truck. "It was an experience. It's real strange to think on that and how I got here," he said. They drove to a nearby store, where Rodriguez's father had parked another truck for them. Raul Rodriguez later pleaded guilty to being involved in the escape plan. They headed to Irving, a Dallas suburb, where ringleader George Rivas, a convicted robber serving 18 life terms, had a plan to rob a sporting goods store by posing as employees of its security service. They got uniforms from a used clothing store in Houston and radios from an electronics store holdup. "George Rivas thought he planned everything," Rodriguez said. While some gang members scrambled to find materials to restrain store employees and others gathered weapons, a woman outside noticed the activity and called police. Hawkins caught the call. He'd been having Christmas Eve dinner with his wife and son a few blocks away. Patrick Murphy, a convicted rapist who was posted as a lookout, tried to warn his fellow escapees that a police officer was driving into the parking lot but their radios "didn't pick up real well." Rodriguez said that when he saw the police car he hid under sleeping bags they had stuffed with stolen guns and money. "I just heard shots -- pop, pop, pop. I thought it was the police. But no, it was us," he said. Afterward, he went to the police car, where the officer appeared to already be dead. The gang went to Colorado, were Rivas used cash from the store robbery to buy a big RV, and even went to a police supply store, posing as a lawman, and ordered body armor to be used in the Nevada casino heist. On January 22, 2001, a SWAT team surrounded the gang at a trailer park outside Colorado Springs, Colorado. "I'd never seen anything like that in my life," Rodriguez said of the police firepower. Rivas, Rodriguez, Garcia and Randy Halprin were arrested. Larry James Harper, another convicted rapist, committed suicide. Murphy and Donald Newbury, a convicted robber, surrendered 2 days later in Colorado Springs. He blamed the original crime that landed him in prison for life, the 1992 murder-for-hire slaying of his wife, on "the lust of a coed" he met at what then was Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos. "My wife was a wonderful person and didn't deserve this. I fell for a coed. It was stupid. I sit in my cell and think: How the heck did I get here? "But I was a willing participant. You can call it lust... I really thought I would get off, like a lot of people who are deluded." (source: Associated Press) CALIFORNIA: Marin snapshot: Mill Valley attorney in the news over convicted Texas murderer Richard Ellis has thrown a wrench into the Texas death penalty machine, and he lives 2,000 miles away in Mill Valley. Ellis, a 59-year-old lawyer who specializes in death penalty cases, has been generating national headlines recently in the case of Charles Dean Hood, 38, convicted in the 1989 murder of an exotic dancer and her boyfriend in Texas. In June, Ellis derailed Hood's looming execution by claiming the trial was tainted by a secret romance between the trial judge and the Collin County district attorney. The romance had long been rumored, but the bomb didn't explode until June, when Ellis and his team got a sworn affidavit from a former prosecutor saying the relationship was "common knowledge" at the DA's office. The ensuing legal tangle forced authorities to delay Hood's execution until Sept. 10. Q: When did you know you wanted to be a lawyer? A: After I finished business school (at UCLA) and I realized there were worse things to do than practicing law. Q: What's the hardest thing about working on death penalty cases? A: The pressure of the execution. Knowing that if you don't put everything into it, it will probably follow you throughout your life. Q: How many clients of yours have been executed? A: I think 6. Why don't you ask me how many stays I've had? Q: OK. A: Actually, I've had about 8 or 9 stays. Q: Have you won anyone's exoneration? A: Yes, I've gotten a couple of people off of death row. Q: What's the best thing about working on death penalty cases? A: The sense that you're directly impacting people's lives. The sense that you are doing something that you believe in. I believe that the death penalty, as it's practiced in Texas, is wrong, it's unjust, it's a dysfunctional system. It's a civil rights struggle. Q: How long do you think it will be until the United States abolishes the death penalty, if ever? A: Well, it's hard to say. I think it might be a little sooner than people think. We seem to be going about it piecemeal. I think chipping away at it gradually may continue. More and more people are being to see it's unworkable and its unjust . Q: If you could do any other job, what would it be? A: I can't think of anything. I love what I do. (source: Marin Independent-Journal) GEORGIA: The high cost of death----Death penalty trials like the one starting Monday cost 4 times as much as a regular trial In Georgia courts, seeking the death penalty is a costly proposition. >From jury selection to attorney pay, from hours upon hours of pretrial preparation to added costs for juror lodging and transportation, capital trials are by far the most expensive criminal proceedings undertaken in local superior courts. As court officials prepare to begin jury selection Monday in Hall County's first locally prosecuted death penalty case in nine years, the final tab for Hall taxpayers remains largely guesswork. Ignacio Vergara is scheduled to go on trial on murder charges in connection with the March 2002 drug-related shooting deaths of two men in a parked car on a remote South Hall road. He has pleaded not guilty. The case has been delayed by pretrial motions and appeals and gone through three different district attorneys since it was indicted. Jason Deal, now a superior court judge, made the decision to seek the death penalty against Vergara when he was Hall County's district attorney. Current District Attorney Lee Darragh will prosecute the case. An estimate by The Times using figures provided by court officials puts the cost for jurors and bailiffs alone at more than seven times the normal cost for a murder trial in which the death penalty is not sought. Whereas a routine, one-week murder trial costs about $6,000 for jury and bailiff pay, a 2-week death penalty trial costs nearly $46,000, according to the newspaper's estimate. But there are a number of variable costs yet to be finalized. The newspaper's estimate doesn't count attorney pay. Vergara's case predates the creation of a statewide public defender office for death penalty defendants funded through the state rather than the county. Hall County will pay Vergara's two court-appointed attorney's fees, a final figure which is not yet available. The estimate also doesn't include overtime pay for courtroom deputies, increased postage costs for a 5-page questionnaire that was mailed out to 500 prospective jurors, and the cost of transportation and lodging for witnesses. One University of North Carolina study estimates that a standard murder trial where the pay for judge, jury, prosecutor and defense lawyer is fairly static costs between $40,000 and $60,000. The average cost for a death penalty trial, from pretrial motions to the first direct appeal if a death sentence is imposed, is $250,000, according to the study. The defense cost alone averages $150,000. In Georgia, those costs are shared between the counties and the state. "As long as the state has the death penalty as an option, the public should be prepared to pay the cost," said ardent death penalty opponent Mike Mears, an associate dean at Atlanta's John Marshall Law School. He also is a former director of the Georgia Multi-County Public Defender and has been involved in more than 100 capital cases. And while opponents of the death penalty almost always point out the expense, they can agree with prosecutors on one point - cost shouldn't be a consideration when deciding to seek it. "If there's going to be a death penalty, then it would inappropriate for a district attorney to consider seeking it based on how rich or poor a county is," Mears said. "That's almost as unfair as the death penalty itself." Henry County District Attorney Tommy Floyd, chairman of the Prosecuting Attorneys' Council of Georgia, said there are a several considerations in seeking death, but cost isn't one of them. "Quite frankly in death penalty cases, the cost is not something we evaluate," Floyd said. "That's just the cost of doing business in superior court. It's not that we're not mindful of it, but you can't let that be a deciding factor." The facts of the case, the strength of the evidence and the wishes of the victim's family all play into the decision, Floyd said. The more horrific the crime, the more appropriate it is to seek death, he said. But there is one other, important consideration for prosecutors, Floyd said. Except in the cases of certain repeat offenders, the only way under Georgia law to put a defendant in prison for life without the chance of parole is to seek the death penalty. If a jury convicts a defendant in a capital case but decides to spare his life, jurors still can choose between a sentence of life without parole or life with the possibility of parole. In ordinary murder cases, life with the possibility of parole is the only sentencing option for a judge. Floyd said the District Attorneys' Association of Georgia's top priority is pushing forward a legislative bill that would permit prosecutors to seek life without parole without seeking death in murder cases. The bill stalled in the Senate this year. Should the law pass, "it would probably reduce the number of murder cases where the death penalty is sought," Floyd said. Floyd, who has three death penalty trials pending in Henry County, said he never hears complaints from the overseers of the county budget about the costs of such cases. But he acknowledges it can become a political issue for prosecutors in more rural counties with much smaller budgets. "I have heard from other district attorneys in other parts of the state who had pressure, with people telling them, you're going to break us.'" Floyd said. For a number of years, Hall County has set aside a "capital contingency fund" solely for the funding of additional costs associated with death penalty cases, said Reggie Forrester, trial court administrator for the Northeastern Judicial Circuit. The fund balance stays at about $100,000 and rolls over from year to year if not used, he said. "It's almost like an insurance policy, so that when this does come up, we can cover the costs without having to scurry around," Forrester said. "We use it when necessary and replenish it when necessary." There are 2 other death penalty cases pending in Hall County, though they are unlikely to go to trial before 2009. Hall County, with an operating budget of more than $95 million, wouldn't face a financial crisis if it had to absorb the cost of several death penalty trials in a short period of time. But county commissioners in Dawson County were faced with the grim prospect of raising taxes to fund 3 death penalty trials connected to one 1991 murder, Mears recalled. The case involved the premeditated murder of a witness preparing to testify in an armed robbery trial and ultimately resulted in co-conspirator Tommy Waldrip being sent to death row. "There was a discussion of actually raising the millage rate to pay for the trials," Mears said. Georgia at one time had an emergency fund to assist rural, economically challenged counties in funding certain expenses in capital trials, said Steve Ferrell, court administrator for the Ninth Judicial Circuit, which includes Hall. That fund no longer exists, though the state does pay for the majority of defense attorney fees in death penalty trials through the Office of the Capital Defender. Local judges must still approve defense expenses paid out of the county budget, such as expert witnesses. Ferrell said a contingency fund like the one Hall maintains is a rarity. "I would imagine Hall is one of the few counties that does that," Ferrell said. Forrester, who expresses no opinion over the cost of death penalty trials, has been part of a meticulous preparations for the trial that is scheduled to begin Monday. He allowed that it's not like preparing for a normal murder trial that doesn't include the death penalty. "There is a major difference because of the dictates of the law," Forrester said. Mears, the death penalty opponent, said while he doesn't think cost should be a consideration for prosecutors, it is "something we want to bring to the public's attention." "I think eventually that's something that the death penalty's proponents and opponents could agree on - it's just too darn expensive." (source: Gainesville Times) LOUISIANA: Jindal urging death penalty for child rapists----New bill aims to pass constitutional muster Gov. Bobby Jindal said Saturday his administration is working with prosecutors on a bill that would reinstate the death penalty for rape in limited cases, especially for "monsters" who prey on young children. "If there is any crime (other than murder) that merits the death penalty, it is rape," Jindal told applauding delegates to the 71st annual meeting of the Louisiana Municipal Association, a statewide organization of mayors. After his speech, Jindal told reporters that besides asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider its 5-4 June ruling throwing out the death penalty law in a Jefferson Parish child rape case, his staff is researching ways to craft a new law that would meet constitutional muster. The next time the Legislature could take up such a bill is likely to be in the April regular session, a meeting geared mainly to tax and fiscal matters, although each lawmaker can file 5 nonfiscal bills. If Jindal calls a special session before then, he could include a new capital-punishment rape law on the agenda. The nation's highest court rarely reverses itself, but the state has called on the court to do so, Jindal said. The justices ruled June 25 that laws in Louisiana and 5 other states allowing capital punishment in cases of child rape are unconstitutional. The ruling came in the case of Patrick Kennedy of Harvey, who was convicted under a 1995 Louisiana law that allowed prosecutors to seek the death penalty for child rapists. Kennedy was convicted of raping an 8-year-old girl at his home in 1998. He and one other Louisiana man were the only people on death rows nationwide awaiting execution for a crime in which no was killed. Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul Connick Jr. said the court did not take into consideration a 2006 federal law authorizing the death penalty for members of the military convicted of child rape. The court's majority ruling, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, said that even though the rape victim suffered, death is not the "proportionate penalty for the crime. We conclude there is a national consensus against capital punishment for the crime of child rape." Connick's office said South Carolina, Montana, Georgia, Oklahoma and Texas have enacted similar laws. Jindal, who pushed through the recent session a package of bills increasing the jail time for a range of sex offenses involving children, said the state should send a strong message that "if you intend to harm a child, you better stay out of Louisiana." Jindal said the high court "made an awful mistake" in striking down the law. He told reporters that his executive counsel, Jimmy Faircloth, has been meeting with district attorneys and others on ways "to craft legislation we think will stand their (the justices') scrutiny." One factor being examined, he said, is the age limit of the victim. The old law allowed a prosecutor to seek the death penalty for anyone convicted of raping a child younger than 12. (source: New Orleans Times-Picayune) ALABAMA: Police: Drugs may be tied to slaying----More charges could be pending in robbery and fatal shooting Homicide investigators charged a 19-year-old man with capital murder Saturday in connection with an early morning robbery and shooting death. Officers with the Tuscaloosa Police Department responded to an emergency call around 1 a.m. about a shooting in the 700 block of 33rd Street East, said Capt. Loyd Baker, commander of the Tuscaloosa County Metro Homicide Unit. When officers arrived at the address, near Hodo Haven apartments, they found 33-year-old Rodrecus Kendell McGhee lying in the street with a gunshot wound. Baker said that McGhee was taken to DCH Regional Medical Center where he died later Saturday morning. 'It's still early in the investigation, but it appears the suspect [Terence Deandre Griffin] had gone to Hodo Haven to meet McGhee,' Baker said. Baker said that when Griffin met McGhee, Griffin attempted to take cash and possibly drugs from McGhee, and shot McGhee in the process. 'We found what appeared to be narcotics in the vicinity of the shooting,' Baker said. 'The robbery appears to have been drug-related.' Baker said McGhee was shot with a small-caliber handgun. At least 3 other people were with Griffin during the shooting, though as of Saturday afternoon, none had been charged. Baker said more charges in the case may be pending. Griffin was denied bail. (source: Tuscaloosa News)
[Deathpenalty] [POSSIBLE SPAM] death penalty news----TEXAS, CALIF., GA., LA., ALA.
Rick Halperin Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:01:52 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
