May 13 KENTUCKY----new death sentence Columbia man receives death penalty for 2001 murder A Columbia man is facing the death penalty after being convicted of murdering an Adair County woman for the 2nd time. A Warren County Circuit court jury needed less than 45 minutes on Friday to find Phillip L. Brown guilty of killing Sherry Bland, 36, in January 2001. Brown was also found guilty of robbery and burglary. The jury then needed 2 hours to sentence Brown to the death penalty. Brown had originally been convicted of the crime in 2003 and was sentenced to life without parole for at least 25 years. But the Kentucky Supreme Court threw out the conviction last year and granted Brown a new trial, ruling crucial evidence had not been allowed to be presented in court. Brown's sentencing is set for Aug. 11. (source: Associated Press) TENNESSEE: Stay lifted; clemency bid takes on urgency----Alley seeks reprieve until DNA decision Sedley Alley is headed to "death watch" after a federal appeals court lifted a stay Friday night that could have spared him from execution. The ruling by a panel of judges on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will be appealed to the full court as early as this morning, said Kelley Henry, an assistant federal public defender in Nashville who represents Alley. The Memphis-area man, who has been on death row since 1987 for the brutal rape and murder of a young Marine, faces an early Wednesday morning execution. He is expected to be moved Sunday to a special "death watch" cell near the execution chamber at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in west Nashville. The stay was granted Thursday by a federal judge in Nashville to give Alley more time to pursue his arguments that the state's lethal injection protocol is torturous and thus unconstitutional. Alley, who would be the second person executed in Tennessee since 1960, also has asked Gov. Phil Bredesen for a reprieve on a separate matter: He wants the chance to do DNA tests on evidence left at the crime scene. Although Alley confessed to killing Lance Cpl. Suzanne Collins 21 years ago, he has for the past 2 years claimed he is innocent and that DNA tests will exonerate him. The state Probation and Parole Board will meet at 10 a.m. Monday at Riverbend to hear Alley's arguments that the governor should give him a reprieve and either order the DNA tests or allow time for a federal appeals court to decide whether Alley has a right to test the evidence. One person who plans to attend the hearing is Clark McMillan, who says he does not understand why state lawyers don't want Alley to use DNA tests to try to exonerate himself. "I wouldn't be here if it weren't for DNA," said McMillan, 49, who lives in Memphis. DNA tests freed McMillan after he served 22 years of a 119-year sentence for aggravated rape and robbery. "I'm evidence of how essential DNA is. It's the last option," said McMillan, who hopes he's given a chance to speak to the board. "I'll do anything for that guy -- It was like you're in a burning house and someone got you out of there. I'm so thankful for DNA." The request for an executive reprieve is being pressed by attorney Barry Scheck, a DNA expert who gained fame as an attorney for O.J. Simpson and who has joined Alley's defense team. Scheck is co-founder of The Innocence Project, a nonprofit legal clinic that works to free innocent inmates through DNA testing. The tests could be done within a month, and the costs would be covered by The Innocence Project, Scheck said. "Without your intervention, the state of Tennessee runs the risk of executing a man despite the availability of modern technology that could exonerate him," Scheck wrote in a Wednesday letter to the governor. In a follow-up letter sent Friday, Scheck said that DNA tests not only might exclude Alley as the murderer, but also might identify the perpetrator through DNA databases of convicted offenders. Another former inmate who plans to be there is Kirk Bloods-worth, who became the first person to be exonerated from death row through post-conviction DNA testing, according to The Innocence Project. He was convicted in 1985 in the killing of a young girl and spent more than eight years in prison, including two on Maryland's death row, until he was cleared. Victims' rights advocates say Alley's arguments, both about the DNA testing and the humaneness of the lethal injection method, are stalling tactics thrown up at the 11th hour. They say Alley's execution is long overdue for a murder committed more than 20 years ago. As have governors before him, Bredesen forwards all clemency requests to the Board of Probation and Parole for recommendations, spokeswoman Lydia Lenker said. The Alley request is technically for a reprieve, or stay, of his execution, not a request for clemency, which would commute his death sentence to life in prison. Bredesen has granted at least 1 death row reprieve during his time in office. In 2002, he gave a 4-month reprieve to convicted cop-killer Philip Workman to clear up questions about testimony in the clemency hearing. The governor would not extend the reprieve, but the execution remained on hold because of a court stay. Workman is still on death row. Past clemency requests by death row inmates have been denied. Former Gov. Don Sundquist denied clemency for Robert Glen Coe, who was executed in 2000; then for Workman, whose 2001 execution was halted by the U.S. Supreme Court in the final hour; and finally for Abu-Ali Abdur-Rahman, whose execution was stopped in 2002 by the U.S. Supreme Court. Upcoming executions in Tennessee If Sedley Alley is put to death Wednesday, he would be the 2nd man executed in Tennessee since 1960. Robert Glen Coe was executed in 2000. Prisoners sentenced to death for crimes committed before Jan. 1, 1999, have a choice: lethal injection or electrocution. Anyone sentenced for murders committed after Jan. 1, 1999, is put to death by lethal injection. Alley did not select a method of execution. He has filed a federal complaint saying the state's lethal injection protocol is inhumane. But lethal injection is the default method when prisoners do not choose, said Ricky Bell, warden of Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, which houses the death chamber. There are 103 people on Tennessee's death row, including two women. The state Supreme Court has scheduled execution dates for some of them, although those dates can change depending on court action. Anyone sentenced to death in Tennessee is entitled to a multistep appeals process, which has prolonged the time between conviction and execution for most of those on death row. The state's capital punishment law was adopted in 1977. Those with scheduled executions that are upcoming and those with soon-to-be scheduled executions include: - Daryl Keith Holton: The state attorney general's office this week asked the Tennessee Supreme Court to reset his execution date. Holton was convicted in 1999 of killing his three young sons and his ex-wife's 4-year-old daughter. They were shot in a Shelbyville garage where the Army veteran had been living and working. Afterward, Holton turned himself in to Shelbyville police. - Stephen L. Hugueley, Aug. 15: Sentenced to death in 2003 for stabbing a prison counselor at Hardeman County Correctional Center. He used a homemade knife, stabbing him 36 times until the knife broke. He was sentenced to death, in part, because of his violent history. He had killed before: his mother in 1986 and then a prison inmate in 1992. He tried to take the life of another prisoner in 1998. - David Ivy, June 28: The Memphis man was convicted in 2003 of murdering his former girlfriend. - Donnie Johnson: The state attorney general's office Monday asked the high court to set an execution date for him. The Memphis man was convicted in 1985 of killing his wife and leaving her in a van at the Mall of Memphis. - Paul Dennis Reid, June 28: Convicted in the 1997 stabbing murders of 2 young women who worked at a Clarksville Baskin-Robbins. He also was convicted of a series of robberies and killings at restaurants in 1997. He killed 5 other people during robberies at a Captain D's restaurant in Nashville and a McDonald's restaurant in Hermitage. - Charles Rice, June 28: The Memphis man was convicted of raping and stabbing to death his 13-year-old stepdaughter. - William Glenn Rogers, June 28: Convicted of the 1996 rape and murder of a 9-year-old Clarksville girl. - Steven James Rollins, July 26: The Virginia man was convicted in 2003 of the stabbing death of an 81-year-old bait shop owner in Kingsport. **************** 4 PREVIOUS EXECUTION DATES Sedley Alley has had 4 previous execution dates stayed - 1 of them led to the ouster of a Tennessee Supreme Court justice. Some details on 2 of them: May 2, 1990: When the state Court of Criminal Appeals granted an indefinite stay for this execution date, the decision was authored by Judge Penny White, who later was appointed to the Tennessee Supreme Court. Voters ousted White from the high court in 1996 after death penalty advocates led a campaign that portrayed her as soft on violent crime. The effort included the parents of Suzanne Collins, Alley's victim, who cited their daughter's case as evidence that White should be removed. June 3, 2004: Stay was granted two weeks before this execution date, when Alley made his 1st claims that he was innocent. He filed a petition in Shelby County Criminal Court for post-conviction DNA analysis, arguing for the first time that he was not guilty of murder, according to court documents filed by the state. The trial court denied his claim, and the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed that decision. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case. ************************ WHAT'S NEXT The fate of death-row inmate Sedley Alley, who is scheduled for execution at 1 a.m. Wednesday, could go down to the wire. His lawyers will continue appeals until all legal avenues are exhausted or until the governor steps in with a reprieve. Here's what could happen next: - Federal appeal that lethal injection protocol is unconstitutional: Alley had a stay of execution in this case, but that was lifted Friday by a panel of judges on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Alley plans to appeal to the whole appeals court. Whoever loses that round can appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. - Federal appeal that Alley should be able to do DNA tests: This case is before a 3-judge panel of the 6th Circuit. As soon as the panel rules, the losing party can appeal to the full court, then to the U.S. Supreme Court, or appeal directly to the high court. - Federal "habeas" petition: This case, to reopen Alley's habeas corpus case, is before the full 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The losing party can appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. - Reprieve hearing: Scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution before the Tennessee Board of Probation and Parole. At issue is whether Gov. Phil Bredesen should delay the execution long enough for him to order DNA tests be done or for the courts to resolve the DNA testing matter. *************************** REPRIEVE RECOMMENDATION The 7 members of the Tennessee Probation and Parole Board are appointed by the governor to their full-time positions. They hear arguments on whether a death row inmate should be granted a reprieve, then make a nonbinding recommendation to the governor. Board members are: - Charles Traughber, chairman: His service on the board dates to 1972, with a brief stint away to work as a consultant with a private corrections company. He was an institutional counselor in the state Department of Correction in 1969. He is married to state House Speaker Pro Tem Lois DeBerry, D-Memphis. - James H. Austin: The Gallatin man was appointed to the board in January 2004. He has worked more than 31 years for the state, including in the Health and Correction departments. He was a counselor and administrative assistant in the Davidson County Sheriff's Department. - Patsy Bruce: The Nashvillian was appointed to the board in March 2004. She has operated numerous event management and marketing companies. She also co-penned the song "Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys." - Ronnie Cole: This former member of the General Assembly from Dyersburg was appointed in January 2004. The Democrat is retired from a paving and bridge-building company. - Lynn Duncan: The Republican from Knoxville has served on the board of directors for the Boys and Girls Clubs and the National Advisory Committee for Juvenile Justice. She was appointed to the board in July 2002. - Yusuf Hakeem: A member of the Chattanooga City Council, he was appointed to the board in January 2006. He is in his 5th term on the city council. - Larry L. Hassell: The Memphis man, formerly in auto sales, was reappointed to his 2nd 6-year term on the board in January 2002. He is a graduate of the Memphis Police Academy. (source: The Tennessean) OHIO: Final minutes on death row -- Condemned inmate asked prison staff to end his life Some want to be with family. Others seek privacy. They make phone calls (collect), watch television, listen to music, smoke, eat and read the Bible. There are tears, fears, remorse and anger. The end, however, is always the same for Ohio's condemned men: 8 syringes of deadly chemicals pumped into their veins over a 5-minute period. The problems that plagued Joseph Clark's execution May 2 were well publicized when prison personnel took more than an hour and 2 attempts to hook up his IV lines after a vein collapsed. Mostly, the drama in the Death House at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville unfolds outside public view. However, detailed, minute-by-minute records obtained by The Dispatch of all but two Ohio executions since capital punishment was re-instituted in 1999 provide a rare and somber look at the rituals of death. Before his lethal injection on Feb. 6 this year, Glenn L. Benner II had a 9-minute cell-front meeting with Rodney Bowser, the brother of Trina Bowser, 1 of 2 women he killed. The prison log shows Bowser asking Benner, "Why you did what you did?" "I can grant you closure but not peace," Benner replied. "Today is the easy part. This isn't about me now." In the end, after talking in hushed tones that guards could not overhear, the two men shook hands through the bars. Not all go calmly. William G. Zeurn was agitated before his execution, records show. At one point he told the warden, "Skip over all the B.S. and just come and get me when it's my turn." His turn came June 8, 2004, at 10:04 a.m. The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction began keeping logs after the Feb. 19, 1999, execution of Wilford Berry. He was the first person executed in Ohio in more than 3 decades. A prison official said there was no log available for the Sept. 25, 2002, execution of Robert Buell. The logs begin about 24 hours before an execution when the inmate arrives at the Death House, a separate building within the prison complex. They include details about visitors, phone calls, meals, conversations with guards, sleep and bathroom visits. Condemned men can make almost as many calls as they want - as long as they are collect. While there are some common threads, visits and phone calls to family and prayers, for example, the records reflect individual differences in mens' final hours. Some watched sports, others concentrated on religious programs or didn't turn on the television at all. John W. Byrd Jr., who was executed on Feb. 19, 2002, cried when he met with his attorneys, but later told guards that "he was not saying he was sorry" for the murder of Monte Tewksbury. Byrd maintained his innocence in his final words. Inmate Lewis Williams struggled with the execution team, but the log reflects that he was calm before his last moments, was "talking about the mystery of God" with his spiritual adviser and "was in good spirits, laughing and joking with his attorney." Williams had to be held down by the execution team while IV lines were inserted, then carried to the lethal injection table. He died Jan. 14, 2004. William D. Wickline, a Columbus man sentenced to death for murdering and dismembering Christopher and Peggy Ann Lerch, was concerned about the 75 paintings he had completed while on death row. He was assured, just before his execution on March 30, 2004, that pictures had been taken of all of his artwork. The one case logged by the department in which the inmate was not executed involved Richard Cooey, who got a last-minute reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court on July 24, 2003. At one point, Cooey was so angry he punched a wall in his cell in the Death House and required medical treatment. Later, after getting word of his reprieve, Cooey called his grandmother "and offered to sweep and clean his cell" before being moved back to the main prison. (source: The Columbus Dispatch) CALIFORNIA: The Attempted Murder of Michael Morales----Death By Snitch Jailhouse informants comprise the most deceitful and deceptive group of witnesses known to frequent the courts. The more notorious the case, the greater the number of prospective informants. They rush to testify like vultures to rotting flesh or sharks to blood. They are smooth and convincing liars. (Province of Manitoba, Report of Jailhouse Informant Commission, 2003) On January 25, 2006, the judge in Michael Morales's trial wrote a letter to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, recommending that clemency be granted to Mr. Morales. Judge Charles McGrath told the Gov he wrongfully relied on the perjured testimony of Bruce Samuelson, a jailhouse snitch. Samuelson testified that Morales had made obscene, derogatory statements about the victim, and had callously boasted of how he stabbed and raped her. Ten years after the trial, a Deputy Attorney General interviewed Samuelson and asked him about how he and Morales spoke to each other given that they were both in a cell full of inmates. Samuelson said that at his initiative, all their discussions were in Spanish. But Morales is a 4th generation American, and did not know Spanish. Everything Samuelson told the jury that Morales told him was a lie. Had the truth about Samuelson's testimony been revealed during the course of the trial, Judge McGrath would have set aside Morales' death sentence at his review of the jury's verdict. And, according to Governor Schwarzenegger, at least one juror would not have voted for death had she known that Samuelson fabricated his entire testimony. Thus, there is no doubt that Samuelson's lies made a difference. Or did they? When these facts, which have been known since 1993, were put before the California Supreme Court, along with Judge McGrath's views on their impact, they weren't deemed worth discussing. The Ninth Circuit acknowledged that Samuelson was a liar, but wrote that whether or not Samuelson lied about talking to Morales "is not the question." What, then, is the question? Whether or not the prosecution planted Samuelson near Morales was the only question the judges felt was worth answering. "That Samuelson bargained with what he had--information--for what he wanted--lenience--does not support an inference that he was planted to get such information." The court thus transmogrified Samuelson's lies into "information," refused to consider where those lies might have come from, and waved away evidence that the lies affected the trial. There is no need for any "planting" ceremony these days, because every veteran criminal knows, and has known for decades, that providing lies to a jury for the prosecution is a sure way to leniency and favors, and the surest way not to be rewarded is to discuss favors ahead of time. San Joaquin County prosecutors know this, too. In 1988, Leslie White, a veteran informant locked in the LA jail, showed the world via "60 Minutes" how he could fabricate a confession by someone he had never even met. A scandal flared that led to an exhaustive investigation by the Los Angeles Grand Jury. Hundreds of lawyers, court and law enforcement personnel, prisoners and inmates were interviewed. 153 criminal cases were identified as being affected by the involvement of jailhouse informers during the 1979-1988 period. The jail had evolved into an evidence factory that ground out "confessions" in nearly every serious case. In this factory, the foremen were sheriff's deputies who classified, reclassified, and transferred inmates in order to increase production. The line workers were a handful of police detectives, district attorney investigators, and their crew of several dozen snitches. The task of these men, whose numbers were augmented by occasional one-shot "temporaries," was to testify in court - after coaching from the district attorney's office - that the defendant had confessed to the charges, and made despicable remarks about the victims. A basic premise of the system was that the prosecution would not make any explicit deals with the snitch before the elicitation of the confession. If the prosecution made an explicit deal, they would have an obligation to disclose the terms of the deal to the defense. Both the informant and the authorities relied on a tacit understanding that the informant had come forward out of civic duty. In case after case reviewed by the Grand Jury, the informant testified that he asked nothing for his testimony and that favorable treatment was not even discussed. Yet these same informants expected, and received, the anticipated payoff for their testimony. The Grand Jury Report sparked a wave of publicity about the "Snitch System." It was followed by commissions across the country and in Canada that reached the same conclusions: snitch testimony is pandemic, false and unreliable. Any doubt about these conclusions has been put to rest by the advent of DNA testing. DNA, often found in the most serious crimes where blood and semen are left behind, has identified a host of guilty perpetrators, and shown that well over a hundred people were convicted and sentenced to death even though they were completely innocent. 51 of these men were put on Death Row in large part on the basis of jailhouse informant testimony from liars like Samuelson. The routine appearance of such witnesses has made perjury part of the structure of our most important criminal trials. To deny this infection of the process would be, in the words of Justice Felix Frankfurter, "to ignore as judges what we know as human beings." (Watson v. Indiana (1949) 338 U.S. 49, 52.) Courts well know about the existence of a Snitch System that produces unreliable evidence. Despite this knowledge, courts not only tolerate snitch testimony, but effectively excuse it. Prosecutors continue to use it; even though jurors may be skeptical, the stain of the accusations, like a charge of child abuse, can never truly be washed away. When Michael Morales' prosecutors learned that Samuelson had lied, did they initiate any proceeding to discover where Samuelson had gotten the raw material of his lies, since he got nothing from Morales? No. They strenuously, and successfully, opposed any hearing that would have gotten closer to the truth. When the judge who tried the case told them what the impact of Samuelson's false testimony was on his consideration of whether to affirm or set aside Morales' death sentence, they viewed the judge as a stone in their shoe, a rock in their road to the death of Morales, and they ridiculed and attacked him for overlooking evidence of Morales' horrific crime. Was Morales' crime so horrific that he deserved the death penalty regardless of his prior record or any subsequent remorse or character development? Maybe so ? but we will never know. Morales was not sentenced to death by a judge and jury that weighed the terrible facts of his crime against the mitigating circumstances of the childhood and subsequent character development. He is now alive only because of a debate over the best method of killing him, and remains scheduled to die, tipped over the edge by venomous lies known to be false from the moment Samuelson's testimony was developed with the San Joaquin County prosecutor's office. His testimony has been known by all to be a tissue of falsehoods since 1993, and known to have been fatal since January 26, 2006, when the trial judge wrote to the governor supporting Morales' bid for clemency. Every important player in the criminal justice system has hidden behind technicalities to shelter them from considering in depth where these lies came from, and what they have meant for Michael Morales. California's criminal justice system cannot pretend to approach justice until it consigns jailhouse informants like Samuelson to the same trash heap where other producers of unreliable confessions, like the thumb screw and the rubber hose, now lay idle. (source: CounterPunch - Michael Snedeker is a defense attorney and author of Down in the Valley)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----KY., TENN., OHIO, CALIF.
Rick Halperin Sat, 13 May 2006 09:57:09 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
