[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----CALIF., MD., IND., USA

[Rick Halperin]

May 19



CALIFORNIA:

Justices Find No Misconduct by Judge----The state high court rules there's
not enough evidence to prove that a jurist told a prosecutor to exclude
Jews from death penalty trials.


The California Supreme Court on Thursday rejected claims that a judge
advised a prosecutor to remove prospective jurors from a death penalty
trial because they were Jewish.

The justices found insufficient evidence of misconduct by Alameda County
Superior Court Judge Stanley Golde, who died in 1998. A misconduct finding
could have led the courts to overturn dozens of death sentences.

The court also discounted claims that the Alameda County district attorney
had a policy of barring not only Jews but also African American women from
death penalty juries.

A former Alameda County prosecutor had alleged that Golde, who was Jewish,
had advised removing Jewish jurors because of their perceived aversion to
the death penalty.

The case had stirred wide attention because of the charges of illegal bias
in jury selection and because of a study that concluded there was less
than a 0.16% chance that prosecutors removed Jewish jurors from capital
cases for reasons other than religion in Alameda County between 1977 and
1987.

Lawyers in criminal cases are allowed to remove a limited number of jurors
for tactical reasons, but cannot dismiss them because of their race,
gender or religion, or for certain other characteristics.

Golde presided over more death penalty trials in his 25 years on the bench
than any other judge in Alameda County, although he personally opposed
capital punishment. The allegations against Golde arose in an appeal of a
man he sentenced to death.

Former Deputy Dist. Atty. John R. Quatman told defense appellate lawyers
that Golde gave him some private advice in his chambers during the 1987
capital trial of Fred Harlan Freeman, who was sentenced to death for
robbery and murder.

"Judge Golde called me into his chambers and asked rhetorically, 'Quatman,
what are you doing?' " Quatman said under oath. "When I asked what the
problem was, he said I had not challenged a prospective juror who was
Jewish."

Golde "asked me if I was aware that when Adolf Eichmann was apprehended
after World War II, there was a major controversy in Israel over whether
he should be executed," continued Quatman, who worked in the D.A.'s office
for more than 2 decades and was friendly with Golde. "Judge Golde said no
Jew would vote to send a defendant to the gas chamber."

Quatman said he thanked Golde for his advice and "thereafter excused any
prospective juror who was Jewish."

"Actually," Quatman said, "Judge Golde was telling me what I already
should have known to do. It was standard practice to exclude Jewish jurors
in death cases; as it was to exclude African American women from capital
juries."

Citing Quatman's remarks, defense lawyers filed a constitutional challenge
to obtain a new trial for Freeman.

Faced with the explosive charges, the California Supreme Court asked a
trial judge to hear evidence on the claims and report back.

After five days of testimony, Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Kevin
Murphy found that Golde did not direct the prosecutor to excuse
prospective jurors who were Jewish. Thursday's ruling relied heavily on
his report.

"It remains to be explained why Judge Golde would have perceived a need to
commit misconduct by advising Quatman how to pick a jury at this very
early stage," Justice Marvin R. Baxter wrote for the state Supreme Court.

Baxter also said that Quatman's "character for honesty and integrity was
poor."

A former colleague testified that Quatman exaggerated a lot, and if "it
didn't serve his purpose, he wouldn't tell the truth." Other lawyers
voiced similar concerns, but two testified that Quatman was honest.

Baxter pointed to evidence he said showed that Quatman had a motive for
embarrassing his former boss, Alameda County Dist. Atty. Tom Orloff.

The court said Orloff had once disciplined Quatman for making disparaging
remarks to a female subordinate and later refused to endorse him when he
ran for judge.

"Unfortunately," Baxter wrote, "Quatman's bitterness did not mellow over
the years."

Justices Carol Corrigan and Ming Chin, who had been prosecutors in the
Alameda County D.A.'s office, did not participate in the ruling.

Quatman left the office in 1998 and now practices law in Montana. He could
not be reached for comment, and the attorneys who argued the case also
were unavailable Thursday.

(source: Los Angeles Times)






MARYLAND:

Forensic Case Builds Against D.C. Sniper


As prosecutors present more evidence against John Allen Muhammad in the
October 2002 Washington-area shootings, the convicted sniper becomes more
aggressive in his attempt to discredit the growing case against him.

A DNA expert from the FBI on Thursday linked Muhammad to several crime
scenes and the Bushmaster rifle used in the shootings. Jurors have seen a
car that was rigged with a hole in the trunk for a rifle barrel. The
contents of the car, which include the Bushmaster, also were laid out for
the jury this week.

Muhammad, 45, faces 1st-degree murder charges in 6 of the sniper killings.
He has already been convicted of one sniper shooting in Virginia and
sentenced to death.

Acting as his own lawyer, Muhammad has tried to show that no one saw him
commit the crimes. But he must still contend with physical evidence
against him, such as the DNA and ballistics tests that link the bullets
used in the shootings to the Bushmaster.

While questioning investigators from the police, FBI and Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Muhammad has launched into
sometimes contentious questions about reports, forensic tests and photos
of evidence. Witnesses are often confused, and Circuit Judge James Ryan
usually upholds repeated objections by prosecutors to Muhammad's
questions.

"Mr. Muhammad, you have to ask your question a little more clearly," Ryan
said Thursday as Muhammad cross-examined FBI DNA inspector Brendan Shea.

Shea told jurors that Muhammad's DNA was found on a gun sight for the
Bushmaster, which was in a duffel bag in Muhammad's Chevrolet Caprice when
he and Lee Boyd Malvo were arrested Oct. 24, 2002. A sight is used to find
and aim at a target.

Muhammad's DNA was also a potential match for some of the genetic material
found on the butt of the Bushmaster rifle stock, as well as a pen and a
bag of raisins from two different shooting scenes. Malvo's DNA was
recovered from several spots on the gun.

Muhammad suggested the tests may be flawed, saying authorities did not
"take away" DNA samples from Muhammad and Malvo to compare to the evidence
until several weeks after Shea said he conducted his comparisons.

"Isn't it true that if you did not have my DNA on that day, you could not
have tested it?" Muhammad asked. Shea said the sample he had was labeled
as Muhammad's.

Malvo is serving a life term for another Virginia sniper killing and is
charged with the same 6 Maryland killings, but will likely plead guilty
and testify against Muhammad.

The pair is also suspected of earlier shootings in Maryland, Alabama,
Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana and Washington state.

(source: Associated Press)






INDIANA:

Trooper's killer faces death penalty


Jurors rejected defense claims that a Chicago man did not mean to kill a
state trooper who was coming to his aid along a northwestern Indiana
highway, convicting him Thursday night of murder.

After listening to 10 days of testimony the jury took a little more than
two hours to find Darryl Jeter guilty of murder and auto theft charges.
Jeter showed no emotion as the verdict was read, but the widow of Trooper
Scott Patrick held her left hand over her face as the judge began reading
and started to sob during the announcement -- as did other family members
who crowded into the courtroom.

The trial's sentencing phase is to begin today, with prosecutors seeking
the death penalty against Jeter.

Prosecutors maintained that Jeter feared being returned to jail when
Patrick approached him about 4 a.m. Dec. 22, 2003, along Interstate 80/94.
Jeter had pulled his car over near a Gary exit ramp after driving on the
rim of the front right tire, and Patrick was responding to a trucker's
call that he had seen a vehicle in distress.

Jeter was on probation, meaning he was not supposed to leave Illinois or
carry the gun he had with him. He also was driving a car that he had
stolen a week earlier in Chicago.

Patrick, 27, was a 3-year state police veteran from Wheatfield whose wife,
Melissa, was pregnant with their first child when he was killed.

"The family is pleased with the verdict," said Lt. Larry Keiser, commander
of the state police post in Lowell where Patrick was assigned. "It's been
a long time, over 2 years. I'm just pleased to see it coming to an end."

Members of Patrick's family declined comment until after the sentencing
phase, but they hugged one another and prosecutors outside the courtroom
and many family members cried.

Defense attorney Alex Woloshansky did not concede during Thursday's
closing arguments that Jeter shot Patrick, but said that if Jeter did so,
it was not intentional and it was not murder.

Woloshansky said he believed the gun went off during a struggle between
the two and the bullet passed through Jeter's hand before striking Patrick
in the neck and killing him.

"What guy in his right mind is going to knowingly or intentionally fire
into his own hand?" Woloshansky asked.

Deputy Lake County Prosecutor Clare Bradley-Lubek called Woloshansky's
theory "insulting" and "absolutely crazy."

Woloshansky asked the jury to consider lesser charges of voluntary
manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter and reckless homicide.

Bradley-Lubek, though, said there was no doubt about Jeter's
responsibility for the shooting. "This man didn't want to go back to jail
for a piddly auto theft," she said.

She said Jeter repeatedly lied about what happened before asking a nurse
to tell Patrick that he was sorry, showing that he meant to do what he
did. "Look at all the lies," she said. "Lie after lie after lie."

Prosecutors declined comment to comment on the verdict, saying a gag order
remained in place until after the sentencing phase. Defense attorneys, who
are also covered by the gag order, did not speak with reporters.

(source: Indianapolis Star)

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

Court nixes death-row appeal claiming bias----Motive existed for former
district attorneys comment, report noted Freeman leveled very serious
allegations about Judge Golde and the conduct of his trial but, after a
full and fair evidentiary hearing, he failed to prove they were true.


The state Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously dismissed a death-row
convicts claim that the Alameda County judge who had presided over his
trial had conspired with a prosecutor to exclude Jews from his jury.

Lawyers for Fred Harlan Freeman, who was sentenced to death in 1987 for
the January 1984 murder of Donald Koger during the robbery of a Berkeley
bar, in 2004 had filed a habeas corpus petition, which seeks reopening of
the case based on new evidence.

That evidence was a declaration by retired Alameda County Deputy District
Attorney Jack Quatman, who claimed Judge Stanley Golde - who retired in
1998 and died later that year - had advised him to exclude Jewish
prospective jurors because, since the Holocaust, no Jew would vote to send
a defendant to the gas chamber.

The state Supreme Court appointed Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge
Kevin Murphy to hold a fact-finding hearing on Quatmans claims.
Prosecutors, attorneys and a judge in the Bay Area and in Montana, where
Quatman now practices law, testified Quatmans character and reputation for
honesty and integrity were poor.

Murphy issued a report in April 2005 which Quatmans claims unworthy of
belief. Freeman failed to prove Golde directed Quatman this way, Murphy
concluded, and Quatman in fact hadnt excused any prospective juror because
he believed him or her to be Jewish.

Freeman leveled very serious allegations about Judge Golde and the conduct
of his trial but, after a full and fair evidentiary hearing, he failed to
prove they were true, Associate Justice Marvin Baxter wrote.

Quatman didnt return a phone call to his Whitefish, Mont., office
Thursday.

Quatman had a motive for making the claim, the court noted - a grudge
against District Attorney Thomas Orloff, who he felt had unjustly demoted
him in 1993 after a female subordinate accused Quatman of making a
disparaging remark to her. In the mid-1990s, as Quatman was running for
election to a judges post and the press sought his personnel file, he
asked Orloff to cover up that disciplinary action; Orloff refused.

It is true that the initial target of Quatmans accusation would appear to
be Judge Golde, but, inasmuch as Judge Golde was already dead at the time
Quatman first disclosed this ex parte conversation, it is the Alameda
County District Attorneys office that has suffered the fallout from
Quatmans claims, Baxter wrote.

The court rejected Freemans claims that Murphy didnt give him a full and
fair hearing.

Im very pleased that its been put to rest, Orloff said Thursday, adding
hed felt last year that Murphys findings were well-reasoned and correct,
and I think the Supreme Court agreed with me on that.

Quatmans wife, Phyllis, also an attorney, last year had defended him in
comments made to this newspaper, decrying Murphys findings as unfairly
emotional and damning.

Judge Murphy really interjected his own personal opinions in this
decision, which I found shocking, she had said at the time. This judicial
finding overlooked a lot of the defense evidence and picked and chose to
reach a certain conclusion.

(source: Tri-Valley Herald)






USA:

Scalia to Congress: Butt Out of Court's Use of Foreign Law


Justice Antonin Scalia said Thursday he was strongly opposed to using
foreign law to decide constitutional cases in the Supreme Court but also
was opposed to having Congress outlaw the practice.

"I don't think it's any of your business.. Let us make our mistakes, just
as we let you make yours," he told a luncheon audience that included
several members of Congress at a public policy forum on Capitol Hill.

Scalia is a conservative and a believer in the independence of the courts.

His oft-stated skepticism about the role of foreign laws has been taken up
by a group of House Republicans, who introduced a measure saying legal
decisions interpreting the Constitution "should not be based on judgments,
law or pronouncements of foreign institutions."

Scalia said Thursday he did not welcome the intervention. He told the
lawmakers that he did not think the justices should second-guess how
Congress makes it decisions. The same applies in reverse, he added.

"No one is more opposed to using foreign law than I am, but I'm darned if
I think it's up to Congress to direct the Supreme Court how to make its
decisions," he said.

Scalia, the 1st Italian American to sit on the high court, was speaking
before an appreciative audience: the National Italian American Foundation.
It gathered in the Gold Room of the Rayburn House Office Building.

It was a tame performance for Scalia.

A former law professor and one of the court's leading intellects, he
travels widely and speaks regularly on the law. Sometimes his appearances
gain attention less for his considered legal views than for his combative
off-the-cuff comments and gestures.

In February, he said only "idiots" would believe the Constitution must
change with society. Several of his colleagues are on record as saying the
Constitution should indeed change with society.

In March, he said it was "crazy" to believe foreigners captured in a war
are entitled to a full jury trial.

That was a couple of weeks before the Supreme Court took up such a case.

Also in March, he set off a minor flap in Boston when he was caught on
camera giving a dismissive - some said vulgar - fingers-under-the-chin
gesture to a reporter who asked him a question as he left church.

"That's Sicilian," he explained.

On Thursday, Scalia stuck to a familiar legal topic, albeit one that has
divided the high court and much of the nation's legal community.

The issue is whether the justices should consider the opinions of foreign
courts in deciding cases under the U.S. Constitution.

The question has been caught up in the culture wars over gays, abortion,
religion and the death penalty.

In recent years, four of Scalia's colleagues - Justices Ruth Bader
Ginsburg, John Paul Stevens, Stephen G. Breyer and Anthony M. Kennedy -
have given speeches saying the opinions of foreign courts should influence
U.S. legal thinking though outside views are not decisive.

3 years ago, when the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a
Texas law that made private sex between gay adults a crime, the majority
noted in passing that the European Court of Human Rights had come to a
similar conclusion two decades earlier.

2 years ago, the court struck down state laws that permitted the death
penalty for murderers younger than 18. Kennedy noted that the United
States stood nearly alone in condemning juvenile killers to death.

Scalia dissented sharply in both cases, faulting the majority for
following the view of "like-minded foreigners" and repeating his view that
the Constitution "means just what it meant when it was adopted."

"I'm not some yahoo, a hater of all things foreign," Scalia said Thursday.

"I'm a friend of foreign law" in cases involving treaties or trade
compacts between nations, he said, "but not when it comes to determining
the meaning of the U.S. Constitution."

The newest justice - and fellow Italian American Samuel A. Alito Jr. -
came to hear Scalia on Thursday. Alito told senators earlier this year
that he opposed relying on foreign court rulings in the Supreme Court.

Last year, Ginsburg said U.S. judges should "learn what we can from the
experience and good thinking [that] foreign sources may convey."

The opposition to foreign opinions "has a certain kinship to the view that
the U.S. Constitution is a document essentially frozen in time as of the
date of its ratification," Ginsburg added in an obvious dig at Scalia.

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

Supermax Prison Low on Staff, Union Warns


The federal prison dubbed the nation's most secure has dangerously low
staffing levels, making it more difficult to guard notorious criminals
such as Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and Unabomber Ted
Kaczynski, a union representing its guards said.

The Supermax prison, 90 miles southwest of Denver, opened in 1994 with a
staff of 220 that has now dwindled to 185, the union said. The prison
houses about 400 of the nation's most violent and disruptive inmates.

A spokeswoman for Supermax couldn't immediately confirm the union's
staffing figures but said that overall staffing at federal prisons has
decreased.

(source for both: Los Angeles Times)

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

The Unseen, Uncounted Casualties of the Death Penalty


No matter the method of execution, those who administer the death penalty
and those who watch it cannot escape its brutal effects, writes Michael
Kroll, who works with incarcerated juveniles who write for The Beat
Within. Kroll is the founding director of the Death Penalty Information
Center in Washington, D.C., and was a witness to the execution of Robert
Alton Harris in 1992.

Even before Joseph Clark groaned through the 90 minutes it took Ohio
executioners to kill him on May 2, the courts had already focused public
attention on evolving efforts to find a humane way to put a human being to
death. The method du jour, lethal injection, has replaced hanging, lethal
gas and the electric chair in 37 of the 38 death penalty states, and it is
also the method chosen by the United States government.

But does the cruelty of legal execution devastate only the condemned?
Huntsville Warden Jim Willet, who presided over approximately 75 of the
152 executions carried out under then-governor George W. Bush, noted,
"We've carried out a lot of executions here lately... Sometimes I wonder
whether people really understand what goes on down here and the effects it
has on us."

Professor Robert Johnson, in his seminal 1997 book "Death Work, A Study of
the Modern Execution Process," makes the point that each member of the
modern execution team is trained to do a discrete task, like securing an
ankle or a wrist, and then repeatedly drilled so that the task becomes
automatic. The team member becomes like a robot carrying out a
pre-programmed task, not to kill a person, but only to strap down his
ankle.

(source: New America Media)