[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, USA

[Rick Halperin]

May 29


TEXAS:

25-year-old Lucas murder case may reopen in Brownfield


A little more than 25 years ago, 17-year-old baby sitter Dianna Bryant was
killed - found with a vacuum-cleaner cord wrapped around her neck.

3 years later, serial killer Henry Lee Lucas confessed to the killing.

It was 1 of 77 murders Lucas said he committed. Later, he added to that
number.

By the time Lucas died in Huntsville's Ellis I Prison Unit in 2001, doubts
had been raised about the number of killings he said he did. After
investigators found numerous discrepancies in his claims, Lucas recanted
many of his confessions.

Officials who investigated his confessions believe Lucas did kill 3 people
- his mother, girlfriend and another woman. Lucas had been sentenced to
die by lethal injection, but then-Gov. George W. Bush stopped the
execution - his only commutation.

Now, 5 years after Lucas' death, officials in Brownfield are considering
if they should reopen Bryant's case.

"I'm going to invite the Texas Rangers, Terry County Sheriff Jerry Johnson
and Terry County Attorney Ramon Gallegos so we can get an answer whether
it is or isn't (going to be reopened)," said Roy Rice, Brownfield's police
chief.

But Bryant's family hopes officials will leave things alone.

Her father, Charles Bryant, said, "The only thing I can say is this: They
caught him. He admitted to it," adding he'd rather the case not be
reopened, preferring to leave the pain of his daughter's loss as far in
the back of his mind as possible.

Why did Lucas end up being a serial confessor?

"He was the kind of person who had a very lonely and empty and very
insecure life, and all of a sudden he had everybody's ear. He had
everybody's attention," said Carolyn Huebner, then head of a San
Antonio-based missing children network who extensively interviewed Lucas
to solve missing-persons cases. "They said dance, and he'd dance."

According to Lucas

Lucas told investigators he rolled into Brownfield on April 25, 1981, in
his blue and white 1973 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser. He said he was traveling
with longtime companion Ottis Toole and Toole's niece and nephew, Freida
"Becky" Powell and Frank Powell.

Lucas said he pulled into H-Bar-C Barbecue, a small restaurant on the west
side of the road owned by Sue Cottrell.

"Well, me and Becky, Frank and Ottis were heading west and we had driven
into this small town and came on a barbecue place on the right hand side
of the road and got out, went in and got coffee, and we sat down there and
talked about a place to break into," Lucas told investigators in his
confession.

The restaurant's front window looks out on a complex of brown duplexes in
the distance - including the duplex where Bryant was found strangled.

In apartment 912, Bryant was baby-sitting the 2 children of Stephen and
Shayne Peterson, a divorced couple. Shayne Peterson shared the duplex
apartment with her children, while Stephen Peterson had a mobile home
about 2 miles away.

According to Lucas' confession: "We decided we would go out messing around
and try to find a place, we drove catty-corner to the barbecue place to an
apartment complex, a bunch of one-story apartments."

He knocked on the door of apartment 912.

Wearing blue jeans and a white shirt with blue polka dots with blue ribbed
sleeves, Bryant answered, pushing open the metal storm door to see Lucas
and Becky Powell.

Lucas claimed he always used the same method to access a home.

"We asked her if we could have some food," he said. "She said, "Well, 'I
will fix you something. Come on in'."

While Bryant went to the kitchen, preparing a sandwich for Lucas and a
bowl of cereal for Becky Powell, Toole and Frank Powell went into the
house, also asking for something to eat.

"And she got sort of nervous because they came in," Lucas said.

Lucas told Toole, " I can't leave no witnesses, the girl will have to go."

Lucas said he went into the utility room and cut off the vacuum cleaner
cord with a knife he carried. "I took the cord back to where the girl was
and put it around her neck, with Becky and Frank sitting there."

Lucas, who said he targeted the home with the intent of robbing it, said
he left the house with nothing. The others left "with something," but
Lucas could not recall what.

Getting caught

In May of 1982, Reuben Moore found Lucas hitchhiking with Becky Powell
near Stoneburg, east of Wichita Falls.

Moore, who ran the All People's House of Prayer, told the two they could
stay at the commune. Lucas and Powell moved in and Lucas worked as a
roofer until late August, when he disappeared.

Later that month, he reappeared and told Moore that Powell had run away
with a truck driver.

Investigators believe Lucas killed Powell on Aug. 24, 1982, according to a
report by Jim Mattox, former Texas attorney general.

Powell's body was never found, but officials believe she is one of the few
people Lucas did kill.

Mattox told The Avalanche-Journal he believes Lucas killed three people,
but added, "We found no indication that he or that Toole fella had
committed anything else. There just wasn't ever any evidence of it."

By September 1982, Montague County Sheriff Bill F. Conway suspected Lucas
of involvement in Powell's disappearance. In June 1983, when Moore told
Conway and Texas Ranger Phil Ryan that Lucas gave him a .22-caliber weapon
to hold for safe keeping, the probation violation was enough to issue an
arrest warrant against Lucas.

On June 11 in his cell in the Montague County Jail, Lucas told jailer Joe
Don Weaver that he had committed 77 murders.

By November, his confessions had law enforcement officials across the
country eager to get their hands on him to see what he knew about their
cases.

Lucas confessed to three murders in McClennan County, crossing paths with
District Attorney Vic Feazell.

The Lucas report

Mattox didn't think much of it when Feazell questioned the Lucas
confessions.

"Vic Feazell came to me and said that he needed my help because the Texas
Rangers and the Williamson County Sheriff had Lucas and that he was
confessing to crimes that in all probability, he did not commit," Mattox
told The A-J.

Mattox dispatched a prosecutor to check out some of the information Lucas
offered Jim Boutwell, Williamson County sheriff.

"He said there's not a single one of these cases that would come to our
level of requirement for prosecution," Mattox explained. "He said there's
not a fragment of hair, there's not a fingerprint, there's no semen.

"There's nothing to link Lucas to these crimes except Lucas' confession.
He's confessing, and he knows facts that only the killer would know, but
there's a lot of stuff he said about these other crimes that is leading to
something amiss."

Mattox took Lucas to a grand jury hearing in Waco so he and Feazell could
cross-examine Lucas.

When Lucas was in jail, authorities would put him in a room with case
files, Mattox said.

The treatment fueled more confessions, he said. And Lucas traveled across
the country to identify crime scenes with law enforcement officials.

Doubts in Brownfield

Lucas confessed the Brownfield murder to Lubbock police Detective George
White and Texas Ranger Jackie Peoples on May 17, 1984, after identifying
Bryant in a Texas Department of Public Safety lineup of 6 photos.

Mary Ann Bryant doubted the confession and said of her daughter's
murderer: "We always thought it was somebody we knew."

Lucas could not pick out the exact apartment where Dianna Bryant was
killed, according to a stipulation of evidence.

White and Peoples took Lucas to the Brownfield Police Department. In an
interview with Peoples and Brownfield Police Chief J.T. Churchwell, Lucas
gave incorrect age estimates for the children. He also had conflicting
times for the murder.

Lucas said Toole suggested he partially remove Bryant's clothing and
redress her "to make this look like a rape."

A photo of the crime scene shows Bryant face down with her shirt tucked
in.

On Sept. 20, 1984, Lucas appeared in the Terry County Courthouse before
Judge Ray Anderson, now a 121st District judge in Brownfield.

When Anderson asked Lucas whether he had anything to say, Lucas said he
did not.

No evidence

Today, there is nothing left in the way of evidence - except the
confession, which includes a drawing made by Lucas for investigators.

"I have no objection to looking at it. My only concern is I don't know
what evidence is available other than what's in the file," said Gallegos,
the Terry County Attorney.

6 crime scene photos of evidence are in the case file. What's depicted in
the photos does not exist anymore.

"I understand there's no DNA evidence," Gallegos said.

According to Stanford University's Department of Genetics, the 1st time
DNA was used to solve a crime was in 1987.

Since the Bryant murder occurred at least 6 years earlier, evidence was
released.

"I don't believe there's anything available at this point that could be
tested," Gallegos said.

And Charles Bryant sees no reason to reopen his daughter's case, and said
he would rather leave the pain of his daughter's loss as far in the back
of his mind as possible.

Cottrell said many in Brownfield wanted to believe in Lucas' involvement,
if only for the peace of mind.

"I think they just wanted to put it behind them and say that's solved,"
Cottrell said.

(source: Lubbock Avalanche-Journal)






USA:

Senate Confirms Kavanaugh for D.C. Circuit Seat


White House aide Brett Kavanaugh won Senate confirmation as an appeals
judge Friday after a wait of nearly three years, yet another victory in
President Bush's drive to place a more conservative stamp on the nation's
courts.

Kavanaugh, confirmed on a vote of 57-36, was warmly praised by Republicans
but widely opposed by Democrats who said he is ill-suited to sit on the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

In a statement, Bush said Kavanaugh will be "a brilliant, thoughtful and
fair-minded judge."

The confirmation represented a victory for Senate Majority Leader Bill
Frist, a possible 2008 presidential candidate, whose efforts to fill more
federal court seats with Bush's nominees have been bedeviled by Democratic
objections. 5 weeks ago he informed the Senate that he expected Kavanaugh
to be confirmed by Memorial Day.

"I am committed to confirming additional judicial nominees to the bench
who will practice judicial restraint and interpret the law strictly and
impartially," Frist said Friday.

The vote marked the latest in a string of confirmations for conservative
appellate court nominees in the year since a centrist group of senators
agreed on terms designed to prevent a meltdown over Bush's conservative
picks.

Kavanaugh was not mentioned by name in an agreement announced by the
so-called Gang of 14, but his nomination was pending at the time and he
figured in the discussions. More recently, the seven Democrats who were
members of the group had intervened in his case, calling for a 2nd
Judiciary Committee hearing into his appointment. Sen. Arlen Specter,
R-Pa., chairman of the panel, agreed, defusing any threat of a filibuster
designed to block a vote.

Still, Democrats highlighted the American Bar Association's recent
downgrading of their rating of Kavanaugh from "highly qualified" to
"qualified."

"It's clear that he is a political pick being pushed for political
reasons," said Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the top Democrat on the
Senate Judiciary Committee. "This is not a court that needs another rubber
stamp for this president's exertion of executive power."

The White House and Specter said Kavanaugh's Ivy League education, a
Supreme Court clerkship and other work have prepared him well to become a
federal judge. Specter's committee approved the nomination along party
lines.

"It is hardly a surprise that Brett Kavanaugh would be close to the
president because the president selects people in whom he has confidence,"
Specter said. "Brett M. Kavanaugh must be confirmed."

The filibuster threat softened after Specter granted Democrats' request
for a new hearing at which Kavanaugh testified. The nominee told Democrats
he played no role in the White House formulation of policies on detainees,
domestic wiretapping or any relationship with convicted lobbyist Jack
Abramoff.

Kavanaugh, the White House staff secretary, was an assistant to
independent counsel Kenneth Starr during the impeachment probe of
President Clinton and he worked on behalf of the Bush campaign during the
election recount in 2000.

Ralph Neas, president of the liberal-oriented lobbying group People for
the American Way, said that Bush and Senate Republicans "have succeeded
today in putting a partisan lapdog into a powerful, lifetime position on
the federal bench. Brett Kavanaugh has spent his career as a partisan
operative, carrying out the will of the Bush administration and twisting
legal arguments to benefit his political ideology."

(source: Associated Press)

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

Can there be life after Death Row?


(After watching her client die on death row, lawyer and journalist Joan
Cheever set out to answer a question: what if, instead of being executed,
he'd been given a second chance? She tells Women's Editor Sarah Foster
about her quest to find the 'Class of '72' - a group of inmates to whom
this happened)

"WHEN I walked into the Death House, I was struck by the starkness of the
room. There was the gurney and there was Walter, already lying on top of
it, bound by those 6 thick white leather straps. His head immediately
turned to the glass window. He seemed to have been waiting for me. It was
time to say goodbye.

"God bless and God speed, Walter. You're almost home," I said, choking
back the tears. "Thank you Joan." And then the warden asked if Walter had
any last words. Walter looked up at the microphone and said he was
grateful that he had converted to Islam. And then he asked the family of
Daniel Liepold for forgiveness. He closed his eyes and a tear rolled down
his right cheek.

These were Walter Williams' last moments, as described by his attorney,
Joan Cheever, in her book Back From The Dead. For 9 long years she had
been his champion, trying all ways to change the sentence that had brought
him to death row. Now, as she watched the poison taking hold, she knew the
battle was truly lost. It was 1994 when Joan witnessed Walter's execution
in a Texas jail. Her memories of that night will never fade.

"I think it just felt like an out of body experience that wasn't really
happening, or a bad movie," she says. "We were separated by Plexiglass and
I could see myself watching him. It was very hard. Then to have my fellow
journalists standing behind me writing and the prison officials -
everybody watching a murder, it was just totally bizarre. It's kind of
like 'well, just another execution'."

Yet to Joan it was far from this. A working journalist who just happened
to have been to law school, she took on Walter's case to help a friend,
for what she thought would be a matter of months. As she explains, it
seemed to her to be open and shut. "I thought it (his death sentence)
would be reversed on appeal because there were so many errors at the trial
level and Walter didn't have a prior record, so he really wasn't
considered a dangerous individual," says Joan, 48, who lives in Texas. "I
wasn't in favour of the death penalty but I was so surprised that someone
like him would be sent to death row, when I thought, like most people,
that it was reserved for the worst of the worst."

As time went on - and Walter lived through 5 execution dates - Joan got to
know him as a person. She became convinced that this was not the same man
who, as a drugged-up teenager, had murdered Daniel Liepold. "I didn't know
him when he was first put on death row but I had read about how he acted
in the courtroom," she says. "I could see that the person I represented
was not the person they described. He had converted to Islam. He was quiet
and remorseful and he had asked for forgiveness. He had changed - I think
we all do. I think most everyone is capable of change."

After Walter died, this conviction came back to haunt Joan. There was one
thing she had to know: had her instinct been right? Had he really
reformed? "I really wanted to know for myself if he had walked off death
row and out of prison, would he have killed again?" she says. "I thought
'I'll never know the answer to that question' but then I realised there
was a group of people who could answer it. They weren't released from
death row because they were innocent but because they happened to be in
the right place at the right time."

The group to which Joan refers is the so called 'Class of '72' - 589
felons who won what she terms the "Death Row lottery". This happened when
in a landmark ruling, the US Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty,
giving inmates throughout the country a second chance. Joan decided to
track them down, embarking on an epic 13-year mission. "Therapy would have
been a lot cheaper and easier," she says wryly.

Her journey began with Lawrence "Bubba" Hayes, who in 1972, was sentenced
to death for killing a policeman. When Joan met him, he'd been released
from prison and was working as a counsellor in Brooklyn. Despite her
initial fear, she found him far from threatening. "Lawrence Hayes is a
good-looking, articulate man," she writes. "He doesn't look or act like a
killer."

Further meetings took her right across America, where former inmates were
living largely anonymously within communities. She had to steel herself
for each encounter. "I believed, like many people, that the people on
Death Row were psychopaths and serial killers, so I had to say 100 hail
Marys and walk to the door," says Joan. "I had that fear and it was very
real."

What she found, in every case, was that to some degree at least, the
former convict had reformed. "They weren't the people who had landed them
on eeath row," she says. "They did a great job with their 2nd chance. I
don't make the case for them - they make it for themselves."

Of the Class of '72, 322 prisoners were released. A total of 111 returned
to jail - 5 for further murders - yet according to Joan, most had
committed only minor crimes. "For most of them, it was because they
violated a rule of their parole," she says. "Of that 111, 42 went back for
non-violent crimes like drug or alcohol offences or because they were
carrying a firearm - but there are many Americans who have guns. On the
whole, those who did return to prison did so for very minor offences."

In 1976, after a brief four-year respite, execution was reinstated in the
US. Since then, it's become a world leader, behind only China, Iran and
Vietnam. At the heart of Joan's argument is that it's the poor, black and
uneducated who fill the ranks of death row - and not the heinous felons we
might assume. She points to Freddie Pitts and Wilbert Lee, who in 1963,
were framed for 2 gas station murders. "The 2 men were questioned - at one
point for more than 17 hours," she writes. "They were beaten and told to
confess or face a lynch mob. Freddie and Wilbert confessed."

The picture Joan paints is of a system where corruption is endemic, where
killers of whites are 6 times more likely to be put to death than those of
blacks, where your chance of living still depends on your lawyer. Yet
there are some for whom she has no pity. "There are people who should not
be released," she says. "I don't think they should be executed but I don't
think they should be released. I'm realistic. I'm not going to stand on my
soap box and say everyone has a redeeming quality. That's not true. There
are groups of people who are truly evil."

One such person, who she never met, is repeat murderer Kenneth McDuff. "I
first regretted not meeting him or talking to him but then I read about
him and I was very glad I didn't," Joan reflects.

The final part of her journey, which she admits to putting off, was
meeting Daniel Liepold's parents, whose son her client had killed. "Going
to meet the family was the scariest interview that I did," she says. "I
knew that I had to do it but I just hoped that when I wrote a letter to
Daniel's mother and asked to meet she would say 'I don't want to have
anything to do with you'. Mrs Liepold is one tough cookie and she said 'I
absolutely want to meet you'."

At first hostile, when they heard of Walter's remorse - which no one had
thought to mention - the Liepolds welcomed Joan with open arms. The news
gave them something his death had not: the chance to heal. While she's
careful not to generalise, Joan believes that killing does not bring
comfort. "The one thing I've learned from talking to victims' families is
that I could never step into their shoes," she says. "But I don't think
execution brings any closure or any good feeling to anybody - I just don't
think it does. Victims' families have been interviewed after witnessing an
execution and they've said they didn't feel better. They still had that
loss. Those families are going to carry that for the rest of their lives."

* Back From The Dead by Joan M Cheever (Wiley, 16.99)

(source: The Northern Echo (UK)