Dec. 6
CALIFORNIA:
Death penalty to be sought in murder case
A City Heights man faces the death penalty on charges that he fatally shot
his pregnant ex-girlfriend after delivering roses to her Mission Valley
office last year.
Deputy District Attorney Matthew Greco told a judge today that he would
seek the execution of Roger McDowell.
McDowell is accused of murdering Dawna Denize Wright, 31, and Wright's
unborn child in June 2007.
McDowell, 35, had been slated to go on trial in April 2009, but San Diego
Superior Court Judge John S. Einhorn said that date was "unrealistic"
given the severity of the penalty McDowell now faces.
A new trial date will be set at a Dec. 19 hearing, the judge said.
(source: San Diego Union-Tribune)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Federal court orders DA to watch death row case
Blair County's district attorney has been ordered by a federal judge to
monitor the state Supreme Court's handling of a death row case involving
an Altoona man convicted of murder.
In August, William L. Wright III said he was tired of waiting for the
state court to decide his appeal and would rather be executed.
U.S. District Judge David S. Cercone of Pittsburgh, in a 12-page opinion,
had no comment on the request by Wright to be executed, but he did not
dismiss outright the inmate's complaints that the Pennsylvania Supreme
Court has violated his rights to speedy disposition of his appeal.
Wright was sentenced to death by Blair County Judge Hiram Carpenter in
2000. He was convicted of first-degree murder for the death of James
Mowery of Altoona, which occurred on Thanksgiving Day in 1998.
The appeal of Wright's conviction and death sentence was argued before the
state's highest court in March 2004. There has been no action on the
appeal for the past 57 months.
The Supreme Court's Capital Appeal Docket lists the case as "active," but
confirms no rulings have been made.
In the meantime, 3 of the 7 justices who heard the argument no longer are
on the court.
Chief Justice Ralph J. Cappy retired this year. Justice Sandra Schultz
Newman retired in 2006, and Justice Russell M. Nigro lost his bid for
retention in 2006.
Cercone said it would be unusual for the federal court to interfere with
the state court's handling of a case, saying, "This court has no authority
over the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and cannot order it to issue a legal
decision on a case before it."
The federal court, however, can take action if there is "inordinate
delay," which could include granting an exception to the rule that a
convict must exhaust his state appeals before taking his case to the
federal court, Cercone said.
The federal court eventually could order a new trial or the release of the
prisoner because of inordinate delay, he said.
Cercone said there is no evidence the Wright case has "fallen through the
cracks" of the Pennsylvania justice system but said more than four years
of delay "is a substantial amount of time."
District Attorney Richard Consiglio, who tried the Wright case, said
Thursday that he has no problem with the time it has taken for the Supreme
Court to decide the matter, pointing out that there were 59 issues raised
on appeal.
The federal court has ordered Consiglio to file a written notice of the
status of the Wright case with the federal court on the 28th of every
month.
Consiglio said he was baffled by the order, saying he has no way of
knowing the status of the case.
"I don't tell the Supreme Court what to do. It tells me what to do. I
don't know how I have standing to monitor the Supreme Court," he said.
Wright is requesting a new trial because, among many reasons, he contends
that his attorney had only 12 days to prepare his defense, Consiglio's
closing arguments was prejudicial and pictures of the crime scene
presented to the jury were inflammatory.
(source: Altoona Mirror)
ALABAMA:
Birmingham man convicted on reckless murder charge in tot's death
Reckless murder verdict rendered
Markeith Williams Jr. faces 20 years to life in prison after his
conviction Friday of reckless murder in a 2006 shooting in which a stray
bullet killed a 2-year-old child asleep with his mother.
The jury, which also considered capital murder charges in the Sept. 18,
2006, death of George Amerson, convicted Williams on the lesser charge
after 11 hours of deliberations Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
The jury reached the verdict about an hour after Circuit Judge Tommy Nail
delivered what is known as an Allen charge, or dynamite charge, to the
jury, which had been unable to reach a verdict. The purpose of the Allen
charge is to encourage jurors to re-examine their opinions and attempt to
reach a unanimous verdict.
Nail set sentencing for Jan. 30.
"I think the jury's verdict was a message regarding the use of violence in
the community and to the extreme indifference to the value of human life,"
said Jefferson County prosecutor Patrick Lamb.
Defense attorney Eric Guster, who tried the case with lawyer Emory
Anthony, said they respect the jury's verdict.
"We still stand that my client did not fire that shot," Guster said.
George's mother, Jennifer Ormond, cried following the verdict and said
justice had been served.
The capital charge alleged that Williams committed an intentional murder
with the special circumstances that he killed a child and fired into an
occupied dwelling.
The jury instead found that he did not kill intentionally, but instead
took a life while acting recklessly and either disregarding or showing
indifference to the deadly potential.
George was in bed in a second-floor unit at the Uptown Apartments on 19th
Street North when a bullet fired from a military-style rifle ripped
through a bedroom wall and tore through his body. He died almost
instantly, a Jefferson County coroner testified.
The prosecution contended that Williams was trying to kill another person
at the apartment complex that night.
Williams' use of an AK-47 rifle, which is used as a military weapon
worldwide, showed he intended to kill when he opened fire from a hilltop
overlooking the apartment complex, the prosecutor told jurors in closing
arguments.
"An AK 47 is not a target pistol," Lamb told jurors. "It's a killing gun.
I don't think there is any dispute the gun was fired to kill someone."
4 people, including two associates of Williams, testified that they saw
Williams holding a rifle while running toward the apartment just before
the shooting. One of the witnesses said he saw Williams fire the gun.
'Ridiculous':
After learning a child had been killed in the shooting, Williams became
upset and said he had messed up, one of his friends testified.
Guster argued that Williams was innocent of the charges and that the
witnesses against him had no credibility.
Guster told jurors Wednesday that there was no physical evidence linking
Williams to the crime and that the eyewitnesses had motives to frame him.
All of that added up to reasonable doubt, Guster said.
Guster said Williams was disappointed by the guilty verdict. "However,
when you look at the fact that the death penalty and life without parole
is off the table, that's a good thing. But when you state you are innocent
of a charge like this and you're found guilty, it makes you sad."
Guster said the case illustrates the need for federal and local lawmen to
combat the availability of assault-type weapons.
"It's ridiculous that these young guys can get AK-47s and SKSs without any
problem," the defense lawyer said. "This should draw attention to that."
(source: Birmingham News)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Albertan unlikely to face death penalty
For now, American prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty for former
Albertan Brad Cooper, charged with 1st-degree murder in the death of his
wife.
Nancy Cooper, 34, formerly of Calgary, was found dead near her home in
Cary, N. C., on July 14. An autopsy concluded she was likely strangled.
The couple moved there 8 years ago.
Under North Carolina law, prosecutors can seek the death penalty only if
there is evidence of at least one "aggravating factor" in the case, such
as a particularly heinous or cruel killing.
(source: The Calgary Herald)
USA:
Letters from Ireland ease one man's isolation on death row
AFTER 13 years on South Carolina's death row, Joseph Gardner was due to be
executed last night for the 1992 rape and murder of 25-year-old Melissa
McLauchlin. The victim's father said this week that Gardner's death by
lethal injection would not bring closure to her family and he did not plan
to witness the execution.
After a brief pause while the supreme court considered whether death by
lethal injection was in breach of the US constitutions, the death chambers
are back in action in the 36 states that allow the death penalty. 8
executions are scheduled for January, 6 of them in Texas, and many more
are planned in the months after that.
Barack Obama's election will do nothing to help the 3,309 prisoners on
death row across America; in fact, the incoming president favours
extending the death penalty to the non-lethal rape of children.
For inmates on death row, the time between Thanksgiving in late November
and Christmas is one of the most difficult, when their isolation is
brought home most painfully. Visits and phone calls are strictly limited
and many death row inmates, in common with other prisoners, value pen
friends as a means of staying in touch with the outside world and as
evidence that someone on the outside cares about them.
Sen Riain, a former teacher who lives in Dublin, has been writing to
"Ray", a prisoner on death row somewhere in the US for several years.
Riain, who found his pen friend through the Rome-based Communita di
Sant'Egidio (www.santegidio.org) says he didn't start writing to Ray
because he is good "but because I'm trying to be good."
However, a selection of their correspondence called Condemned Letters
from Death Row and published by Liberties Press, shows how enriching and
mutually inspiring Riain's relationship with Ray has become.
The son of crack addicts who left school after eighth grade, Ray, who is
in his 20s, was sentenced to death for a killing during a robbery.
He tells Riain early on that he doesn't want to dwell too much on the
misery of spending 23 hours every day in a tiny cell and he takes more
delight in hearing about life in Ireland than in lamenting his own fate.
"You said you and your family went to the dramas in Mountjoy, now that's a
thought-provoking name for a prison. I'm sure it's not that joyous there,
wonder have any of the prisoners ever tried to sue for false advertising!"
he writes in an early letter.
Riain's letters describe his family's everyday events, discuss political
events in the US and Ireland and sometimes include accounts of Celtic
myths like that of Setanta or the Children of Lir.
Ray is always appreciative but he is entirely frank in his criticism of
Riain's stories, telling him flatly if they are not interesting or if his
Irish friend has failed to provide enough context.
As the letters progress, Riain gently probes for more information about
life on death row and Ray describes his weeks in solitary confinement for
getting testy with a prison guard and talks about the gloom that descends
each time one of his comrades is executed.>{? Interspersed among the
letters is a wealth of information about the death penalty in the US,
notably its disproportionate use against African-Americans and Latinos.
At its heart, however, the book is an account of a remarkable friendship
between two men who appear at first to have little in common but who
discover an unlikely intimacy.
By the end, Ray feels as if he knows Ireland, as when he writes about
receiving 2 postcards from Connemara.
"Looking at them, I thought I could smell the air," he writes.
"If I'm ever in Ireland, somebody must take me to Cork and Connemara for
sure. On the pictures, it's nothing but water across to the next mountain,
or rather island. I would just like to stand in the middle of the green
field or atop the bank and just scream as loud as I can and converse with
the skies about whatever comes to mind at the time."
(source: The Irish Times)
