Nov. 22
GEORGIA:
Court upholds tough standard of proof for death-row inmates
A divided federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld Georgia's tough burden of
proof required of death-penalty defendants seeking to prove they are mentally
disabled and thus not eligible for execution.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision means that Georgia remains the
only state in the country that sets the highest barrier for defendants raising
such claims to escape execution. The ruling impacts claims being raised by
about 10 death-row inmates who have failed to prove their mental disability
beyond a reasonable doubt and would have received new hearings had the court
struck down Georgia's law.
Judge Frank Hull, writing for the 6-4 majority, noted that when the U.S.
Supreme Court barred the execution of the mentally disabled in 2002, the high
court left it up to individual states to develop the guidelines for determining
who is mentally disabled.
Because the Georgia Supreme Court recently reaffirmed the beyond a reasonable
doubt threshold, it is not an issue for the federal courts to decide, Hull
said. Because there is no U.S. Supreme Court precedent to the contrary, she
added, federal law "mandates that this federal court leave the Georgia Supreme
Court decision alone -- even if we believe it incorrect or unwise."
The court issued its ruling in the case involving Warren Hill, who was found by
a state court judge to be mentally disabled, but under the lowest legal
threshold, not the toughest.
Hill sits on death row for bludgeoning a fellow inmate to death with a
nail-studded board in 1990. At the time, he was serving a life sentence for
killing his girlfriend.
The ruling sparked vigorous dissents from judges who said the heightened burden
of proof will mean defendants who are mentally disabled are at risk of being
executed.
"This utterly one-sided risk of error is all the more intolerable when the
individual right at stake is a question of life or death," Judge Rosemary
Barkett wrote.
(source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
NEW MEXICO:
Death Row Inmates Cost State $1 Million
Taxpayers are continuing to pay for 2 men who sit on death row, even though the
death penalty was abolished in New Mexico in 2009.
Target 7 asked Gov. Susana Martinez why taxpayers are still paying for the two
men. "It's frustrating but you can't put a dollar sign on justice," Martinez
said.
It cost more than $1 million to try, convict and jail inmates Robert Fry and
Timothy Allen in separate trials. In 2002, Fry was convicted of 4 murders,
including using a sledgehammer to kill Betty Lee. Allen was convicted of raping
and killing a 17-year-old in 1995.
Some death row opponents said the state is wasting money because the majority
of death row cases are eventually thrown out at the federal level.
"I would like people to understand that we continue to waste resources on a
system that is broken, a system that doesn't work," death row opponent Viki
Harrison said.
A 3rd inmate may soon sit on death row. Michael Astorga was convicted of
killing Bernalillo County Sheriff's Deputy James McGrane. Since the crime
occurred before the death penalty was abolished, Astorga could be sentenced to
death at trial next year.
(source: KOAT News)
SOUTH DAKOTA:
Federal appeals court denies South Dakota death row inmate Moeller's request to
rehear case
A federal appeals court has denied a request from South Dakota death row inmate
Donald Moeller for a rehearing.
Attorney General Marty Jackley says the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals
denied Moeller's petition to rehear his case on Tuesday.
Attorney General Marty Jackley says the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals
denied Moeller's petition to rehear his case on Tuesday. Moeller's attorneys
argued there were constitutional violations at the 1997 trial where he was
convicted of raping and murdering a 9-year-old Sioux Falls girl. He was
sentenced to death and the State Supreme Court affirmed the sentence.
An appeal to the State Circuit Court and federal district court were also
denied.
Moeller has 90 days to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his case.
The 59-year-old Moeller is challenging South Dakota's death penalty in a
separate court case.
(source: Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA:
L.A.'s "Most Prolific Serial Killer" Will Be Charged for Murders of 4 More
Women
Chester Turner has been dubbed L.A.'s "most prolific serial killer," for taking
the lives of 10 women, and is currently sitting on California's death row. Now
Turner, 44, will be charged with 4 additional counts of murder, for killings
that took place in the same time frame and in the same vicinity of most of his
other murders.
9 of the 10 victims were murdered within a 4-block-wide corridor that ran on
either side of Figueroa Street between Gage Avenue and 108th Street. The
killings took place between 1987 and 1998. One of Turner's victims had been
pregnant, and though the fetus did not survive, it was not far along enough to
be considered a victim under state law.
These 4 new charges are for murders tied to Turner, a former Domino's pizza
deliveryman, that also took place in this same corridor. Turner's recurrent
m.o. was to strangle his victims to death and leave their nude bodies at the
scene. When convicted in 2002 for a sexual assault, Turner submitted his DNA.
Database matching connected Turner to 9 murders; he was convicted in 2007.
"The murder charges include the special-circumstance allegations of multiple
murders and murder during the commission of a rape or attempted rape of all 4
victims, which makes Turner eligible for the death penalty," explains the AP.
"Prosecutors have not yet decided whether to pursue the death penalty again."
Arraignment on these new charges is set to take place today.
(source: laist.com)
CONNECTICUT:
Repeal CT Death Penalty, Say Prominent Opponents in Stamford -- National NAACP
President Benjamin Davis and a sister of recently executed Troy Davis spoke in
Stamford Monday against Connecticut's death penalty and against the death
penalty in general.
National civil rights leaders gathered at the Stamford Government Center on
Monday afternoon—the 2-month anniversary of Georgia’s execution of Troy Davis
despite lingering questions over his innocence—to call for the repeal of
Connecticut’s death penalty.
Among those speaking out were Benjamin Jealous, National NAACP President and
Kim Davis, one of Troy Davis’ sisters, and Reverend Raphael Gamaliel Warnock of
Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, both of whom traveled from Georgia.
“Why am I here all the way from Georgia? I’m here because Martin Luther King
was right—injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” Warnock said.
“In these partisan times, I would emphasize that this is an issue that
transcends party politics.”
Jack Bryant, president of Stamford’s NAACP, introduced Kim Davis.
“I’m here on behalf of the Davis family,” she said. “We saw the flaws in the
justice system. There are innocent people on death row right now…we must end
the death penalty, there is no other way.”
Connecticut reinstated the death penalty in 1973 and, while 10 people are
currently on death row, one execution has taken place since that reinstatement.
The death penalty was recently abolished in several states, including New
Jersey, New Mexico, and Illinois.
“We’re hopeful that we will get all the votes we need this time and that this
state will realize Connecticut is better than the death penalty. A case like
Troy Davis’ could happen here,” Jealous said. “It depends on us to be civil
rights leaders, not civil rights laggers.”
Jealous believes that support for the death penalty is the lowest that it's
been in decades, he credits this in part to the visibility of the Troy Davis
case and the way his family has spoken out both during and after the process.
Reverend Kate Heichler of the Church of Christ the Healer and president of the
InterFaith Council of Southwestern Connecticut also spoke against the death
penalty, citing religious and moral reasons for her beliefs and the beliefs
shared by many area religious leaders.
“We have an obligation to say, 'This is not the way,'” Heichler said. “I want
to be a people who seek justice in life-giving ways.”
Many speakers touched on the economic and racial disparities that they believe
exist in the death penalty. They also asked the crowd to remember the case of
James Tillman, the Connecticut man who spent close to 20 years in prison before
DNA evidence proved him innocent in 2006.
“Ninety-five percent of the people on death row cannot afford a layer—capital
punishment is for people with no capitol,” Warnock said.
NAACP chapters around Connecticut have called for 2012 to be the year that the
death penalty is abolished in Connecticut and are asking all those who support
this effort to contact their legislators. State representative Gary
Holder-Winfield, serving the 94th assembly district in New Haven, has been one
of the strongest advocates of ending the death penalty in Connecticut.
“People say we can’t make mistakes, we’re human so we know that we can,”
Holder-Winfield said. “I am Troy Davis and I will fight until I lose office or
I die to abolish the death penalty.”
“Only when the death penalty is repealed can we guarantee that an innocent man
won't be executed,” Bryant said.
(source: Darien Patch)
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