July 24
TEXAS----impending execution
Texas judge refuses to stop execution next week
A Brazos County judge has refused to stop the execution next week of a
convicted murderer described by his lawyers as mentally incompetent for the
death penalty.
State District Court Judge J.D. Langley rejected requests Tuesday by attorneys
for Marcus Druery that his Aug. 1 execution be postponed to allow for a
competency hearing. Langley says the legal threshold for a hearing hasn't been
reached.
Dreury's attorneys say they'll appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled prisoners can't be executed unless they're
aware of the punishment and know why they're being punished.
Druery was condemned for the 2002 shooting and robbery of 20-year-old Skyyler
Browne at Druery's family property in rural Brazos County. Both were Texas
State Technical College students in Waco.
(source: Associated Press)
SOUTH DAKOTA:
Daugaard Could Oversee 3 SD Executions
There are decades between 2 high profile South Dakota murder cases. But the 3
convicted criminals could be put to death in the same time span. Eric Robert,
Rodney Berget and Donald Moeller are all on death row. This could be the 1st
time in more than 100 years multiple criminals are put to death under 1
governor.
Governor Dennis Daugaard understands it is the most extreme form of punishment.
"Participating in the death penalty is not something one looks forward to but
it is not something I am going to shrink from," Governor Dennis Daugaard said.
But Daugaard says he believes in the death penalty when life in prison is not
enough.
"You can't always depend upon incarceration to protect the public; witness R.J.
Johnson's death from someone who was in the penitentiary," Daugaard said.
More than a year after South Dakota Corrections Officer Ron Johnson was killed
in a failed prison escape, Eric Robert and Rodney Berget are on death row and
awaiting mandatory Supreme Court appeals. In another case, after years sitting
death row for years and multiple failed appeals, a fall execution date has been
set for Donald Moeller. Moeller was convicted of the rape and murder of
nine-year-old Becky O'Connell more than 20 years ago.
"It's an unfortunate fact of life; there are some people out there that are
very bad people and represent a danger to society," Daugaard.
Daugaard says he is not going to be an advocate for the death penalty beyond
extreme criminal cases.
"South Dakota citizens deserve to be protected from them in a permanent way,"
Daugaard said. "It doesn't mean we are becoming Texas."
3 other men are also on South Dakota's death row. The last criminal to be put
to death in the state was Elijah Page in 2007. He was the 1st execution in 60
years. The last time a governor oversaw multiple death penalties was in 1902
when death by hanging was still legal.
(source: KELOLAND)
*******************
Rhines' death penalty appeal heads to trial
It's a walk he hasn't taken in quite some time. Charles Russell Rhines was back
in the Pennington county courthouse Tuesday, where he was sentenced to death.
This time, he hopes, an appeal may prolong his life.
"The heart of the claims focused on the failure of Mr. Rhines trial counsel.
They didn't speak to his family until the trial had been going on for a couple
weeks, didn't' talk to his mother at all, didn't talk to people he'd served in
the military with," said Federal Public Defender Neil Fulton.
Rhines' defense team hopes success at trial could mean another shot at
sentencing.
"He would have an opportunity for resentencing in front of a jury, it would not
vacate his conviction, just give him a new sentencing," said Fulton.
"When the trial first started in 1993, we told both sides, the defense and
prosecution ...please do your very best to get this right. We don't want to do
this over again," said Donnivan's mother Peggy Schaeffer.
Hearing after hearing, the Schaeffer family has had to re–live their son's
death, while sitting just yards away from his killer.
"Donnivan's death needs accountability, there's someone accountable for this.
If its death, its death. All we want, all we've ever wanted, is the law, we
want the law to be upheld," said Schaeffer.
"It is the greatest penalty that's available and so it requires the greatest
caution," said Fulton.
Also in Rhines' appeal are allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, stemming
from the language prosecutors used to describe the murder to the jury.
Rhines' appeal will be heard over four days in front of Judge Thomas Trimble,
starting November 26th.
(source: KOTA News)
USA:
The Toll of Representing Those on Death Row
Bryan Stevenson, Executive Director of Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama,
recently delivered the keynote address at the 30th anniversary celebration of
the Open Door Community in Atlanta. Mr. Stevenson discussed how defending those
on death row often takes a personal toll on those engaged in this work, even to
the point of feeling "broken." But, he added, "I’ve learned some very basic
things, being a broken person. I’ve learned that each person is more than the
worst thing they’ve ever done. I believe that if somebody tells a lie, they’re
not just a liar; if somebody takes something, they’re not just a thief; even if
somebody kills someone, they’re not just a killer. And because of this, I
believe that we have this need, this mission, this calling, to embrace them and
to recognize this 'something else.'”
The full text of Stevenson’s remarks can be read at:
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/CelebratingBrokenCommunity.pdf
(source: DPIC)
CALIFORNIA:
Supreme Court Upholds Death Sentence in Murder of Woman Abducted From BART
Station
The California Supreme Court yesterday affirmed the death sentence for a man
convicted of the murder of a 25-year-old woman kidnapped from a Bay Area Rapid
Transit District station.
Attorneys for Keith Tyson Thomas did not dispute his involvement, which he
confessed to, in the robbery and kidnapping of Francia Young. But they tried to
pin most of the blame on codefendant Henry Glover Jr. , whom they claimed
actually fired the shot that killed Young.
Because Glover was sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of
parole, the defense argued, it was unfair to impose the death penalty on
Thomas. But the high court unanimously disagreed.
Alameda Superior Court Judge Alfred A. Delucchi sentenced Thomas to death after
jurors found him guilty of first degree murder, kidnapping for robbery,
forcible rape, and forcible sodomy in the Young case, with special
circumstances of rape, robbery, kidnapping and sodomy, but found that he did
not personally use a firearm in the commission of the crime.
They also found him guilty of robbery and other crimes stemming from an
incident that occurred 12 days later.
It was the latter incident that led to his being arrested, and ultimately
charged with the murder. Police investigating Glover for the second robbery
searched the home of some relatives of his, and found an umbrella that appeared
to be Young’s.
A photo of Thomas taken at an ATM where he and Glover tried to use Young’s card
showed him carrying what may have been the same umbrella.
Thomas’ statements to police gradually shifted, and in the end he acknowledged
that he had helped Glover rob the victim, and that he’s had sex with her. But
he insisted that he was not with Glover when Young was shot, and that he didn’t
know she had been killed until days later, and that he then turned himself in
to police.
Justice Joyce L. Kennard, writing for the high court, said that the death
sentence was not disproportionate to Thomas’ personal culpability, even
assuming that he was telling the truth. The defendant, she said, was a willing
and active participant not only in the “brutal and horrific crimes” against
Young, but also “in what appeared to be an attempt to commit a similar attack
on another woman several days later,” the justice said.
Kennard also rejected a claim that prosecutors committed misconduct by arguing
at his trial that he was the shooter, while arguing the opposite at Glover’s
trial, and that the judge should therefore have dismissed the
personal-use-of-a-firearm enhancement allegation.
Delluchi agreed with the prosecutor that because the evidence was conflicting
and Glover’s jury had found the personal use allegations not true as to Glover,
Thomas’ jury could consider whether he was the actual killer.
Even if that ruling was erroneous, Kennard said, the error was harmless beyond
a reasonable doubt. “The jury’s determination that defendant did not use the
firearm compels the conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt that the personal use
allegations did not influence the jury’s decision adversely to defendant”
either as to guilt or penalty, the justice said.
Kennard was joined by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye and Justices Ming Chin,
Marvin Baxter, Carol Corrigan and Goodwin Liu.
Justice Kathryn M. Werdegar authored a concurring opinion, which was also
joined by Corrigan. Werdegar agreed that any error in allowing inconsistent
arguments with regard to who fired the fatal shot was harmless, but added a
caveat.
She said she was concurring, “with the understanding that nothing in the
majority’s discussion of this issue suggests the prosecutor in this case
committed misconduct, either in charging defendant with personal use of a
firearm or arguing he was the shooter.”
She distinguished In re Sakarias (2005) 35 Cal.4th 140, in which the court held
that a prosecutor had engaged in “deliberate manipulation of the evidence” in
order to argue at 2 separate trials that each of the codefendants was the
actual killer, even though there could only have been one.
Werdegar explained:
“Because the evidence suggests there was only one shooter, when Glover’s jury
in his trial failed to sustain the alleged firearm use enhancement the People
could fairly conclude—and argue to defendant’s jury—that defendant was the
shooter.”
The case is People v. Thomas, 12 S.O.S. 3615.
(source: Metropolitan News Company)
CONNECTICUT:
Death Row Legal Team Seeks to Argue Abolition For All
Lawyers for at least eight of the 10 men sentenced to death in Connecticut
argued Tuesday that the state’s repeal of the death penalty was pertinent to
their lawsuit alleging that capital punishment is too arbitrary to be
constitutional.
The lawsuit rests upon the claim that Connecticut’s death sentence is imposed
arbitrarily, with racial and geographic factors making certain offenders more
likely to be sentenced to death.
In Rockville Superior Court on Tuesday morning, a team of lawyers argued that
Judge Samuel Sferrazza should allow them to amend their complaint to account
for the legislature’s repeal of the death penalty for future offenders.
Attorney David Golub said the prospective nature of the new law made the death
sentence even more arbitrary because it allows some offenders to be executed
while precluding other offenders guilty of similar crimes simply because of the
date the crimes were committed.
“If I commit a crime on Monday I get the death penalty. If I commit the same
crime on Tuesday I do not,” Golub said. “... It doesn’t make sense.” However,
lawyers from the Chief State’s Attorney’s Office asked the judge to deny the
request to change the lawsuit. Assistant State’s Attorney Michael Proto said
that rendering illegal the death sentences of the inmates already set to be
executed was not lawmakers’ intent when they passed the bill back in April.
Proto said that the legislative enactment was not within the parameters of what
the court was tasked with addressing. He said amending the complaint would also
add more delays in a case where delay already is inevitable.
“In terms of litigation, this is a Mack truck, not a Maserati — it doesn’t stop
on a dime,” he said.
Golub said he and the other lawyers representing the inmates were surprised the
state was objecting to the amendment. He said the alternative is that his
client, Sedrick Cobb, and every other death row inmate will file a new,
separate petition tomorrow to reflect the repeal. “How does that make sense?”
he asked.
Sferrazza will have to rule on whether the lawsuit can be amended sometime
before the case heads to trial in September. The state plans to conduct the
trial at Northern Correctional Institution where the inmates are housed. It
will be broadcast live at the Rockville courthouse for the public.
The fate of the men already sentenced to death was a prominent concern as the
new law was being debated in the legislature. Some supporters like Democrat
Sen. Edith Prague only voted for the bill on the explicit assurance it would
not impact the executions of those already sentenced. “I am fully prepared to
vote for repeal with the caveat that I stand up on the floor and get
documentation from the chair of the Judiciary Committee that this in no way
gives judges any discretion to apply this repeal to the people who are
currently on death row,” Prague said back in April.
When it came time to vote, Prague got that assurance. But opponents maintained
the prospective nature of the law wouldn’t pass constitutional muster and the
end result would be courts scrapping the executions of the 10 men currently
sentenced to death.
“That’s a decision that will be decided in the courts,” Senate Republican
leader John McKinney said. “No one disputes that there will be a legal
challenge brought by the public defender’s office and the weight of the legal
experts is to say that a prospective death penalty won’t pass constitutional
muster.”
It will be some time before that is decided. Golub said lawyers for the inmates
hope to get the issue before the state Supreme Court as soon as possible.
“Ultimately, we all know it’s going to be decided by the Connecticut Supreme
Court,” he told the judge Tuesday.
(source: Connecticut News Junkie)
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