Sept. 13
CALIFORNIA:
Study: Death Penalty Will Cost California Up To $7.7 Billion By 2050
California's prison system is severely overcrowded and expensive, but
incarceration for those sentenced to life without parole is not the state's
most costly form of punishment. With a state initiative to eliminate capital
punishment on the ballot this November, an updated study by a law professor and
a federal appeals court judge projects that California's death penalty system
would cost taxpayers between $5.4 and $7.7 billion more between now and 2050
than if those in death row were sentenced to life in prison without parole.
During that time, the study projects, about 740 more inmates will be added to
death row and 14 executions will be carried out, while more than 500 of those
prisoners will die from suicide or natural causes before the state executes
them. Compared to life without parole - the state's 2nd-most-severe punishment
- the costs of the death penalty system include higher incarceration costs due
to security and other requirements, and astronomical litigation costs - both
for individual appeals and for lethal injection litigation.
Ninth Circuit Senior Judge Arthur L. Alarcon and Loyola Law School Los Angeles
adjunct professor Paula M. Mitchell explain in the Loyola of Los Angeles Law
Review:
[T]here is absolutely no support for the contention, advanced by some
pro-death-penalty organizations, that replacing the death penalty with LWOP
[life without parole] will increase housing or medical care costs for the
state. Death-row inmates grow old and need costly medical care, just as LWOP
inmates do. Indeed, death row inmates receive the same medical care that LWOP
inmates receive, but it is provided at a premium due to logistical problems and
security concerns that are endemic to providing healthcare to aging inmates on
San Quentin's death row. The vast majority of death-row prisoners who have died
in California have lived out the remainder of their natural lives in state
prison, just as LWOP inmates do. This is because most death-row inmates die in
prison of natural causes. They just do so in a much more costly manner than do
LWOP inmates.
If the state were to pass the proposed SAFE California Act (Proposition 34),
$30 million per year would be reallocated toward the 46 % of homicide cases and
56 % of rape cases that go unsolved, according to statistics from the
California Attorney General's office.
Since 1989, California has sentenced 2 men to death who were later exonerated
and released from prison. In 2011 and 2012 alone, five California men who were
wrongfully convicted of murder but received lesser sentences were exonerated
and released from prison, according to the study.
The National Registry of Exonerations - a database of those who were wrongfully
convicted and later exonerated since 1989 - reports that California had the
2nd-highest number of wrongful convictions in the country at 97 (tied with
Texas). The state with the highest number, Illinois, eliminated the death
penalty in 2011.
(source: DPIC)
*******************
It's time to dump California's death penalty by passing Prop. 34----The state's
death penalty already effectively has been abolished. The question now is
whether we should keep throwing away tax money on a broken system.
California has executed only 13 people in the last 34 years, and none since
2006. A study last year found that the state had spent $4 billion to administer
capital punishment since 1978. That's about $308 million per execution.
So for me, Prop. 34 is not about the merits of capital punishment. It's about
whether we should keep paying extravagantly for something we're not getting.
The November ballot measure is relatively simple compared to most other
initiatives. It would repeal California's death penalty and replace it with
life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
It would apply retroactively to the 729 convicted killers already sentenced to
death. They and future murderers would be tossed into the general prison
population and treated like other convicts - double-bunked and required to
work.
Current death row inmates at San Quentin are relatively coddled - in their own
private cells with personal TVs and extensive access to the recreation yard.
"They're allowed to go to the exercise yard seven days a week, up to 6 hours a
day, or they can lay in their cell and watch TV 7 days a week if they want,"
says Jeanne Woodford, a former San Quentin warden and ex-director of the state
corrections department. She's a leading proponent of Prop. 34.
"They don't work because there's no work for death row inmates. So they're not
required to pay restitution to victims' families." They would be under Prop.
34.
The legislative analyst estimates that state and county governments ultimately
would save about $130 million annually by repealing the death penalty.
Over an initial 4-year span, $100 million would be doled out to local law
enforcement agencies to help solve homicide and sex crimes.
"In California on average each year," Woodford says, "46% of murders and 56% of
reported rapes go unsolved. The best way to prevent crime is to solve it. The
more solved crimes, the lower the crime rate. That's really the deterrent to
crime."
Don't read me wrong. You won't see any arguments here about the death penalty
being immoral, unfair or barbaric. I don't buy it. These creeps - once proven
guilty beyond a shadow of doubt - should be removed from our planet ASAP. It's
just that a condemned man in California is far more likely to die of old age
than execution. In all, 57 have died of natural causes and 21 from suicide.
The death penalty isn't a deterrent? Anyone executed will never kill again.
Moreover, it's deserved punishment. Any mercy should be up to the depraved
killer's God.
We might execute an innocent man? That may have occurred in other states, but
no one can point to it ever happening in California in modern times.
Former Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, however, worries about the
innocence question. As a prosecutor, he sent dozens to death row. With 729
currently housed on the row, "I just have to believe that there are at least a
couple who are factually innocent," he says. "We're all human beings. We make
mistakes."
Garcetti strongly supports Prop. 34, but principally because of the wasted
money issue.
"I'm not absolutely opposed morally to the death penalty," he says, "but I've
concluded that in California it serves no useful purpose, it doesn't work and
it's not fixable. The costs are obscene.
"We're laying off teachers and firefighters and police officers. Spending $184
million more per year on the death penalty doesn't make sense."
The $184-million figure comes from a study conducted last year by U.S. 9th
Circuit Judge Arthur L. Alarcon and Loyola Law School professor Paula M.
Mitchell. They figured that was the annual cost of housing death row prisoners
over what it would be if they had been sentenced to life in prison.
They also estimated that fully implementing the death penalty, chiefly by
hiring more judges and attorneys, would cost an extra $85 million annually.
Opponents of Prop. 34 - district attorneys, sheriffs, police chiefs, victims'
rights groups - dispute those figures but don't offer their own. They argue
that executions could be expedited if the state moved quickly to a 1-drug
process for lethal injections. The former 3-drug process has been blocked by
courts.
Gov. Jerry Brown has directed the state corrections department to develop a
one-drug method. But don't expect him to stay on top of it and push. For Brown,
repeal of the death penalty has been a lifelong cause.
State Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris also is a staunch death penalty opponent,
although, like Brown, she pledges to carry out the law.
Well, for whatever reasons - mainly the lethal injection flap and prolonged
court appeals - it's not being carried out.
"The Prop. 34 proponents' best argument is that nobody is getting executed,"
asserts Mitch Zak, campaign strategist for the vastly underfunded opponents.
"They don't want anyone to be executed. They've successfully broken the system.
"What you're doing [with Prop. 34] is rewarding them by giving them what they
want. But voters are smart enough to know that the death penalty is an
appropriate tool for the worst of the worst."
But the tool isn't working. Time to dump it and stop throwing away money.
(source: George Skelton, Los Angeles Times)
*********************
Scott Peterson on Death Row: New Photos Reveal Life at San Quentin
A reporter who was granted access to the death row wing where convicted
murderer Scott Peterson is being held has released pictures and details of what
is life on the inside is like.
Nancy Mullane became the 1st reporter to enter death row in California in
almost a decade, something she worked tirelessly for years to achieve so she
could write her book Life After Murder.
Speaking to Matt Lauer, she revealed she has been going inside San Quentin
prison since 2007 when she was allowed to take pictures and talk to some of the
inmates.
It was only later that she realized Peterson - who was convicted of killing his
wife Laci and unborn child in 2004 - was in the pictures. She told Lauer he has
been moved to a more 'prisoner-friendly' wing of death row, where he has his
own cell and is allowed up to 5 hours a day outside exercising or shooting
hoops.
"He is in a very confined environment living in a tier of the building which is
a more prisoner-friendly section of death row with 68 other inmates. He has
access to the roof from his tier," said Mullane.
There are 3 death row sections in the prison - 1 with maximum security for
'problem prisoners', another generic wing where around 600 inmates live, and
the more relaxed tier which Peterson shares with around 70 other convicts.
Scott Peterson filed an appeal of his 2004 death sentence to the California
Supreme Court in July, saying, as he has always maintained, that he had nothing
to do with the murders of Laci, his wife, and Conner, the child she was
carrying.
Peterson's attorney, noted death penalty lawyer Cliff Gardner, filed the
423-page document 8 years after a San Mateo County jury found the former
fertilizer salesman guilty of suffocating Laci and dumping her in the San
Francisco Bay on Christmas Eve 2002.
(source: KSEE News)
PENNSYLVANIA----new execution date
Governor Corbett Signs Execution Warrant for Killer of York County Teen
Governor Tom Corbett has signed an execution warrant for Hubert L. Michael Jr.,
who pled guilty in October 1994 to kidnapping and 1st-degree murder for the
death of 16-year-old Trista Eng.
On July 12, 1993, Eng was walking along Route 15 from her home to her summer
job at a restaurant in Dillsburg, York County. Michael stopped and offered the
girl a ride to work, which she accepted.
Michael drove to state game lands in Warrington Township, York County, where he
shot Eng 3 times with a handgun and then hid her body in the woods.
10 days later, Michael fled the state in a rented car. At the time, Michael was
out on bail for an unrelated rape charge in Lancaster County. The car was
listed as stolen and entered into the National Crime Information Center system.
On July 27, 1993, Michael was arrested in Utah as a fugitive from justice. The
murder weapon was found in the car at the time of his arrest. Michael was
returned to Pennsylvania and incarcerated in Lancaster County Prison to await
trial on the rape charge.
In August, Michael's brother visited him in prison. Michael confessed to his
brother that he had used the gun to kill Eng and that he had hidden the girl's
body in the state game lands. Based on that information, Michael's brother and
other relatives searched the game lands until they found the teenager's badly
decomposed body, still dressed in her restaurant uniform. Michael's explanation
for the murder was that he was under so much pressure from the rape charge, he
"just lost it.''
Police charged Michael with Eng's murder on Aug. 27, 1993.
In November 1993, Michael assumed the identity of another prisoner and escaped
from Lancaster County Prison. He was later captured in New Orleans and returned
to Pennsylvania in March 1994.
In September 1994, Michael was convicted of rape and other charges and
sentenced to 10- to 20-years in prison. The following month, on Oct. 11, 1994,
Michael pled guilty to 1st-degree murder and kidnapping. He waived a sentencing
hearing and on March 20, 1995, the trial court imposed the death sentence along
with a concurrent prison term for kidnapping.
Michael, now 56, is a prisoner at the State Correctional Institution at Greene.
His execution has been scheduled for Nov. 8, 2012.
This warrant, signed Tuesday, is Corbett's 20th execution warrant.
*****************
Life, not death, for Terrance Williams
A man scheduled to die on Oct. 3 is becoming a cause celebre for many who
believe the state erred in scheduling his execution, and over the death penalty
he received 28 years ago.
Terrance Williams was barely 18 when he killed Amos Norwood in 1984. Williams'
attorney has argued that Norwood had been sexually abusing Williams since the
boy was 13. This information was kept from the jury, and many on the jury now
say that if they had known, they would not have imposed the death penalty.
The list of those lining up to plead for clemency for Williams is long: It
includes Norwood's widow, as well as 18 retired prosecutors and eight retired
judges. Even Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput has argued against putting
him to death.
We agree that Williams should not be put to death. And we echo Chaput's
eloquent words on the subject of capital punishment, which, he wrote in a
recent column, succeeds in "answering violence with violence - a violence
wrapped in the piety of state approval, which implicates all of us as citizens
in the taking of more lives."
Williams' age at the time of the murder - he was barely 18 - should also give
pause to the state. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty
for crimes committed by those under 18. That ruling is just one of multiple
high-court decisions regarding juvenile crimes.
In fact, on Wednesday the state Supreme Court was weighing how and when to
apply a June ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that automatic
life-without-parole sentences for juveniles are unconstitutional. The high
court ruled that such a sentence can't be imposed without a judge or jury
considering mitigating factors, such as the facts of a defendants' life
circumstances and the nature of the crime.
There is increased recognition that children and teenagers are developmentally
different from adults, and that it is unfair to punish them using the same
standards as adults. Williams was only barely an adult at the time of the
Norwood murder - should he die for not commiting his crime a few months
earlier?
(He is also serving a sentence for another murder, committed when he was 17, of
another man accused of abusing him.)
The drumbeat against Williams' execution is also fired by a disturbing
vagueness found in Pennsylvania courts' sentencing instructions. A 2004 report
by the American Bar Association on Pennsylvania's death penalty found that the
overwhelming majority of capital jurors don't understand their roles and
responsibilities when deciding whether to impose a death sentence. That report
cited a study in which 82.8 % of capital jurors did not believe "that a life
sentence really meant life in prison." In other words, if they had, they would
have not imposed death instead.
Among the things that have changed in the 28 years Williams has been waiting to
die: increased horror at sexual abuse of children.
Williams' clemency hearing is Monday. But Gov. Corbett can and should commute
this death sentence now.
(source: Editorial, Philadelphia Daily News)
**********************
Joe Ingle Talks Death Row at Sinclair Lab
Joe Ingle, a 2-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, spoke about the injustice of the
death row on Wednesday in the Sinclair Laboratory, referencing his new book,
Inferno: A Southern Morality Tale.
The book documents the true story of Philip Workman, a man wrongly convicted of
murder, who spent 26 years on death row and was ultimately executed in May
2007.
In his lecture, Ingle tells Workman's story, arguing that the death penalty is
a racist and unjust practice in which blacks are sentenced significantly more
than others.
"When it comes to death row prisoners in this country, there is no justice," he
argued. "The people who come to death row are not the people who committed the
worst crimes. They are the people who have the worst lawyer."
Ingle cited statistics that show both the race of the victim and the race of
perpetrator affect the chances of being sentenced to the death penalty.
Ingle stated that Pennsylvania is the 4th highest state in-use of the death
penalty, with 1,304 executions in the state since 1977.
Lloyd Steffen, Lehigh's chaplain and director of the Dialogue Center and Lehigh
Prison Projects, explained why he asked Ingle to speak at Lehigh.
"[Lehigh students need] to be educated about a criminal justice system that
fails in its mission to provide justice," he said. "The Chaplain's Office and
our Difficult Dialogue Series is meant to bring these kinds of social justice
issues to the community's attention - this is part of our university mission to
develop educated citizens."
"Joe is a story teller, and the story of Philip Workman is the story of an man
wrongly convicted for murder, then executed," he continued. "It is a chilling
story. And it is stories like these that will, I hope, one day lead to the
abolition of the death penalty."
The speech was attended by both faculty and students and fulfilled a
requirement for freshmen orientation and some Lehigh courses.
"My literature and social justice professor recommended I attend this," Sara
Keeler, '15, said. "But I have another friend with me who heard about it on her
own and is really excited."
(source: Lehigh Valley Live)
**************
URGENT ACTION APPEAL
- From Amnesty International USA
----------------------------------
For a print-friendly version of this Urgent Action (PDF):
http://www.amnestyusa.org/actioncenter/actions/uaa26112.pdf
UA: 261/12
Issue Date: 11 September 2012
Country: USA (Pennsylvania)
Take online action here!
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=6oJCLQPAJiJUG&b=6645049&aid=51
8879
OPPOSITION TO PENNSYLVANIA EXECUTION GROWS
Terrance Williams, a 46-year-old African American man, is due to be executed on
3 October in
Pennsylvania for a murder committed when he was 18. The victim's widow, five of
the trial jurors,
and numerous experts on child abuse have called for clemency.
The body of 56-year-old Amos Norwood was found in a cemetery in Philadelphia on
15 June 1984. He had
been beaten to death. Terrance (Terry) Williams was brought to trial in early
1986, and convicted of
first-degree murder. Arguing for the death penalty, the state presented
evidence that he had been
convicted of armed robbery committed when he was 16 and the murder of a
51-year-old man, Herbert
Hamilton, when he was 17. In mitigation, the defense presented three witnesses
– the mother,
girlfriend, and a cousin of the defendant – who testified as to his good
character. Except for a
passing reference by the mother that her second husband was "very abusive" to
her son, there was no
other evidence presented of any abuse suffered by Terry Williams. The defense
lawyer urged the jury
to consider his client's young age – 18 years and three months – at the time of
the crime.
According to Terry Williams' clemency petition, his childhood was marked "by
over a decade of sexual
abuse" as well as "years of physical and emotional abuse, neglect and
abandonment". This
"unrelenting abuse and neglect" rendered him "an easy target for sexual
predators", two of whom had
been Amos Norwood and Herbert Hamilton, according to the petition. In 2007, a
US District Court
found that the trial lawyer's representation of Terry Williams at the
sentencing had been
"constitutionally deficient" and "fell far short of prevailing professional
norms" because of his
failure to conduct a "meaningful investigation" into his client's background.
However, under the
highly deferential standard for federal judicial review of state cases in US
law, the District Court
ruled that the lawyer's failings had not altered the trial's outcome. In 2012,
the US Court of
Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld the ruling, despite acknowledging that the
mitigation evidence
portrayed a "much more complicated and troubled individual than the one
depicted during the trial's
penalty phase."
Those who have called for clemency include 30 child advocates and experts on
child abuse, 18 former
prosecutors, eight retired judges, 47 mental health professionals and numerous
law professors. Amos
Norwood's widow has signed a declaration that she has forgiven Terry Williams
for the murder of her
husband and that she wishes "to see his life spared". Five of the trial jurors
have also said they
now oppose his death sentence.
Please write immediately, in English if possible (to Governor until 3 October;
to Board until 17
September):
-Explaining that you are not seeking to excuse Amos Norwood's murder or
downplay the suffering
caused;
-Expressing concern that, during the trial, the jury never heard evidence of
Terrance Williams'
severely abusive childhood from which he was only just emerging at the time of
the crime, when he
was 18 years old;
-Welcoming the breadth of opposition to this execution, from former judges,
prosecutors, and experts
on child abuse, in addition to five of the trial jurors and the widow of Amos
Norwood;
-Calling for Terry Williams' death sentence to be commuted.
PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 3 OCTOBER 2012 TO:
Office of Governor Tom Corbett
Main Capitol Building, Room 225Harrisburg, PA 17120, USA
Fax: 1 717 772 8284
Email: gover...@pa.gov
Salutation: Dear Governor
Pennsylvania Board of Pardons
333 Market Street, 15th Floor
Harrisburg, PA 17126, USA
Fax: 1 717 772 3135
Email: ra-...@pa.gov
Salutation: Dear Board members
Please check with the AIUSA Urgent Action Office if sending appeals after the
above date.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
The US Supreme Court has said that "capital punishment must be limited to those
offenders who commit
a narrow category of the most serious crimes and whose extreme culpability
makes them the most
deserving of execution". In 2005, in Roper v. Simmons, the Court removed people
who were under 18 at
the time of the crime from the reach of the death penalty on the grounds of
their categorically
diminished culpability. The Roper ruling recognized the immaturity,
impulsiveness, poor judgment and
underdeveloped sense of responsibility often associated with youth. The Court
noted that while it
was coming up with a categorical rule, the age of 18 as a cut-off for death
penalty eligibility was
a minimum standard. The Court noted that the "qualities that distinguish
juveniles from adults do
not disappear when an individual turns 18". Indeed, scientific research shows
that development of
the brain and psychological and emotional maturation continues at least into a
person's early 20s.
Thus if the murder of Amos Norwood had been committed three-and-a-half months
earlier, Terry
Williams would not now be facing execution as he would have been under 18 at
the time of the crime.
In addition, if the jury had heard the sort of evidence and expert testimony
about the abusive
childhood from which he was emerging at the time of the murder of Amos Norwood,
it has to be
considered possible that at least one of the jurors would have voted for life
rather than death (as
five of them have now indicated). In 1993, the Supreme Court emphasized that:
"youth is more than a
chronological fact. It is a time and condition of life when a person may be
most susceptible to
influence and to psychological damage." According to his clemency petition,
Terry Williams'
childhood "had a devastating effect on his psychological and emotional
development. Terry Williams'
first 18 years of life were nothing short of tragic. He was physically abused
by his mother and
stepfather and was raped and sexually assaulted by adults who should have
protected him. He never
received any kind of mental health treatment or counseling to help him cope
with the trauma". Dr
David Lisak, a clinical psychologist and an expert on such abuse and its
effects on boys and men,
has said that "the violence and abuse that Terry Williams suffered was so
severe, and so sustained,
that I would not expect any child subjected to such unrelenting trauma to
emerge without severe and
long lasting psychological damage". Terry Williams has been diagnosed as
suffering from, among other
things, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and to this day is reported to
suffer "secondary
symptoms of PTSD, including near constant anxiety, sleep disorders, and
nightmares".
According to the clemency petition, the sexual exploitation of Terry Williams
by Amos Norwood became
increasingly violent over time. The murder for which Terry Williams is now
facing execution took
place the day after a violent sexual assault by Norwood on the teenager. Terry
Williams told Dr
Lisak that at the time of the murder, "I was very angry and very scared, and I
just snapped. I
wanted him to feel the pain that he made me feel. I couldn't think clearly. I
felt such anger and
betrayal at everyone who used me and betrayed me. I couldn't think of anything
else". Terry
Williams, who has spent more than half of his life on death row, is reported to
be "deeply
remorseful" for the murders of Herbert Hamilton and Amos Norwood, and "has
demonstrated an ongoing
desire to become a better person and to make a positive impact on his daughter
and on society from
behind the prison walls".
The clemency petition does not seek to excuse the murder of Amos Norwood but
asks the clemency
authorities to consider the mitigating effect of the childhood abuse Terry
Williams suffered,
something the jury was never able to do.
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty unconditionally in all cases,
regardless of
questions of culpability, the details of the crime, or the method used to kill
the prisoner. There
have been 1,304 executions in the USA since executions resumed there in 1977,
including 27 so far in
2012. This would be the first "non-consensual" execution in Pennsylvania for 50
years. The three
executions carried out in this state since 1977 were of people who had given up
their appeals.
Name: Terrance Williams (m)
Issues: Death penalty, Legal concern
---------------------------------
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----------------------------------
END OF URGENT ACTION APPEAL
----------------------------------
ARIZONA----new death sentence
Marana couple's killer gets death sentence ---- Texas man shot pair, burned
bodies in trash pit in '09
A Texas man convicted of killing a Marana couple 3 years ago was sentenced to
death Wednesday afternoon.
The sentence was imposed by the same Pima County jury that on Aug. 31 convicted
Michael Carlson, 56, of 1st-degree murder in the 2009 deaths of Rebecca Lou
Lofton, 52, and Kenneth "KR" Alliman, 49.
During closing arguments Monday, Deputy Pima County Attorney Nicol Green told
jurors Carlson deserved the death penalty because he killed multiple people,
has a past violent criminal history and was on parole at the time.
Green urged the jurors to take Carlson's character into consideration when
determining his fate. He threw the victims into the trash pits as though they
were trash and reduced their remains to thousands of bone fragments, she said.
During his trial, prosecutors presented evidence Carlson shot the couple to
death and burned their bodies in trash pits located on property owned by the
Menden family in Marana.
Jurors were shown a television interview in which Carlson confessed to killing
the couple because he believed they were disrespecting the Mendens. He also
confessed in gruesome detail to killing eight other people, murders authorities
determined never happened.
What kind of a person fancies himself a killer and matter-of-factly provides
in-depth details of imagined slayings? Green asked the jurors.
The defense has tried to portray Carlson as a victim of a dysfunctional family
and brutal Texas prison system, but Green suggested that he wasn't a victim,
but a manipulator.
Incidents of self-mutilation in the military and prison could have been
attempts to get attention and not evidence of mental illness, Green said.
The few assaults Carlson was a victim of were relatively minor, and he didn't
report an alleged rape until after he was facing the possibility of going back
to prison for violating his parole, Green said.
Carlson's 3 brothers grew up in the same family and have led law-abiding,
normal lives, Green said.
Defense attorney Harley Kurlander blasted Green's closing argument, saying she
was improperly appealing to the jury's emotions. He said he lost track of the
number of times Green said "trash" and said there was no reason for Green to
show the jurors photos of the victims' remains.
The death penalty should be reserved for the worst of the worst, and Carlson
doesn't qualify, Kurlander said.
Carlson suffered an abusive childhood that left him with mental health issues
and yet the state wants to kill him, Kurlander said.
The state may make light of it, but Carlson has lived in the depths of hell,
Kurlander said.
Kurlander reminded jurors a prison expert and forensic psychologist testified
Carlson isn't likely to be dangerous in prison. In fact, Carlson might be able
to help other inmates; he has a history of volunteer work, he said.
The defense attorney also said the jurors could consider Carlson's protective
nature, desire to be part of a family and his expressed remorse over Lofton's
death as mitigating circumstances.
One of the doctors who examined Carlson said people who are treated poorly as
children can become irrationally attached to those they feel they can trust,
Kurlander said, and Carlson became attached to the Mendens.
After the death sentence was announced, Pima County Superior Court Judge
Richard Nichols met with the jurors and told them that at the same time Carlson
confessed to killing the victims, he confessed to killing his sister, Maria
Thoma, 51, in 2003. She was shot to death in Tucson.
The Pima County Attorney's Office dismissed all of the charges in that case
after Judge Christopher Browning threw out the taped interview because
detectives violated his Miranda rights.
Jurors didn't hear Carlson's confession to detectives in the Alliman-Lofton
case for the same reason.
(source: Arizona Daily Star)
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