Sept. 18
TEXAS----impending execution
Families still grieving as car wash killer's execution nears
Robert Wayne Harris has a date with death later this week.
Harris, 40, has been on death row since he was convicted of killing 5 former
co-workers at the Mi-T-Fine car wash in Irving on March 20, 2000.
"Just 1 day, it hits you, and you just cry and cry and cry," Charity McFadden
said through tears in an interview at her West Texas home.
Her mother, Rhoda Wheeler, then 46, was shot along with assistant car wash
manager Dennis Lee, 48, of Irving; Agustin Villasenor, 36; his brother,
Benjamin Villasenor, 32; and Roberto Jimenez Jr., 15.
"[Harris] broke up a family," McFadden said. "She was the glue that held our
family together."
McFadden and others plan to travel to Huntsville to view Thursday's scheduled
execution, making Harris the eighth person put to death in Texas this year.
The state's Board of Pardons and Parole is expected to decide Tuesday whether
to grant Harris clemency, a formality given to all death row inmates.
His execution will close a painful chapter for his victims' families, who still
freshly remember that day in 2000.
"I'll still continue to mourn my mother," said McFadden, "but I'll never get
over the anger of what he did."
Harris said he walked into the MacArthur Boulevard car wash to beg for his job
back. He had been fired and arrested for indecent exposure three days earlier
after he was caught masturbating in the bathroom of the business.
His arrival Monday morning, however, troubled co-workers who were preparing to
open the car wash. One asked him to leave.
In handwritten confessions presented during his trial, Harris said he got into
a scuffle.
"I just lost all sense of being and pulled out my gun and started firing,"
Harris wrote. "After I shot them, I just freaked out and sat down, cried, and
started shaking."
Within minutes other employees began arriving to start their day at work.
Agustin Villasenor spotted his dead brother on the floor and ran to his side,
Harris said. He then shot Augustin along with other co-workers who appeared.
"I just got scared," he wrote in his confession, which was presented during his
murder trial. "I made a terrible mistake and I'm truly sorry I did this."
Prosecutors insisted his intentions were more sinister.
Harris arrived at the car wash carrying a Ruger 9 mm weapon, forced Wheeler to
open the safe holding $3,000, and then forced his colleagues to lie down before
shooting them execution-style.
Once he was arrested, Harris admitted to another murder, months earlier, of
Sandy Scott. He led authorities to her decomposing body in a rural field.
He told investigators he shot the 37-year-old mother in November 1999 because
he thought she had stolen $200 from him.
"You'll never get over that," Scott's mother, Annette Riggs, told News 8. "I
wonder what she would have looked like? She would have been 50 years old in
September."
A jury took only 11 minutes to convict Harris back in 2000; he was sentenced to
death soon after.
News 8 met briefly with Harris on death row last month to discuss the crimes
and his impending execution date. He agreed to speak with us, but backed out
after arriving in the interview chamber.
"I want to try and get in touch with my attorney... I ain't going to say
nothing," Harris insisted repeatedly, while adding that he deeply wanted to
speak "to apologize and tell my side of the story."
He admitted he was sorry for what happened, and that he had to come to terms
with his execution.
"I'm tired of being in here anyway," he said.
Harris' reluctance to speak only added to the deep frustrations of his
victims??? families, who have been haunted by unanswered questions.
"I would have liked for him to have told me," McFadden said, "did he shoot [my
mother] first? Did she have to sit there and fear for her life? That's a fear
that I hope she didn't have to have."
(source: WFAA)
*****************
Hearing In Calif. Involves Tests Of DNA From Lake Waco Triple Murder Case
2 California scientists who refused to show up in Waco for a court hearing are
due in court in California Tuesday to explain why they skipped the appearance.
Edward Blake and Alan Keel are scheduled for a contempt of court hearing
Tuesday in Contra Costa County, Calif. over their refusal to show up for a
court hearing last March in Waco.
The 2 men, owners of a California DNA lab, tested samples of DNA that local
attorney Walter S. "Skip" Reeves believes might lead to the release of Anthony
Melendez, who is the only surviving defendant in the murders of 3 teenagers in
1982 at Lake Waco.
In July the ex-wife of the former prosecutor who won a conviction against
Melendez for his alleged role in the grisly murders of the three teens
contacted a California criminalists group and asked it to investigate why a
California DNA lab is refusing to turn over its findings in the case.
Bernadette Feazell, the ex-wife of former McLennan County District Attorney Vic
Feazell, asked the California Association of Criminalists to conduct an
investigation of Edward T. Blake, owner of a California DNA lab, who has
refused to turn over the lab's findings in relation to the triple murder case.
In a letter to Blake dated July 24, CAC ethics committee chairwoman Alicia
Lomas-Gross said the group was initiating an investigation into the lab and its
practices and will complete a report on or before Oct. 22, unless a 60-day
extension is granted.
A woman who answered the telephone Tuesday at the California group's office
said Lomas-Gross was out of the office until Friday.
Reaves has been representing Melendez for more than 10 years.
Bernadette Feazell said in a telephone interview she petitioned the California
regulatory group to begin the investigation because Reaves had not done so.
"But why is it me doing this," Feazell said. "Why isn't (Reaves) doing it?"
In an e-mail sent from the president of CAC to Feazell, Kevin Andera wrote,
"Thank you for bringing this matter to my attention.
"While both Edward Blake and Alan Keel are members of the California
Association of Criminalists, our organization has no authority to compel their
appearance in court or the release of samples from their lab.
"However, if you believe that either of these members have acted in violation
of our Code of Ethics we could begin an ethics investigation into the matter."
Reaves arranged for a private lab in California to do DNA testing, but that lab
now refuses to allow them to transfer testing to another facility where
different methods could produce better results.
On Jan. 6 a Waco district judge cleared the way for Reaves to proceed with an
effort to have further DNA tests performed on evidence collected during the
investigation of the slayings of three teenagers.
Lab owners Blake and Keel were subpoenaed to testify in the January hearing,
but neither showed up, Reaves said.
State District Judge Matt Johnson issued an order of attachment for both men
who failed to show up but unless one or both of them return to the court's
jurisdiction, that order can't be enforced.
On the 30th anniversary of the murders Reaves said the reason behind the lab's
refusal to turn over evidence is "a million-dollar question."
Reaves said more money, perhaps as much as $40,000 more, might convince the lab
to turn over the evidence they have.
Reaves has said he hopes the evidence will ultimately clear Melendez and
perhaps identify the real killer.
Melendez and his brother, Gilbert, pleaded guilty to taking part in the July
13, 1982 murders of Raylene Rice, 17, Jill Montgomery, 17, and Kenneth Franks,
18, in what prosecutors said at the time was a murder-for-hire scheme gone
wrong.
Fishermen found the bodies of the 3 teenagers the next day at Speegleville Park
on Lake Waco.
They had been stabbed repeatedly and the 2 girls had been raped.
Melendez and his brother Gilbert were sentenced to 2 life terms after pleading
guilty to charges stemming from the murders.
Gilbert Melendez died in prison in October 1998.
Spence, who prosecutors said was hired by Waco storeowner Muneer Mohammad Deeb
to kill a female employee, Gayle Kelley, in order to collect on her insurance
policy, but who mistook Montgomery for the woman and killed her and the other 2
teenagers in a case of mistaken identity, was executed in April 1997.
Spence was twice convicted of capital murder in trials in 1984 in Waco and the
next year in Bryan.
After the 1st trial, the Melendez brothers agreed to a plea deal that would
spare them from the death penalty in exchange for their testimony against
Spence in the 2nd trial.
They both later said they had nothing to do with the murders of the teenagers
and pleaded guilty because they believed they would have been sentenced to
death if they had gone to trial.
Deeb was also convicted and sentenced to death, but won a new trial and was
acquitted in 1993.
He died in Dallas County in November 1999.
(source: KWTX News)
***************
The Living Dead: HuffPost Live Talks To Exonerated Death Row Inmate Anthony
Graves
20 years ago, a Texas judge sentenced Anthony Graves to death for 6 murders he
did not commit. He spent 18 years in prison, 12 of them on death row. For most
of that time, he was in solitary confinement -- locked in an 8 by 12 cell,
reinforced by a steel door.
Throughout his incarceration, Graves maintained his innocence and was finally
exonerated in 2010. Now an activist working to create awareness around prisoner
isolation, he testified before a congressional subcommittee, describing the
emotional torture he endured and the mental anguish of his prison mates.
Friday, he joined HuffPost Live -- to tell his story again and describe how his
many years in the hole impacted his life. He told Jacob Soboroff that solitary
confinement is "a world that I could never describe that you would truly
understand." He said, "to confine someone like that is to break them down in
every aspect of their being -- emotionally, spiritually, whatever you can think
of. It just breaks a man's will to live."
Joining Graves in the conversation was Alan Mills, an attorney who represents
isolated prisoners at an Illinois supermax prison, and Richard Sawyer, a law
student and activist with the Jails Action Committee. Both are working to end
the practice of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons.
For an interview, see:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/17/the-living-dead-huffpost-_n_1889976.html
(source: Huffington Post)
*******************
A Number Of Texas Executions Scheduled, Does Capital Punishment Serve Its
Purpose?
Barring any last minute stay, there are a handful of executions scheduled to be
carried out between now and the end of October here in Texas. Whether it deters
capital murder is the age-old argument, but one expert thinks capital
punishment will be around for a while.
Texas has become ground zero for capital punishment, from hangings to the
electric chair to lethal injection. Since capital punishment was reinstated in
1976, there have been more executions carried out in the lone star than any
other state -- with 484 -- and Rick Perry has more on his watch than any other
governor in modern times.
Gloria Rubac is with the Texas Death Penalty Abolition movement.
"Until Bobby Hines got a date of October 24th and it could still happen, Rick
Perry's 250th execution, this milestone could possibly be on Halloween."
She says Texas has a record of taking shortcuts with the law, executing people
with poor representation or disproportionately putting to death people of
color.
"There's people being executed who are mentally ill and number 2, it's costing
a fortune in a time when we're in an economic crisis. So to save money and to
save innocent lives, we should stop them."
UH professor David Dow has represented more than 100 death row inmates in their
state and federal appeals. He says Texas death sentences have declined
significantly.
Last year, juries and judges sent 8 people to the gurney, down from an average
of almost 22 in the 3 years before the change in the law and a high of 40 in
1996.
"It's true that it costs at least twice as much to execute somebody as it would
cost to keep that person in prison for the rest of his life and in some places,
the suggestion is that it might cost up to 5 times as much to carry out an
execution as it would cost to keep that person in prison for the rest of his
life. There are a lot of reasons for that, but the biggest reason just has to
do with the complexity of death penalty trials. People sometimes think that we
could get rid of most of those costs if we streamliner the appeals. The truth
is that the appeals are just a drop in the proverbial bucket."
He says while Texas prosecutors believe in moving forward quickly and
frequently with executions, jurors don't believe in sending people to death row
any more than jurors in other states do.
"I myself don't personally think that we're gonna get rid of the death penalty
in Texas or anywhere else in the United States, because of qualms that people
have about the lethal injection protocol. I think it's gonna be for different
reasons that don't have anything to do with the actual mode of execution."
Meanwhile, a recent poll by the Texas Politics Project found 3/4 of respondents
either somewhat or strongly supported the death penalty.
(source: KUHF)
PENNSYLVANIA----imopending execution
Killer loses bid for clemency
Condemned Philadelphia killer Terrance Williams lost his bid for clemency
Monday when a divided state Board of Pardons failed to unanimously recommend
his case for consideration by Gov. Corbett.
Nevertheless, advocates for Williams - scheduled for execution on Oct. 3 for
the 1984 murder of Mount Airy churchman Amos Norwood - cited the fact that 3 of
the 5-member board voted to spare Williams' life and some suggested Corbett
might still not be barred from commuting his sentence to life in prison without
parole.
Monday's session was the 1st clemency hearing in a death penalty case in 50
years. Pennsylvania voters in 1997 amended the state constitution to require
the board's vote for clemency be unanimous instead of a majority. But advocates
suggested after the hearing that because the 1997 amendment was spurred by the
commutation of a life sentence, the change might not apply to a death-penalty
case.
The board granted the Williams case 3 times its usual 30 minutes to enable
defense attorneys and 2 lawyers for the Philadelphia District Attorney's office
to argue their positions.
The board then deliberated in private for about 35 minutes before returning to
the ornate state Supreme Court chamber in the Capitol to vote.
Voting for clemency were state Attorney General Linda L. Kelly; Louise B.
Williams, the board's victim representative; and board psychologist Russell A.
Walsh.
Voting against clemency was Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley, who chairs the board, and
Harris Gubernick, the board's corrections expert.
None of the 5 members discussed the reasons for their vote.
The board heard 2 dramatically contrasting portraits of Williams, 46. Defense
attorney Shawn Nolan and 6 witnesses told of a boy beaten and abused by his
mother and stepfather "virtually from the moment of his birth."
Williams was then sexually molested by several boys and men including 5 years
of rapes and molestation by Norwood.
"When you look at a victim sexually abused since he was 5 years old, I don't
see how you can deny him mercy," Nolan told the board.
(source: Philadelphia Inquirer)
OHIO:
Obese death row inmate claims too overweight for execution
A condemned Ohio inmate who weighs at least 480 pounds wants his upcoming
execution delayed, saying his weight could lead to a "torturous and lingering
death."
Ronald Post, who shot and killed a hotel clerk in northern Ohio almost 30 years
ago, said his weight, vein access, scar tissue and other medical problems raise
the likelihood his executioners would encounter severe problems. He's also so
big that the execution gurney might not hold him, lawyers for Post said in
federal court papers filed Friday.
"Indeed, given his unique physical and medical condition there is a substantial
risk that any attempt to execute him will result in serious physical and
psychological pain to him, as well as an execution involving a torturous and
lingering death," the filing said.
Post, 53, is scheduled to die Jan. 16 for the 1983 shooting death of Helen
Vantz in Elyria.
The prisons department was not aware of the filing and could not immediately
comment.
Inmates' weight has come up previously in death penalty cases in Ohio and
elsewhere.
In 2008, federal courts rejected arguments by condemned double-killer Richard
Cooey that he was too obese to die by injection. Cooey's attorneys had argued
that prison food and limited opportunities to exercise contributed to a weight
problem that would make it difficult for the execution team to find a viable
vein for lethal injection.
Cooey, who was 5-foot-7 and weighed 267 pounds, was executed Oct. 14, 2008.
In 2007, it took Ohio executioners about 2 hours to insert IVs into the veins
of condemned inmate Christopher Newton, who weighed about 265 pounds. A prison
spokeswoman at the time said his size was an issue.
In 1994 in Washington state, a federal judge upheld the conviction of Mitchell
Rupe, but agreed with Rupe's contention that at more than 400 pounds, he was
too heavy to hang because of the risk of decapitation. Rupe argued that hanging
would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
After numerous court rulings and a 3rd trial, Rupe was eventually sentenced to
life in prison, where he died in 2006.
Ohio executes inmates with a single dose of pentobarbital, usually injected
through the arms.
Medical personnel have had a hard time inserting IVs into Post's arms,
according to the court filing. 4 years ago, an Ohio State University medical
center nurse needed three attempts to insert an IV into Post's left arm, the
lawyers wrote.
Post has tried losing weight, but knee and back problems have made it difficult
to exercise, according to his court filing.
While at the Mansfield Correctional Institution, Post "used that prison's
exercise bike until it broke under his weight," according to the filing.
(source: Clarion Ledger)
GEORGIA:
REPRESENTATION: Georgia Death Sentence Upheld Despite Drunk Trial Attorney
A federal appeals court upheld the death sentence of Georgia inmate Robert
Holsey, despite the fact that Holsey's lead lawyer drank a quart of vodka every
day during the trial and was about to be sued for stealing client funds. The
attorney himself testified that he "probably shouldn't have been allowed to
represent anybody." The court assumed the attorney's incompetence, but gave
great deference to the Georgia Supreme Court's opinion that his poor
performance did not affect the outcome of even the sentencing phase of the
trial. Judge Rosemary Barkett dissented in the 2-1 decision, noting the jury
never heard evidence that Holsey was abused so badly as a child that his
neighbors referred to his home as "the torture chamber." Had the jury heard
evidence of the "horrific child abuse," she wrote, he likely would not have
been sentenced to death. Holsey's appeals lawyer, Brian Kammer, said the jury
did not hear that crucial evidence because Holsey's lead trial attorney "opted
to anesthetize himself with vodka rather than prepare adequately to defend
against the death penalty. The 11th Circuit majority appears similarly to have
anesthetized its sense of justice."
(source: DPIC)
CALIFORNIA:
Sacramento Bee Reverses 155-year Stand on Death Penalty, Endorses Prop 34
When California voters pass Proposition 34 this November and replace the death
penalty with life in prison with no possibility of parole, they will make
history. But in the meantime, the Yes on 34 campaign is changing the minds of
some powerful Californians by sharing the facts about the death penalty's steep
fiscal and social costs.
For 155 years, the paper of record for the state capitol The Sacramento Bee has
strongly supported the death penalty -- until last week.
The editorial board did not change its stance on the death penalty in absolute
terms; they simply concluded that California's death penalty is hopelessly
broken and cannot be fixed, and that it is "time to end the fiction."
The Bee called our state's death penalty a fiction because although taxpayers
pay extravagantly for the nation's largest death row, few if any inmates are
ever executed. Far more die of old age or suicide.
Because of the Bee's century-and-a-half of outspoken support of the death
penalty, the editorial board chose to thoroughly and completely explain this
change of heart by publishing a new editorial nearly every day last week. This
series has effectively knocked down the arguments of Prop 34's opponents one by
one, showing unequivocally that California cannot and will not ever have a
functional death penalty. The only question is if the voters want to keep
paying for the fiction.
In their first announcement of their endorsement for Yes on 34, entitled "Time
to end the fiction of California's death penalty," the Bee explained that
California pays exorbitantly more for death sentences than "a rock-solid
sentence of life imprisonment with no chance of parole" and that every attempt
to speed up the process has only cost taxpayers more money.
Nearly every day since that announcement, the Bee editorial board has taken on
another argument against Prop 34.
Think the death penalty deters crime? Think again.
Equal justice for all? Not California's death penalty.
Want to speed up the system Texas-style? That would risk innocent lives, even
if it were possible (it's not).
Still not sure how to vote on Prop 34? The Bee lays out why you should vote YES
on 34.
The voters face an important decision this November, and the Bee rightly points
out that this decision is not about whether death is right or wrong; it's about
whether California can safely and efficiently administer a death penalty system
that we can afford. In their extensive coverage, the Bee gives a clear and
persuasive answer:
Vote YES on Proposition 34 to replace the death penalty with life in prison
with no possibility of parole. Protecting innocent lives and saving millions
for the state budget is justice that works for everyone.
(source: Jeanne Woodford.Official Proponent of Prop. 34 in California,
Executive director, Death Penalty Focus; Former warden, San Quentin State
Prison; Huffington Post)
******************
O.C.'s 'hanging judge' dies at 87
He was Orange County's highest-profile, toughest and most quotable judge, and
he sentenced more killers ??? 9 ??? to death than any other local jurist.
In retirement, he came out against the death penalty, not for humane reasons
but as a waste of taxpayer money.
His judicial career, colorful demeanor and critical assessment of the justice
system were the subjects of a 2005 book titled "Perfect Justice," written by
local true-crime author Don Lasseter and published by Seven Locks Press. It was
subtitled, "a legendary judge's passionate defense of the ultimate criminal
penalty."
He presided over some of most-watched criminal trials in Orange County history
during his 15-year career as a trial judge from 1978 to 1993, including the
11-month trial in 1987 of serial killer Randy Kraft, who was one of the men
McCartin sentenced to death row.
McCartin also presided over the 2nd headline-making trial of Rodney James
Alcala, the so-called "Dating Game killer," who was tried 3 times in Orange
County, convicted 3 times, and given the death sentence.
In 1986, McCartin said Alcala was "as guilty as anybody who's ever come through
my court," when he sentenced him to death in 1986 for the kidnap and 1979
murder of Robin Samsoe, a 12-year-old Huntington Beach ballet student.
McCartin said he later he felt like he had been "kicked in the stomach," when
he learned in retirement that a federal appellate court had reversed Alcala's
conviction and sentence. Alcala was tried for a 3rd time, and returned to death
row in 2010 after he was convicted again of killing Samsoe and 4 Los Angeles
women.
Judge Thomas Borris, the presiding judge of Orange County's bench, said Sunday,
"Don McCartin was well-respected and relied upon for many of the complicated
and serious case in Orange County. He was one of the last of the colorful bench
officers."
Longtime defense attorney John Barnett, said Sunday "he was a tough judge, but
a smart one."
"I always thought I received a fair trial when I tried a case before him,"
Barnett said. "He was beholden to no one. He was colorful and did a lot of
things that were considered out of the box."
Among the other killers McCartin sent to death row were:
--James Gregory Marlow, convicted along with his girlfriend of raping and
murdering 2 women
--Robert Jackson Thompson, a pedophile who sexually assaulted, hogtied and
murdered Benjamin Brenneman, a 12-year-old Register newspaper delivery boy
--William Payton, who raped and stabbed to death a nurse and also stabbed
another woman and her 10-year-old son
--Richard Delmer Boyer, who stabbed Fullerton couple to death during a robbery
--Martin James Kipp, who also raped and murdered 2 women
--Gregory Allan Sturm, who murdered 3 young men execution-style in a store
robbery in Tustin
--Richard Raymond Ramirez, who raped and stabbed to death a young woman outside
a Garden Grove bar
McCartin said it never bothered him to render a death sentence, and often told
the killers they deserved the ultimate penalty.
But none was executed. 1 - Thompson - died of natural causes. 3 of his death
sentences, Alcala, Sturm and Ramirez, were reversed on appeal.
After his retirement in 1993, McCartin not only changed his mind about the
death penalty, but went public with his opinion. He wrote an opinion article
that was published in The Los Angeles Times, calling on Gov. Jerry Brown to
abolish the death penalty, and appeared on television news shows expressing his
new concerns.
He told reporters that he still believed that killers deserve to be executed,
but that because of a torturous appeals process, the death penalty had become a
waste of money and an unnecessary additional trauma for the victims' families.
McCartin retired with his wife Karen to Bass Lake, near Fresno, but often sat
on assignment in other counties handling criminal cases, including on other
death-penalty cases.
He called himself "the hanging judge of Orange County," and told reporters that
he was "to the right of Atilla the Hun."
McCartin, a lifelong Republican, was appointed to the Orange County bench in
1978 by then-Gov. Jerry Brown. More than 30 years later, wrote a letter to
Brown, who returned as California's governor in 2010, and said the death
penalty should be abolished.
McCartin was born April 25,1925, in Minneapolis, served in the Navy during
World War II and the Korean War, graduated from the University of Minnesota Law
School, and became a lawyer in 1957.
McCartin is survived by his wife of 39 years, Karen, and his 1st wife, Ruth
McCartin. He leaves 4 sons: Mike, Mark, Casey and Duff, 2 stepdaughters, Tracy
Colla and Cheri Carpenter, 11 grandchildren and 1 great-grandchild. Services
are scheduled Sept. 29 in Oakhurst, Calif.
(source: Orange County Register)
************************
Time for Californians to end death penalty 'charade'
Californians face a conundrum when it comes to felons sentenced to death for
capital crimes. The death penalty remains on the books, but no one is ever
executed.
In November's election, voters face Proposition 34, an initiative to abolish
the death penalty and replace it with a sentence of life in prison without
parole.
For practical, if not moral reasons, it's time for voters to end the charade
and abolish capital punishment.
Of the Golden State's 58 counties, Marin has the most intimate relationship
with the gas chamber. Due to an anomaly in California's constitution, all
executions must take place at San Quentin.
The death sentence is reserved for those convicted of the most heinous crimes.
Theoretically, those offenses are so vicious that justice can be achieved only
by removing the perpetrators from the face of the earth.
The very human emotion of revenge plays a big part in those favoring the status
quo.
Some calling for abolition morally oppose the taking of any life. The film
"Dead Man Walking" depicts the true story of one such person: Sister Helen
Prejean, a Catholic nun who devoted her life to opposing both capital
punishment and abortion.
Others oppose state executions, naively believing even psychopaths can be
rehabilitated.
Penologists argue that executions aren't even a deterrent, since few who murder
think they will ever be caught.
Opponents cite the use of DNA evidence proving a few on some states' death rows
were wrongly convinced. Of course, there haven't been any instances of such
miscarriages of justice in California.
The stalling tactics pursued by capital crimes defense lawyers, aided by
sympathetic judges, means that despite the current 709 men and 19 women on
death row, no one has been executed since 2006.
In the past 34 years, only 13 felons have been executed. Far more death row
inmates died from natural causes (57) or suicide (20) than in the gas chamber.
The end result is simply another far more expensive method of incarcerating
evil people for a very long time.
Expensive it is. Death row consumes $1 billion dollars every 5 years. With its
single person cells and extra access to the legal system, it costs $90,000 per
prisoner per year more to house an inmate on death row than the cost of
incarcerating these men and women with the rest of the prison population.
Marin's fiscal interest in Proposition 34 is clear. Both state and county
taxpayers would be better served if the antiquated San Quentin State Prison
were closed and its incredibly valuable land put on the property tax rolls with
far better, more productive uses.
As long as death row remains, San Quentin will never close.
While abolishing capital punishment doesn't guarantee the prison will shut,
without abolition it's a certainty that it will remain open.
My support of Proposition 34 is reluctant because the very same
prisoner-sympathetic activists who oppose the death penalty will, if the
initiative is passed, immediately work to undermine its essential "life without
parole" provision. They are many of the same folks who already contend that
rules governing eligibility for parole are too strict.
I don't doubt that the criminal justice system was intentionally perverted with
endless appeals and delays resulting in the effective nullification capital
punishment. The truth is, that with the active cooperation of the judiciary,
anti-death penalty activists have checkmated the process. That's not going to
ever change.
The death penalty is already effectively abolished. The upshot is that
taxpayers are paying through the nose to maintain a fiction.
(source: Columnist Dick Spotswood of Mill Valley shares his views on local
politics every Sunday in the Marin Independent Journal)
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