Oct. 29
TEXAS----impending execution
Back to HomePageSupreme Court Rejects Appeals Of 2 Texas Death Row Inmates
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the appeals of 2 Texas death row inmates Monday
including the case of a Louisiana parole violator who's scheduled set to die
this week for the murder of an East Texas woman at her home 9 years ago.
Donnie Lee Roberts, 41, scheduled to receive a lethal injection Wednesday
evening in Huntsville.
He was living with Vicki Bowen, 44, at her home on Lake Livingston in 2003 when
she was found shot twice in the head.
A television and a truck were taken and Roberts had the truck when he was
arrested.
He confessed to authorities to her killing and also to a slaying in Louisiana
12 years earlier.
The high court gave no explanation for its ruling Monday.
The court also refused to hear an appeal from Elroy Chester, whose lawyers
argued that he is mentally impaired and ineligible for execution under Supreme
Court guidelines.
He was convicted of capital murder in the 1998 shooting death of Willie Ryman
III, who was trying to keep Chester from raping his 2 nieces at their Port
Arthur home when he was killed.
Prosecutors argue that Chester was not mentally impaired.
(source: Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA:
California's Prop. 34 Will Stop the Execution of the Innocent
Proposition 34, the important ballot initiative in California, would eliminate
the death penalty in that state. With 725 people on death row, including 19
women, California has the most death row prisoners in the nation, and 1/4 of
America's death row population. So, if the Golden State repeals its death
penalty, the change would be historic, and provide an example for other states
to follow.
There are many reasons to oppose the death penalty. For example, executions are
barbaric, outdated, and fly in the face of international human rights law. The
death penalty is expensive, provides no deterrent effect, and represents pure
retribution -- a visceral bloodlust that invokes a violent American past. But
most of all, the death penalty -- as practiced in California throughout the
U.S. -- is irretrievably broken.
Some of the most effective spokespeople for the Yes on 34 campaign are those
who have experienced the evils of the death penalty firsthand. They are 5 of
America's 141 death row survivors, innocent people who spent an average of
nearly 10 years on death row. Over the past several months, they have spoken to
audiences in the Golden State about their traumatic experiences.
Wrongfully convicted, Nathson Fields spent 18 years behind bars for the 1984
double murder of rival gang members--11 of them on Illinois' death row--before
he was acquitted in 2009. Fields had been the victim of lying witnesses, and
corruption, graft and greed on the bench. The judge in his case had taken a
$10,000 bribe from his codefendant's lawyer, and was himself imprisoned for 13
years.
An innocent man wrongfully convicted for the murder of newlyweds Dyke and Karen
Rhoads, Randy Steidl spent a dozen years on death row, and another 5 before he
became a free man. An Illinois death row survivor, Steidl had been framed by
the cops and the prosecutor. And he was also the victim of poor representation,
a jailhouse snitch, and witnesses who fabricated testimony. Both he and Nate
Fields would become leaders to abolish capital punishment in their state in
2011.
Juan Melendez spent nearly 18 years on Florida's death row, his conviction
secured by the testimony of 2 questionable witnesses, including a sketchy
police informant who received $5,000 for his testimony, and a co-defendant who
was threatened with the electric chair, but ultimately received 2 years
probation after testifying against Melendez. Despite the serious doubts
surrounding the case, the Florida Supreme Court upheld the case 3 times on
appeal. Meanwhile, the real killer had confessed to at least 20 people, and the
transcript of the confession was discovered 16 years after Juan's death
sentence.
Meanwhile, Kirk Bloodsworth was the 1st death row survivor in America to be
exonerated through DNA. Bloodsworth spent nine years in a Maryland prison -- 2
on death row -- for the 1984 rape and murder of 9-year-old Dawn Hamilton. The
prosecution had withheld key evidence pointing to his innocence, and police
failed to inform his defense about the possibility of another suspect.
Meanwhile, the real killer had been incarcerated in a cell just 1 floor below
Kirk's, serving time for unrelated crimes. Prior to his DNA exoneration,
Bloodsworth's death sentence had been commuted to 2 consecutive life terms. The
Innocence Protection Act, passed by Congress in 2000, established the Kirk
Bloodsworth Post-Conviction DNA Testing Program, which helps states defray the
costs of post-conviction DNA testing.
The only woman death row exoneree, Sabrina Butler Porter spent over 5 years in
prison, including 3 years awaiting her execution. A teenage mother, Butler was
convicted of felony child abuse -- the unthinkable crime of murdering her
infant son Walter. The baby had not been abused, and Butler had attempted CPR
in an attempt to revive him. The medical examiner changed the cause of death to
a kidney malady.
Given the threat of executing the innocent, California would be well served to
put its death penalty system to death. Capital punishment creates innocent
victims, and only perpetuates a vicious cycle of violence. Such circumstances
do not make us whole as a society.
And the late Coretta Scott King -- who lost both her husband and mother-in-law
to assassination -- said that "An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of
retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality
is never upheld by a legalized murder."
California voters now have a golden opportunity to break the cycle of bloodlust
by ending a broken criminal justice policy. Costing billions of dollars,
failing to address or deter crime, and condemning innocent men and women to
death, this state-sponsored vengeance simply is not worth the price.
(source: David A. Love is the executive director of Witness to Innocence, a
national nonprofit organization that empowers exonerated death row prisoners
and their family members to become effective leaders in the movement to abolish
the death penalty; Huffington Post)
SOUTH DAKOTA----impending execution
Appeals court dismisses SD death penalty protocol challenge, clears way for
Moeller execution
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has dismissed a challenge of South
Dakota's execution protocol, clearing the way for Donald Moeller's execution on
Tuesday.
Sioux Falls resident Donna Nichols had tried to stay the execution and
intervene in the case, but U.S. District Judge Lawrence Piersol denied the
motion. She appealed but then decided to ask for a dismissal.
Authorities say Moeller kidnapped O'Connell from a Sioux Falls convenience
store in 1990, drove her to a secluded area near the Big Sioux River, then
raped and killed her. Her naked body was found the next day.
Attorney General Marty Jackley says state law requires the sentence to be
carried out as scheduled unless South Dakota's governor or a court having
jurisdiction stays the proceeding.
(source: Associated Press)
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