Nov. 3
TEXAS:
Rubio set to appeal verdict; Condemned murderer back in county court
Convicted child killer John Allen Rubio is back in Cameron County.
Cameron County District Attorney spokeswoman Melissa Zamora said Rubio will
appear before a visiting judge in a Cameron County courtroom Tuesday.
Rubio filed a motion to recuse Judge Noe Gonzalez of the 370th state District
Court in Hidalgo County, who presided over Rubio's capital murder trial and his
post-conviction writ of habeas corpus.
According to Zamora, Rubio is challenging the constitutionality of the Texas
Death Penalty Statute and alleges ineffective assistance of counsel during his
trial.
The District Attorney's Office is opposed to the motion.
Rubio was convicted in 2010 of brutally murdering Julissa Quesada, 3, John E.
Rubio, 14 months, and Mary Jane Rubio, 2 months. Rubio was the biological
father of the youngest child. The 2 others were the children of his common-law
wife Angela Camacho.
On Oct. 10, 2012, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Rubio's
conviction on direct appeal.
Now, Rubio is challenging his conviction by way of writ of habeas corpus. The
hearing on Tuesday is to determine whether Gonzalez should be recused. A
visiting judge will make the ruling.
The 3 children were smothered, stabbed and mutilated, according to Brownsville
police investigators. Their decapitated bodies were stuffed inside trash bags
that were found near a bedroom door.
Rubio pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in his July 2010 trial.
According to a confession Rubio made to police, he admitted to killing the
children because he believed there was an evil presence in them. He even asked
one of the officers first to arrive at the crime scene to place him under
arrest, according to the officer's statement.
Rubio was sent to death row and his case received an automatic appeal and an
automatic writ of habeas corpus.
Although Rubio was first convicted of the murders in November 2003, his
conviction was overturned in September 2007, thus granting him a new trial. The
appellate court cited the prosecution's use in Rubio's trial of videotaped
testimony from Camacho.
(source: Brownsville Herald)
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All Souls' Day brings flowers, prayers for inmates buried in Huntsville
To the state of Texas, the men and women buried at the Capt. Joe Byrd Cemetery
were murderers, rapists, robbers and thieves. But to the religious activists
who observed All Souls' Day Saturday by placing carnations on thousands of
graves, they are children of God, worthy but flawed human beings.
All Souls' Day traditionally is a day of prayer on behalf of souls not quite
ready for heaven. Saturday's event, which began with an ecumenical church
service, marked the 1st time, prison officials said, that anyone has
collectively honored the roughly 3,000 inmates interred at what is known as
"Peckerwood Hill."
"A very wise teacher once said, 'Do what you must to another person, but never
ever put him out of your heart,'" the Rev. Cheryl Smith, pastor of Wesley
Memorial United Methodist Church, told about 30 people gathered for the
service.
Earlier, she explained, "My faith tradition causes me to believe that all
people have inherent worth, not because of an external factor, including their
behavior, but by nature of being created beings of worth to us and God."
The Rev. Caroll Pickett told the group that grave markers bearing an "X" meant
the occupant had been executed.
"They would be executed, killed by the state of Texas, at midnight and buried
at 8:30 a.m. the next morning," said Pickett, who was Walls Unit chaplain for
16 years and is now active in the anti-death penalty movement.
He recalled days on which he presided at as many as five inmate burials. Many,
he said, had families with whom they were close. On one occasion, he recalled,
a friend of an executed inmate returned to the grave annually on the killer's
birthday to leave a cake.
Saturday's event was sponsored by the Austin-based Texas Interfaith Center for
Public Policy and its sister organization, Texas Impact. Texas Interfaith's
policy director Cindy Eigler said the dead inmates "were just written off and
forgotten. All Souls' Day seemed like an appropriate time to remember those who
died while serving time in prisons."
Prayer for victims
Organizers of the event said they did not condone the crimes committed by the
inmates, and a prayer for victims of crime was included in the day's
activities.
Joe Byrd Cemetery, encompassing 22 acres at the edge of Sam Houston State
University, has been in operation since the mid-19th century.
Among those placing flowers on the graves Saturday was Carol Hayes, chairwoman
of the restorative ministry program at Huntsville's First United Methodist
Church. "I was a bit skeptical at first," she said, noting that the $1,600
spent on flowers might have better benefited families of current inmates. The
morning's church service, though, convinced her that the cemetery memorial was
worthwhile.
"I was impressed that these were souls just like us," she said.
'Profound experience'
Brown, a Jacksonville mental health consultant in the juvenile justice system,
called Saturday's event "a profound experience."
He found "a lot of truth" in the argument that buried inmates had invited a sad
end by breaking laws.
But, he added, "I'd ask people to reflect honestly on their own lives. Have
they ever committed a felony they weren't caught for? Have they ever driven
drunk more than three times? If so, why aren't they here?"
(source: Houston Chronicle)
OHIO:
Political posturing will not achieve justice, accountability
Executions in Ohio have become a regular occurrence. State Rep. John Becker
would like to see those numbers increase. He has introduced House Bill 244,
legislation that provides prosecutors with the option of pursuing the death
penalty for some sex-related crimes.
The crimes in Becker's legislation include aggravated rape, aggravated rape of
a child, aggravated sexual battery, aggravated sexual battery of a child, and
aggravated unlawful sexual conduct with a minor.
"In light of the Ariel Castro kidnapping case ... I wanted to give prosecutors
the option to pursue the death penalty for repeat sexual offenders," Becker
said in a legislative press release.
"Prosecutors would be able to use the death penalty threat as a tool for
plea-bargain negotiations," Becker added. "Nobody in this country has ever been
executed for a sex crime, but that could change."
Becker is wrong at every turn - yet his knee-jerk reaction to the
incomprehensible crimes committed by Castro has many supporters. Even The
Vindicator wrote last month, "Becker's action to bring the issue of appropriate
punishment for such disgusting crimes to the halls of the General Assembly
deserves commendation. Many, if not most, in Ohio would sympathize with his
reasoning that violent child-sex offenders deserve execution."
It is understandable why the death penalty for sex offenders might be
resurrected in Ohio. Since 2010, Ohio has executed more inmates than
traditional "law and order" states like Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and
Oklahoma. Only Texas has more executions than Ohio.
Why are Becker's proposals misguided?
First, Ariel Castro would not have been eligible for the death penalty under
Becker's proposal because he did not have a prior sex-related conviction.
Secondly, it is unethical for a prosecutor to charge a defendant with a crime
for the sole purpose of using the charge as a tool in plea bargaining. Yet,
that is exactly what the sponsor of the bill is proposing.
Finally, to suggest that no one in the country has ever been executed for a sex
crime is preposterous. Many African-American men were sentenced to death and
duly executed across the South for rape. A significant majority of those rapes
were perpetrated against white women, and the verdicts were rendered by
all-white juries.
More importantly, the law is pure politics with little chance of being passed
and less chance of being carried out - a waste of time and government
resources.
Rape as an executable offense was banned 36 years ago. In Coker v. Georgia, the
Supreme Court barred the use of the death penalty as punishment for the rape of
an adult woman. Some states, like Louisiana, believed that "children are a
class that need special protection." Therefore rape of a child is unique in
terms of the harm it inflicts upon the victim and society and deserving of the
death penalty.
In 2008, in Kennedy v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court addressed that issue as
well. In a 5-4 opinion, the Supreme Court ruled that the Eighth Amendment bars
the imposition of the death penalty for the rape of a child. In assessing the
"evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society,"
the court rejected Louisiana's argument that society's standards are evolving
to embrace capital punishment for the crime of child rape.
At the time, only 6 states had passed laws penalizing child rape with the death
penalty.
There is no question that short of murder, child rape is the most reprehensible
crime. However, pursuing the death penalty for child rape is not only an
impossibility - it is based on flawed thinking. If the penalty for child rape
was the same for murder of a child what would be the incentive for an offender
to let his victim live? A child molester could turn into a killer with nothing
to lose.
No one quarrels with locking away arepeat child rapist for life. Use the
criminal courts and civil restrictions to ensure that the offender never hurts
another child. Few would oppose the vigorous pursuit of those ends.
Puff-chested posturing and bravado may boost a politician's poll numbers, but
achieves neither justice nor accountability.
(source: Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly and
George and the former district attorney for Lawrence County, PA.; Youngstown
Vindicator)
MONTANA:
Attorneys: Man unfit for homicide trial in Montana teacher slaying
Attorneys for a Colorado man charged with killing an eastern Montana teacher
filed court papers Friday saying his mental disabilities render him unfit to
stand trial in a case that could carry the death penalty.
Defense attorneys asked state district Judge Richard Simonton to commit Michael
Keith Spell, 24, to the Montana State Hospital or another state facility for up
to 60 days to undergo a mental examination.
The Parachute, Colo., man faces a felony murder charge in the January 2012
death of Sherry Arnold, a Sidney High School math teacher.
Court records obtained by The Associated Press show that Spell was declared
incompetent by a Colorado judge in 2010 in a Garfield County, Colo. drug case.
A subsequent order for Spell to undergo treatment was still pending at the time
of his arrest in the Arnold murder.
Prosecutors in Montana have said they intend to seek the death penalty for
Spell if he's convicted.
But Spell's attorneys on Friday said that if he's found unfit for trial, under
state law the charges against him could be dismissed and he would face
involuntary commitment to state custody. If he was determined in the future to
no longer pose a danger, he could eventually be released, defense attorney Al
Avignone said.
Avignone said Friday's notice was filed after the defense received hundreds of
pages of mental health records on Spell that were handed over by prosecutors.
"Mr. Spell reads at a 1st-grade level and his vocabulary is extremely limited
and he doesn't write," Avignone said, adding that there's "no doubt" his client
is disabled.
Co-defendant Lester Van Waters, Jr. pleaded guilty in August. A deal with
prosecutors calls for him to be spared the death penalty and receive 100 years
in prison in exchange for testifying against Spell.
Arnold's sister, Rhonda Whited-Rupp, said Friday that she believes justice will
prevail. "My opinion is that it's a blessing they both were caught," she said.
"God will take care of the end result."
The Richland County Attorney's Office has opposed a separate attempt to declare
Spell ineligible for the death penalty.
The defense cited a 2002 Supreme Court ruling that forbids states from
executing the mentally or intellectually disabled under the Eighth Amendment's
prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
Spell and Van Waters came to Montana looking for work in the Bakken oil patch
along the North Dakota border. Waters said during an August change of plea
hearing that the pair consumed large amounts of cocaine during their drive from
Colorado. They were in Sidney looking for a woman to have sex with, Waters
said, when they saw Arnold, who was out on her morning run.
Authorities say Spell killed Arnold, 43, by either choking her or holding her
face in a puddle.
Spell and Van Waters later buried her body near Williston, N.D. It was not
found for more than 2 months, when Waters led FBI agents to the site and said
Spell was the killer.
The case spurred federal prosecutors to convene a retreat last year for law
enforcement to craft a strategy to deal with rising crime in the Bakken region.
Spell's trial is slated to begin Jan. 6 in Glendive, where it was relocated
from Sidney after defense attorneys claimed their client would not get a fair
trial in Arnold's hometown.
(source: Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA:
Race, murder roil Chico
For nearly 25 years, Steven Crittenden has been condemned to death row at San
Quentin State Prison for the gruesome 1987 murder of a prominent Chico couple
in their home. Since the day of his arrest, Crittenden has looked for a way to
escape, first briefly breaking out of the Butte County Jail prior to his trial,
and through endless appeals since he was sent to prison.
Crittenden, 45, is now closer to freedom than ever. And it has nothing to do
with whether he killed the affable town doctor and his wife.
A federal judge in Sacramento recently overturned his 1989 conviction based on
a technicality in a trial that at the time sparked racial tensions in the
overwhelmingly white town some 90 miles north of Sacramento.
The lawyers for Crittenden, a black man from Fairfield, successfully argued
that a prosecutor showed racial bias when he dismissed the only black
prospective juror.
Prosecutors said they dismissed the prospective juror because it was a
death-penalty case and she did not believe in the death penalty.
But San Francisco attorney Mark Goldrosen called the dismissal of the lone
black prospective juror in a primarily white town "outrageous," particularly
when the woman did not express more reservations about the death penalty than
white jurors who were selected.
Crittenden was ordered to be released or retried.
The Butte County District Attorney's Office calls the bias claim "insane."
It was the case of a black man accused of murdering a well-to-do white couple,
but in Chico, the dynamics were much more than that.
Idyllic small town
Chico is an idyllic small town, with tree-lined streets, quaint shops and a
picturesque university in the middle of it all.
The city and Cal State Chico have a party-hard reputation, which has proven
difficult to rebrand since Playboy awarded Cal State Chico the dubious title as
the nation's No.1 party school in 1987. That same month, fear and outrage
struck the campus when Crittenden, a well-liked football player at Cal State
Chico, was accused in a double murder. 3 years before, Crittenden had helped
Vanden High School in Fairfield win a state basketball championship.
"At first, it was, 'No way,' " said Charles Carter, director of the
Cross-Cultural Leadership Center at Cal State Chico, a longtime staff member
and former student at the university. "Then the evidence came out, and it was
like, What's wrong with this guy? And what does this mean for us?"
The tiny African American population in Chico wondered whether the community
would unfairly judge them for Crittenden's heinous act, said Carter, who is
black.
"It had a big impact on the African American community," Carter said. "People
felt sick and disgusted by what happened."
In an instant, Crittenden's crime erased years of progress in healing tensions
stemming from another murder exactly eight years before.
3 people from nearby Oroville murdered Jimmy Lee Campbell in Chico after
driving around looking for a black person to shoot. The case made national
headlines, and, Carter remembers, the Chico community spoke out, saying such
cowardly racism was unacceptable. The town was healing and moving in a positive
direction, Carter said.
"The Crittenden case tipped it back the other way," Carter said. "I'm not sure
we've made it back."
Carter said minority students still tell him they experience racism in the
community.
Racial tensions
Cal State Chico has 15,000 full-time students. Fewer than 2 percent are black,
19 percent are Hispanic and 55 percent are white. Although the university has
long emphasized recruiting minorities, it has proved a very difficult sell
given the demographics of the surrounding town. Chico's population of 88,000 is
81 % white, 15 % Hispanic and 2 % black.
"It was a big shock going to Chico compared to Richmond and the Bay Area," said
Joseph Igbineweka, a Nigeria-born man who graduated from Cal State Chico in
2010. "I had a great experience. There was only 1 blemish."
Igbineweka, who had come to Chico from Kennedy High School in Richmond, was
stabbed 5 times late one night in 2010 in Chico. He was the university's
student body president at the time, and police initially called the incident a
hate crime because of racial slurs yelled by the man convicted of the stabbing.
Police later decided that it was not a hate crime, and Igbineweka agrees.
"Overall, the city is a welcoming place," said Igbineweka of Chico.
Igbineweka now works in Concord. He has lingering pain and numbness from the
attack, particularly in his left hand.
Tray Robinson, director of Cal State Chico's diversity programs, said he's seen
"vast improvements" in how minority students are treated in Chico in the past
20 years. He credits school and community leaders with making it a priority.
"We still have a lot of work to do," Robinson said.
Horrific murder
It wasn't just murder. It was torture, prosecutors argued successfully. William
and Katherine Chiapella, who were in their late 60s, were gagged and bound with
a strawberry-patterned cloth similar to sheets found in Crittenden's room.
They were beaten and stabbed with such force that a large knife was driven
completely into William Chiapella's chest, with the handle not visible.
Crittenden was arrested in the murders and attempted to escape from jail 3
times. He escaped successfully once from Butte County Jail before his trial,
but was caught.
He pleaded not guilty, saying he had never been to the Chiapella home.
The Chiapellas, described as pillars of the community, had previously hired
Crittenden to do yard work at $4.50 per hour, but he didn't show up.
And when he did show up, prosecutors argued, it was for another reason.
Prosecutors convinced the jury that Crittenden was behind on his rent and
fighting with his live-in girlfriend when he went on a murderous rampage at the
Chiapellas' home on Downing Street in an upper-middle-class neighborhood across
from an elementary school.
The Chiapellas' bodies were discovered by their son, Joseph, who is a doctor in
Chico.
The evidence prosecutors presented at trial won the case: Crittenden's
thumbprint on a desk. A footprint in the home that matched a pair of shoes
found in Crittenden's room. A $3,000 check Crittenden cashed from Katherine
Chiapella the day after the murders. He told police the check was for a sexual
arrangement he had with Katherine Chiapella, a claim that the district attorney
likened to spitting on the woman's grave.
"This was a really strong case then," said Ramsey, who became district attorney
in 1987, the same year the Chiapellas were murdered.
The appeals
Over the past 17 years, Crittenden's lawyers have filed numerous appeals
claiming that he did not receive a fair trial.
In one unsuccessful appeal, lawyers argued that counsel during the trial should
have conceded Crittenden's guilt and instead argued that the murders were not
intentional. In that appeal, Crittenden's lawyers said counsel should have
argued that he intended only to commit a burglary and was surprised when the
couple unexpectedly returned home.
But in the end, the appeal that won the retrial had nothing to do with heat of
the moment or impulse control.
It was about racial bias.
"If race hadn't played a role, we wouldn't be retrying this," said Goldrosen, a
federally appointed lawyer.
Juror question
Crittenden's case now comes down to 1 question: Why was the only black
prospective juror dismissed?
U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller ruled in September that former chief
deputy Jerry Flanagan of the Butte County District Attorney's Office improperly
dismissed the only black prospective juror substantially due to her race,
whether "consciously or unconsciously."
Flanagan declined to comment. Ramsey said the judge's ruling essentially called
Flanagan a racist when "that man doesn't have a prejudiced bone in his body."
Ramsey said he will seek a retrial, although prosecutors hope to delay it until
after the case is taken to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Goldrosen
said he plans to oppose any delays in the retrial. Judge Mueller is expected to
make a decision by early next year on whether the retrial will begin before the
Ninth Circuit ruling.
From there, Ramsey said, one side is likely to appeal the case to the U.S.
Supreme Court.
Ramsey said that if there is a retrial, he will seek a reverse change of venue,
moving the case from Placer County, where the original case was tried, back to
Butte County.
"We have a whole demographic of people under the age of 30 or 40 who haven't
heard of this case," Ramsey said. "In terms of jury selection, our ... minority
population is larger than Placer County."
(source: San Francisco Chronicle)
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