April 21
MAINE:
Life in prison, death for drug dealers in Maine
We need more law enforcement to severely punish anyone caught dealing heroin
and prescription pills in Maine. The penalty should be so severe that dealers
will think twice about coming to Maine.
I'm not talking about addicts; I'm talking about the people who make them
addicts. Make them go somewhere else with their drugs. No drugs, no people
hooked, no need for rehab. Crime would plummet.
Give the dealers life in prison or the death penalty and maybe that would make
them think twice about doing business in Maine. I believe we need to give
compassion and help to those addicted, but stopping the flow of drugs as a
first line of defense would save many souls.
Gary Hopkins----Manchester
(source: Letter to the Editor, Kennebec Journal)
NEW JERSEY:
Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter's life story is a warning to us about racism and
revenge; In 1976, I was a junior lawyer on Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter's retrial
defence team. His story has a significance that should outlive his death
In the summer of 1976, I walked the mean streets of Paterson, New Jersey, with
Rubin "Hurricane" Carter - and encountered the raw, bloodshot hate-gaze from
the white folks who passed us by. Carter was instantly recognisable: he was as
bald and black and muscley as the Michelin man.
"What chance do you give me?" he asked this then-young British lawyer,
shrugging his boxer's shoulders. "You can see my verdict in their eyes. In
America, nothing has really changed."
On the political surface, it seemed to have changed. In 1966, when Carter -
then a top professional boxer - was first convicted by an all-white jury for
slaying 3 of their kind in a local bar, the governor of Georgia was fighting
desegregation with a pick-axe. Now his successor, Jimmy Carter, was on the way
to the US presidency, preaching racial harmony and quoting Bob Dylan in his
campaign ads. Rubin's original 1966 conviction for an apparently motiveless
triple murder was based on palpably inadequate evidence and came at a time when
he was a contender for the world middleweight title.
Yet Carter was re-convicted on even weaker evidence at his retrial in 1976 and
returned to prison. Not until 1985 was this wrongful reconviction overturned.
His story inspired one of Dylan's best protest songs and Norman Jewison's fine
movie, in which he was played by Denzel Washington. As a warning against
possibility of convicting - and executing - the innocent because of prosecutors
who play the race card and hide exculpatory evidence, the story of "the
Hurricane" has a significance that will outlive his death.
It all began with the riots in Watts and Harlem in the early 1960s, which left
13 black children killed by police bullets. Rubin Carter, who until then had
been marching non-violently with Martin Luther King, became a black Muslim and
started to talk to the press about fighting back. That made him a public enemy
in his home town of Paterson, where he had been arrested at the age of eleven
for stabbing a man he said had indecently assaulted him. He was put away in a
reformatory for 7 years and was not forgiven - even as he began winning boxing
titles.
The police officer involved in arresting him as a child, Vincent de Simone,
happened to be on duty 18 years later, on a night when 2 black gunmen walked
into the Lafayette Bar and Grill and opened fire, killing three customers
before escaping in what some witnesses said was a white Chevrolet. Long after a
car of that make had eluded a police chase, Carter and a young friend, John
Artis, were pulled over in Carter's white Dodge. De Simone ordered the two
brought back to the bar, but no witnesses could identify them as the gunmen.
Alfred Bellow and Arthur Bradley, 2 professional burglars who had seen the
gunmen while themselves out to rob the same bar, gave descriptions which were
nothing like Carter or Artis.
But de Simone was as implacable as Inspector Javert from Les Miserables. He
dragged the suspects to the hospital bedside of a critically-injured survivor
who denied that they were the men who had just shot him. So Carter and Artis
were released.
The only physical evidence against them was a lead-plated .32 Smith and Wesson
bullet, which a policeman claimed to have found in the back of Carter's car. It
could have been fired from the murder weapon - but the bullets which riddled
the Lafayette victims were all plated with copper. Lead-plated .32 were not in
common use ... except in the Patterson police force, where they were standard
issue.
Several months later, de Simone persuaded Bellow and Bradley to change their
minds and identify Carter and Artis as the gunmen. In return for changing their
story, the two burglars were offered a host of inducements - early parole from
previous sentences, a $12,000 reward and a blind eye towards the crimes they
committed on the night (Bellow had robbed the Lafayette cash register while the
victims lay dying). These deals were not disclosed to the defence. The
prosecution even suppressed their initial description of the gunmen as "thinly
built, both 5'11' in height" (the Hurricane was an unmistakably stocky 5'7").
The prosecution relied on Bellow and Bradley - and unspoken racial prejudice.
On the jury table, the blood-stained shirt, trousers, socks and shoes of each
victim was carefully laid out. By the shirt collar was set a wedding photo and
beneath the shoes was placed a picture of the bullet-ridden body on the
mortuary slab. The prosecutor called for the defendants to be sent to the
electric chair.
I met Rubin Carter during his release on bail in 1976. He had, quite literally,
written his way out of life imprisonment with a memoir, The 16th Round, which
revived interest in his case. Selwyn Raab of the New York Times cracked Bellow
and Bradley, who confessed to perjury. Bob Dylan, who years before had so
movingly mourned the lonesome death of Hattie Carroll, now set the story of
"the Hurricane" to a driving, angry beat. Mohammed Ali led protest marches, and
an appeals court ordered a retrial.
But the "free Hurricane Carter" campaign outraged the local police department,
of which de Simone was by then chief - as well as the judges and politicians of
New Jersey. It became a matter of honour to secure Carter's reconviction. The
state devoted massive resources to the prosecution: I counted no less than 49
of their lawyers and investigators, ranged against a handful of Carter
defenders working for the most part without fee. The state had the money and
now it invented a motive by claiming the Lafayette attack was a Black Power
revenge killing.
The trial judge permitted this preposterous change of tack. At the pre-trial
hearings I attended, he seemed to loathe the out-of-town defence lawyers and,
after he allowed the prosecution to play the race card, the feeling was mutual.
"What sort of lousy judge would make a ruling like that?" protested the
"movement" lawyer Lenny Weinglass (deploying a style of advocacy I made a
mental note to avoid when back at the Old Bailey).
Outside court, I observed the downside of press freedom, American-style. The
local press were determined to prejudice the trial: in its lead-up, I noted 17
editorials and 320 front page articles in local papers, all hostile to Carter.
Half the articles contained inflammatory descriptions, referring to him as a
"murderer," "assassin," "criminal" and "killer of white people."
Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter answers a question during a news conference before his
speech at Kutztown University. Photograph: Tony Fiorini/AP The result was
predicable. The prosecutor relied on the new "Black Power" reprisal theory and
on attacking the "Madison Avenue Hucksters" like Rabb and Dylan and the New
York Times, whose campaign had provoked this supposedly unnecessary exercise.
The verdict, once again, was guilty.
So, "the Hurricane" hunkered down for another life term. His release in 1985
was due to a dogged defence lawyer, Myron Beldock, who found the "smoking gun"
evidence of prosecutorial misconduct. The judge quashed the conviction on the
ground of that misconduct and "the prosecutor"s appeal to racism rather than
reason." The real hero of the story was John Artis, who had fatefully offered
to drive Carter home on the night of the Lafayette murders. In 1966, he was 19,
with an exemplary record and a good career ahead of him. Instead, he wasted the
next 20 years in prison. From the outset, the prosecution had offered him plea
bargains and freedom deals if only he would implicate Carter. His refusal to do
so, especially when threatened with the electric chair, was truly courageous.
"The Hurricane" devoted the rest of his life to projects that secured the
release of innocent prisoners and campaigned powerfully against the death
penalty - he was, after all, the living embodiment of the argument. He died
over Easter in the presence of John Artis, the friend who lost 2 decades of his
own life as punishment for refusing to help the New Jersey police to send Rubin
to the electric chair.
(source: Geoffrey Robertson, The Guardian)
FLORIDA:
Some murderers choose life in prison to avoid death penalty
In the murder case against William S. Coffin III, a grim life-or-death
negotiation came to the surface last week.
Coffin, 32, is considering pleading guilty to fatally stabbing a Largo woman
and spending the rest of his life in prison, a prosecutor said in a court
hearing. Coffin wants something in return: no death penalty.
This might sound like the ultimate choice between bad alternatives, but it's
not as rare as it may sound.
There have been scattered cases in the Tampa Bay area in recent years of
murderers pleading guilty to get life sentences to avoid the possibility of the
death penalty.
Like just about everything else involving executions, it's a practice that can
be controversial and spark strong emotions.
Take Anthony J. Giancola, a former Hillsborough County middle school principal
who gained notoriety in 2007 when he was arrested for buying cocaine in his
school office. In 2012, in an event never fully explained, Giancola went on a
murderous rampage in mid-Pinellas County.
Deborah Clem's nephew, Justin Lee Vandenburg, 27, was 1 of 2 people Giancola
killed that day.
Last year, Giancola pleaded guilty to 2 murders, 4 counts of attempted murder
and 2 counts of aggravated battery. The Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office
agreed not to seek the death penalty, and he was sentenced to 6 consecutive
life sentences, plus 30 years.
"I think he got off easy," Deborah Clem said. "He gets to see his family, he
gets to go to bed at night. What does my nephew get? Nothing. He didn't even
get to say goodbye."
But in some cases, victims' families actually see this as a better alternative,
partly because they avoid the seemingly endless appeals that come with every
death penalty case.
Giancola is not the only one who chose this route.
In January, Egan Fernando Atkins admitted in Hillsborough Circuit Court that he
broke into a home and stabbed a woman with a kitchen knife. His guilty plea
gave him a life sentence and spared him the death penalty.
Last year, Michael Scott Norris pleaded guilty to killing 2 men in St.
Petersburg after he escaped a Largo work-release center. Prosecutors agreed not
to seek the death penalty, and Norris got 3 life sentences.
Under Florida law, judges have only 2 options for those convicted of 1st-degree
murder: the death penalty or life in prison with no parole.
But it's not easy for prosecutors to obtain a death sentence. Under the law,
people can be sentenced to death only when the killing involves certain
"aggravating circumstances," such as murder committed for money or one that was
"especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel." On the other hand, juries and judges
weigh "mitigating circumstances" that argue against the death penalty, such as
whether the defendant had an otherwise clean record, or whether he was mentally
impaired.
Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe said key for him in any case is to
listen to victims' families.
"There are some that don't like the death penalty, don't agree with it," he
said. "There are others that want it, very strongly want it."
Also important, he said, is trying to predict whether a jury would recommend a
death sentence, a judge would impose it, and appeals courts would uphold it.
In the case of a death penalty for Giancola, "I thought it was going to be a
real uphill climb to get it, and an even bigger uphill climb to keep it," said
McCabe, citing the killer's mental health issues.
In court last week, Assistant State Attorney Richard Ripplinger said attorneys
for Coffin, accused of murdering Patricia Ann King, 50, in her Largo home, had
mentioned the idea of a guilty plea.
Ripplinger said that before the state would consider it, he wanted to make sure
the defense had more information about the case - a move apparently designed to
make sure Coffin is fully informed and less likely to file an appeal later.
If a judge sentences a man or woman to death, appeals can easily last more than
a decade. That's one reason their families sometimes don't mind a guilty plea
and life sentence, said Mark Cox, spokesman for the Hillsborough State
Attorney's Office.
"We've had cases where the victim's family no longer wishes us to go after the
death penalty, not so much for the defendant, but for their wishes," he said.
"They want closure."
All options are difficult, and there can be different opinions even within the
same families, said Bobbie Hodson, victim advocate for the Pinellas County
Sheriff's Office. "There's no happy ending in a murder case, unfortunately."
There is one thing some families appreciate about a guilty plea. The killer has
to stand up in court and admit he or she did it. That often does not happen in
a trial, not even when someone is sentenced to death.
Because of the trials and appeals, various studies argue that the cost of
prosecuting murder defendants actually exceeds the cost of simply imprisoning
them for life. Although politicians and advocates argue the cost-effectiveness,
this particular debate stays mostly out of the courtroom. The lawyers are
supposed to be arguing for justice, not savings.
Defendants usually plead guilty only when the evidence is overwhelming.
But from their point of view, is life in prison really much better than
execution?
It can be. On death row, killers are housed individually and spend little time
outside cells. Inmates know they'll spend more than a decade that way.
But a murderer sentenced to life can be housed in the general prison
population, where "you can work, you can socialize, you can make some sort of
life for yourself," said defense attorney Bjorn Brunvand.
(source: Tampa Bay Times)
ALABAMA:
Would Alabama bring back electric chair?
It wasn't immediately clear that the execution had gone wrong.
All Stephen Ellis could see from the viewing room of Holman Correctional
Facility's execution chamber was his client, Horace Dunkins, twitching and
jerking after being administered up to 2000 volts of electricity.
Almost 10 minutes passed early on the morning of July 14, 1989. 2 medical
personnel examined Dunkins, a mentally retarded man convicted of the 1980 rape
and murder of Lynn McCurry, a 26-year-old mother of 4. Minutes passed. Ellis,
now an attorney in Vermont, said in an interview last week that "the reality of
the situation" slowly dawned on those present.
After an officer opened a door to the death chamber, reporters overheard him
saying to a 2nd officer, "I believe you've got the jacks on wrong." Corrections
officials later confirmed that the wires had not been properly connected to the
chair. Despite a shock that appeared to have rendered Dunkins unconscious, his
heart was still beating.
The disconnection required the switch to be thrown a 2nd time. 10 minutes later
- and 19 minutes after the execution began - Dunkins was pronounced dead.
"It's impossible to imagine how unbearably painful it was to experience that
level of voltage when that level of voltage that was intended to be lethal, but
wasn't," Ellis said. "It's impossible that it wasn't painful."
The legacy of 'Yellow Mama'
The electric chair, colloquially known as "Yellow Mama," was Alabama's primary
means of execution from 1927 to 2002; Dunkins was one of 24 people executed in
the chair after the state resumed executions in 1983, following an 18-year
hiatus.
Initially seen as a humane alternative to hanging, stories of its effects on
the condemned - including loss of bodily functions; roasting, stinking flesh
and, in some cases, the expulsion of eyeballs - suggested the opposite.
Alabama was the last state to use the chair as a primary method of execution,
switching to lethal injection in 2002. Supporters of the death penalty call the
method more humane. But Alabama has run out of pentobarbital, the 1st drug in
the 3-drug execution "cocktail," which sedates inmates before 2 lethal drugs
are administered.
Attempts to pass legislation to encourage manufacture of the drug by keeping
the names of those involved a secret failed to pass the Legislature in the
recently-concluded session.
Supporters of the bill, including Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, repeatedly warned
that without it, the state would have to shift back to electrocution.
"By opposing this bill and killing this bill, we're ensuring the state goes
back to the system of the electric chair," said Ward, a death penalty
supporter, on the last day of the session. "I would personally believe there is
a more humane system of using the death penalty than going back to the electric
chair."
The Department of Corrections says it is prepared to bring back the chair if
lawmakers so desire. But it isn't as easy as plugging Yellow Mama back in. Both
supporters and opponents of the death penalty agree that bringing back the
chair would trigger a host of legal challenges, and likely lengthen Alabama's
unofficial hiatus on executions.
Alabama currently allows condemned prisoners the option of dying in the
electric chair, if they submit their request in writing to a warden. None of
the 32 individuals executed since lethal injection was introduced in 2002 have
done so. But Brian Corbett, a spokesman for the Alabama Department of
Corrections, said corrections staff goes through "regular exercises" in the use
of execution methods, including the electric chair.
"Everything is still the same," he said. "Nothing's changed."
Bringing the chair back would first require amendments to the state's execution
statute. But supporters of capital punishment, including Ward, would much
rather revive the death penalty secrecy bill at the start of the 2015
Legislative Session than bring back the electric chair. Still, the possibility
lingers.
"I think it would be there if lethal injection was derailed or killed," he
said. "But I just don't see a way."
Janette Grantham, state director of VOCAL, a victims' rights advocacy group,
said her group supported lethal injection, but "did not particularly care"
which method was used, as long as the capital sentences were carried out.
"I've been to several executions with lethal injection," she said. "It's very
easy to die. They look like they're going to sleep and being taken off to
surgery."
The shortage of drugs has affected executions nationwide, and some states have
openly discussed the possibility of moving to revive the electric chair. Last
week, the Tennessee House of Representatives voted to restore the electric
chair if drugs to carry out lethal injection were unavailable. The bill needs
to be reconciled with a version that passed the Tennessee Senate earlier this
month.
Possibility of court challenges
But returning to the electric chair would almost certainly lead to a host of
legal challenges.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of lethal injection in a
2008 decision. The high court has not ruled on the nature of electrocution
since 1890, when it decided the appeal of William Kemmler, a New Yorker who was
the first man sentenced to die in the electric chair.
In its decision, In re Kemmler, the court defined cruel punishment as
"involving torture or lingering death." Although the court did not directly
address electrocution in the case - the justices effectively said they had to
abide by New York's determination it was not cruel or unusual, as they could
not apply the Eighth Amendment to the states - the case is widely seen as
granting constitutionality to the electric chair. The U.S. Supreme Court did
not explicitly apply constitutional prohibitions on cruel and unusual
punishment to the states until 1962.
The high court did agree to hear a challenge to Florida's use of the electric
chair in 1999, following a series of grisly malfunctions during executions, but
the case was dropped after the state switched its primary method of execution
to lethal injection.
Some state supreme courts, including those of Georgia and Nebraska, have found
the electric chair constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, but "those things
are not binding outside their borders," said Richard Dieter, executive director
of the Death Penalty Information Center.
Besides lethal injection, the U.S. Supreme Court has only ruled directly on the
constitutionality of 1 other method of execution - in 1878, it upheld the use
of firing squads in executions.
A federal court struck down use of the gas chamber in California executions in
1996; the state amended its death penalty statute to include lethal injection
before the Supreme Court could take up the case.
Alabama's death penalty statute contains a provision that says if lethal
injection or electrocution are ever found unconstitutional, "all persons
sentenced to death for a capital crime shall be executed by any constitutional
method of execution," which, presumably, would mean the firing squad.
However, Dieter notes that the idea of "evolving standards" on what constitutes
cruel and unusual punishment, stemming from a 1958 U.S. Supreme Court decision,
could bear on any challenge to the electric chair.
"It would definitely land in court, in multiple courts and over multiple
years," he said. "Whoever's going to do this, I could easily see this going to
the Supreme Court. If anything, the situation would be more ripe now. It's even
more unusual."
That, said Ward, was one of the reasons he wanted to see the state find a way
to restore lethal injection.
"We have modern day technology that if we're going to have a death penalty,
it's going to provide a much more constitutional way of carrying out
executions," he said.
For those on different sides of the issue, it can be personal.
Janette Grantham's brother, Coffee County Sheriff Neil Grantham, was killed on
March 1, 1979, by a former inmate as Grantham stood in the entrance of the
Coffee County Jail. The sentence of the man convicted of his murder, Billy Joe
Magwood, has been commuted, because of procedural issues at his 1st trial.
Janette Grantham said she "did not really understand" the concerns over the
methods of execution, saying she simply wanted the sentences carried out.
"People so against it shouldn't have a say-so," she said. "They haven't been
through it. They don't know how it would feel."
For Ellis, an opponent of the death penalty, Dunkins' execution capped a
difficult process. The jury that convicted Dunkins never heard direct evidence
of his mental retardation. In an affidavit signed about a week before Dunkins'
execution, a juror said she never would have voted for the death sentence had
she known.
"It's not an abstract thing to me," Ellis said. "I have very visceral memories
of being there. And it being a botched execution underscored the inhumanity of
what was taking place."
(soruce: Montgomery Advertiser)
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