Nov. 25
TEXAS----impending execution
Delusional inmate loses at top Texas appeals court
The state's top criminal court has refused to halt next week's scheduled
execution of a convicted killer whose lawyers contend is severely delusional.
A divided Texas Court of Criminal Appeals voted 5-4 Tuesday to reject an appeal
from lawyers for 56-year-old Scott Panetti. He's scheduled for lethal injection
Dec. 3 for fatally shooting his in-laws 22 years ago at their Fredericksburg
home.
Gillespie County prosecutors argued the appeal was improper and that the court
had no jurisdiction. Attorneys want additional time and experts to examine
Panetti's mental competence for execution.
Judge Elsa Alcala, in a dissenting opinion joined by 3 other judges, said the
court needed to more liberally consider the appeal because it involved
constitutional issues about executing the mentally ill.
Panetti's lawyers say they'll contest the ruling.
(source: Associated Press)
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Cruel, Unusual, Wrong -- Executing mentally ill inmate is savage, inhumane
The state of Texas should not execute severely mentally ill people. It's
barbaric and unbecoming of a civilized society.
Yet that is what's scheduled to happen in the Texas death chamber in Huntsville
on Dec. 3, the scheduled execution date for Scott Panetti, 56.
There is no dispute who killed Panetti's parents-in-law in Fredericksburg in
1992. It was Panetti, with a hunting rifle, after he shaved his head and
dressed up in military camouflage garb. After a standoff, he surrendered to
police and said the "Sarge," an alter ego, was responsible for the slayings.
At the time, Panetti had a 14-year documented history of psychosis and
involuntary commitments. His diagnoses included chronic schizophrenia, paranoia
and fragmented personality. He was termed manic and delusioal. He heard voices
and thought he was controlled by an unseen power. Panetti once nailed the
curtains shut in his house to seal out the devil.
Still, Panetti was found competent to stand trial for the 2 murders. Even more
bizarre, he was allowed to act as his own attorney while on trial for his life.
He did so wearing a purple cowboy outfit and mimicking the Ringo Kid, a John
Wayne movie character. Panetti picked 1 juror with the flip of a coin and trid
to subpoena Jesus Christ and John F. Kennedy.
Taking the stand, Panetti assumed the "Sarge" identity and blurted out such
things as, "Boom, boom, blood, blood."
A jury convicted Panetti and sentenced him to death, but he escaped the
executioner's needle in 2004, when the courts agreed to hear arguments that he
was too mentally ill to be executed. Later, the Supreme Court set a new
standard in a 2007 decision, Panetti vs. Quarterman. It says a defendant must
have a "rational unerstanding" of the reasons for his imminent execution and
the chance to make a case of incompetency in court.
It's within those bounds that the state is now locked in a legal chess match
with Panetti's lawyers. The issues also involve deadlines, proper notice,
access to records and timely filing of motions. The Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals has been asked to stay the execution so Panetti's legal team can
present its case.
Meanwhile, Panetti's lawyers assert that his delsuions continue unabated and
untreated and that he believes the state wants to kill him so he'll stop
preaching the Gospel in prison. Indeed, death row inmates have said the
Bible-toting Panetti gets on people's nerves. The legal debate over Panetti's
fate hinges on Eighth Amendment questions of what constitutes cruel and unusual
punishment. In a 1986 decision, the Supreme Court said that executing the
insane served no purpose and woudl be "savage and inhumane."
Today, no words could better describe the state's plans to strap Panetti to a
gurney and end his tortured life.
(source: Editorial, Dallas Morning News)
GEORGIA----impending execution
Clemency hearing set in Baldwin death-penalty case
A Dec. 8 clemency hearing is scheduled for the man accused of killing a Baldwin
County sheriff's deputy.
The State Board of Pardons and Paroles is scheduled to decided whether Robert
Wayne Holsey should be executed the following evening, as scheduled.
A jury in February 1997 convicted Holsey in the December 1995 slaying of
Baldwin County sheriff's deputy Will Robinson.
Prosecutors said Holsey robbed a Milledgeville convenience store and the clerk
immediately called police with a description of Holsey and his car. Minutes
later, Robinson stopped a red Ford Probe at a motel. Prosecutors say Holsey
shot Robinson as the deputy approached his car. Robinson died of a head wound.
The Georgia attorney general's office said Holsey is scheduled be executed at 7
p.m. on Dec. 9.
The State Board of Pardons and Paroles says it will review the case file on
Holsey inmate, which includes his criminal history, circumstances of the
crime,his prison record and a comprehensive history of his life.
That meeting is closed to the public.
(source: WMAZ news)
MISSOURI:
Flack appears in court on capital murder and 1st degree murder charges
A man who faces the death penalty for a quadruple murder last year appeared in
Franklin County Court Tuesday.
Kyle Flack is charged with capital murder in the death of a mother and her
18-month-old daughter.
Flack also faces 2 counts of 1st degree murder. He's accused of also killing
Andrew Stout and Steven White.
In court Tuesday, Flack was represented by Tim Frieden of the Kansas Death
Penalty Defense Unit.
The 28-year-old man is accused of murdering and raping Kaylie Bailey and
killing 2 other men, whose bodies were found on an Ottawa farm in the spring of
2013. Investigators also found the body of Bailey's baby, Lana, nearby.
Lawyers argued about whether statements concerning the crimes that Flack
allegedly made to people other than law enforcement could be used against him.
Flack has previously been convicted and served time in prison for attempted
murder.
In addition to the capital charges, Flack faces the so-called "Hard 50"
sentence if convicted on each of the 2 1st degree murder counts. He also faces
a charge of being a criminal in possession of a firearm.
He scheduled to be back in court in February 2015.
(source: fox4kc.com)
ARIZONA:
Lawsuit over Arizona's execution secrecy on hold
A lawsuit challenging the secrecy of execution protocols in Arizona has been
put on hold pending the investigation of the nearly two-hour execution of
Joseph Rudolph Wood.
A judge on Monday granted a joint request by the state of Arizona and defense
attorneys to put the lawsuit on hold until an independent agency reviews a
Department of Corrections investigation.
The agreement stipulates that the department will not seek any death warrants
for death row inmates. Officials had already suspended executions pending the
Wood investigation.
The mutual agreement also states that Arizona officials will consider changing
execution protocols and make any possible changes public.
The July 23 execution of Wood, who was convicted of murdering his estranged
girlfriend and her father, called into question the efficacy of the drugs used
after it took nearly two hours for Wood to die. He gasped repeatedly before
taking his final breath.
Wood's attorney, Dale Baich, says the execution was botched, which state
officials adamantly deny. The agency has said it is not commenting on pending
litigation.
The lawsuit was filed in June on behalf of Wood and other death row inmates. It
claims the inmates have a First Amendment right to know about specific
execution protocols such as the types of drugs used in lethal injections and
the companies that supply them.
The First Amendment Coalition of Arizona later joined the lawsuit, saying the
information should be released to the public.
The secrecy that surrounds executions has been a source of contention since
officials in states that have the death penalty stopped making public details
such as the drug manufacturers and drug combinations in 2010. European drug
companies had stopped supplying lethal injection drugs, and states said they
were protecting the privacy of local suppliers.
A group of media organizations including The Associated Press has filed a
separate lawsuit contending that the information is of public interest.
Wood was given 15 doses of the sedative midazolam and a painkiller before he
died.
(source: Associated Press)
IDAHO----female may face death penalty
Crawford ordered held without bail
Heather Crawford, charged with 1st-degree murder of a 22-month-old child, was
held without bail Monday morning at her arraignment hearing in magistrate court
before Judge Daniel McGee.
After being read her rights, Crawford asked McGee to hold the application for a
public defender, because she wants to get her own attorney. McGee made sure to
emphasize the need for Crawford to contact the court if she is unable to find
her own attorney.
Keisha Oxendine, Shoshone County prosecutor, said although 1st-degree murder is
punishable by death, the state has not determined whether to seek the death
penalty. She said the circumstances of the case do support premeditation.
Oxendine said based on the representation of Crawford's prior criminal history,
she has shown compliance to court orders. The bigger issue, however, is
Crawford could be a flight risk and a danger to herself and others with the
death penalty as a possible outcome, Oxendine said. She said a previous comment
made by Crawford indicated these risks.
Crawford ended the hearing with no questions and was remanded to custody.
A motion was granted by Judge McGee to seal the affidavit of the case until
after the preliminary hearing. The order states the affidavit will be kept
sealed to "prevent the disclosure of investigative techniques and procedures,
and to allow the officers to conduct follow-up investigation."
It also states that the affidavit contains the names of juveniles and medical
information adding to the justification of sealing the document.
The official written complaint, made by Oxendine, states Crawford killed "E.W.,
... by suffocation and/or another manner resulting in the deprivation of oxygen
to the child."
Crawford's next hearing has not yet been scheduled, but will be set within 14
days of Monday's arraignment.
(source: Coeur d'Alene Press)
USA:
The Cost of the Death Penalty
A favorite tactic of the anti-death penalty crowd is to reach out to fiscal
conservatives and other fiscally-minded people and regurgitate outrageous
dollar amounts as evidence that the death penalty "costs" millions of dollars.
The problem - like most claims by the anti-death penalty crowd - is they know
most readers won't have the time or inclination to think through and
investigate their claims, and will fill in the gaps and innuendos in a way that
leads them to the politically-correct conclusion. Let's take a look at the
"cost" of the death penalty, the true cost.
As a recent example, look at how anti-death penalty advocates report of the
so-called "10 million dollar prosecution" of 3 people in King County, in
Washington State. Characteristically of modern journalism, this number is often
repeated unquestioned by the AP and the like. The local media in the Seattle
Times gets the story a little better, crashing the number down to $4.3 million.
A closer look at the Times article, however, reveals that - excluding fixed
costs such as the courthouse, the prison, etc., that have little to do with the
case being capital) - these numbers are overwhelmingly driven by the defense,
not the prosecution. And while I have not independently checked the costs of
the prosecution, the $200,000 and $470,000 numbers the article cites for the
State are ridiculous and suspect.
Having been a prosecutor for 15 years in one of the largest jurisdictions in
the United States who has prosecuted approximately 20 death penalty cases -
with 4 of them having gone to trial recently - I haven't spent $200,000 on them
combined (again, excluding my $40/hour salary with benefits). I doubt the
office that I work for has spent $470,000 on all of their death penalty
prosecutions in five years, excluding fixed costs.
The largest amount I have spent on a single case was about $20,000 to ensure a
man who tortured and killed someone got the only just punishment. That's
$20,000 for a case that took about 3 years to bring to trial through the death
verdict of the jury. That $20,000 was spent primarily on a psychologist who
was, essentially, on call whenever we had a question, for over 3 years, doing
research for us to rebut the claims of 3 defense experts.
Take a look at that $470,000 number from just a common sense stand point: the
state brings a prosecution, any prosecution, using a number of resources that
already exist. The crimes are investigated by the police. The police and their
salaries are already there, and are decidedly a fixed cost. Most people like
having cops. Additional minor investigation, usually used to rebut defense
claims, can be shared with the prosecutorial agency's own investigators who
again are a fixed cost. The prosecution office's investigators are there
already, and factored into our budgets regardless of what they are
investigating or doing. As such the additional cost of our investigating a
death penalty crime is negligible. Minor fees for obtaining copies or
transcripts might be incurred, which I would argue are already the cost of any
prosecution, but that amount is marginal, usually less than $50-100. Civilians
testify for free and are lucky to get their parking reimbursed.
So that leaves expert witnesses. For the prosecutor, there is a massive
difference between the costs of proving the case, and rebutting the defense.
Proving the case - which usually relies on State experts - has few marginal
costs, again the additional cost is going to be zero or very close. DNA,
fingerprints, handwriting experts, ballistics, all of these scientific experts
come from state crime labs most of the time. Some forensics can be farmed out,
but usually this is to federal crime labs, not private ones; even the private
ones are less than $1,000 most often. Murder cases are no different: medical
examiners/coroners/pathologists are all State/County employees. If you accept
the need for these services - which have nothing to do with the nature of the
punishment - the marginal cost of using them to gain a death penalty is
typically zero, or close enough to count. However, rebutting defense experts in
the penalty phase of the trial - i.e., after guilt and death eligibility
factors have been proven - can be expensive; I would imagine this is 99% of any
prosecutor's budget. But even here, the vast majority of State experts are
going to be drawn from State employees or frequently used experts where the
State can/will negotiate a lower fee. Common defense experts in a capital case
are nuero-psychologists who will talk about the "risk factors" the defendant
had growing up (i.e., the "I had a bad childhood" mitigation) or some type of
organic brain dysfunction ("I whacked my head as a 10 year old"). Most states
have mental health professionals/psychologists who determine competency and
often charge about $50 an hour, substantially less than the $600-$1,000 an hour
charged by the defense industry.
Simply put: the cost of prosecution is largely a fixed cost that could be
created for any prosecution. If prosecutors are indeed spending $470,000 on
experts they are way over-thinking their case and their constituents should cap
their budgets (though I doubt the figures).
So why is it that we see these million dollar numbers? Let's look at the
defense of the murderer, collectively people who have every incentive to make
the costs of the death penalty as high as possible.
Unlike the prosecution, the person who defends the murderer may not be paid the
same amount if they are defending a drunk driver or a serial killer. There are
generally two types of capital defense lawyers: the public defenders, and
conflict/contract counsel. The public defenders - and no that is not
pejorative, they are usually better trial attorneys than private lawyers - are
basically just like prosecutors in that they charged a fixed rate, with
adjustments for experience and (possibly) a bonus in capital cases. Contract
counsel gets appointed if there are any witnesses on the prosecution that
create a conflict because they were once represented by the public defender.
This is actually a very common situation and I would guess a substantial number
of death penalty defense lawyers fall into this category. Now the numbers get
interesting.
Many county boards - who usually include a few abolitionists - want to attract
"good" private defense lawyers to represent the worst of the worst. As such,
they want those lawyers to focus on their capital cases so they offer
ridiculously high contracts. In my jurisdiction, defense attorneys are
typically making about $120-$150 an hour on a single death case. This is about
3 times the salary of the prosecutor, regardless of the quality of the evidence
against the defendant (DNA, confession and all on video are paid the same as 1
snitch witness) and has no budget cap. The amount spent is often overseen by
the defense community or organizations, which usually include death penalty
opponents.
Now, the contract defense attorney can't possibly compete against all of the
cops and crime labs that the state has access to - that's another post for
another day - so he needs a "mitigation specialist," a 2nd chair and an
investigator or 2. Think that comes out of his pocket? Not when lawyers set the
rules, thank you Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer. Again, these are assigned regardless of
the quality of evidence against the defendant. Typically a 2nd chair is paid
less, a paltry $90 an hour, as is the "mitigation specialist" whose job is to
gather information in the defendant's past that make him sympathetic.
Now the defense would not be complete without experts. This is where is it gets
really expensive. Peruse the defense witness lists for any death penalty case
in any state and you will see a definite pattern: the same psychologists,
neuro-psychs, PET scan doctors, sociologists, and former prison wardens
testifying over and over again. I always laugh when I get a CV disclosed to me
where the psychologist/PhD just so happens to be licensed to practice only in
death penalty states, particularly when they don't actually treat clients.
These experts typically charge between $300-$600 an hour - I've seen as much
$1,200 an hour - 5 to 10 times the rate of state experts, who don't make a
living being a professional anti-death penalty witness. Now you see where the
"millions" come from: defense lawyers and anti-death penalty doctors.
Does it seem that a system like that is woefully inefficient, generating
artificially high costs and open to corruption? It absolutely is, and this
article will blow you away. In a shocking investigation from a decidedly
left-wing newspaper that typically opposes the death penalty, the abuse of the
system by defense attorneys and anti-death experts is made clear. It's not that
it's illegal, it's that the system is designed to be costly. Put lawyers in
charge of budgets - and sprinkle in hysterical ideological drive - and you've
got yourself a million-dollar budget-buster.
Imagine if we put a cap on the salaries defense attorneys could earn on a death
case, say a mere $500,000? I know it will be hard to feed a family on such a
paltry number, but what if? Or, God-forbid, an independent panel of citizens
who apportion the budgets of defense attorneys. Or even crazier, abolish
lucrative contracts altogether and have lawyers bid on a case, like we have
engineers bid on bridges that thousands of people trust with their lives every
day?
The costs of the death penalty easily lays at the feet of the defense community
that has every incentive to run up the cost as high as possible. Legislative
reforms would be met with resistance from the lawyers and doctors who profit at
the expense of taxpayers, but that only underscores the need.
(source: ricochet.com)
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