May 17
TEXAS:
Europeans make journey to Texas death row
Death row is where convicted murderers spend years of purgatory before the
final walk to the death chamber. Many of them are shunned by their own
families.
But there's one group prisoners call their salvation: Europeans who send care
packages, money and travel thousands of miles on a journey to death row.
About an hour north of the big city of Houston lies the small town of
Livingston, an unexpected tourist destination for Europeans like Mona Buras.
"I go to school now," Buras says. "Studying theology. I want to be a prison
minister."
The 45-year-old mother of 2 just spent 26 hours traveling from Norway to visit
a pen pal.
"With Perry, I've been writing with for more than 2 years now," Buras says. "I
get a friend. I really do."
Her friend is a man who this summer, Texas plans to execute.
"Everybody else has just really turned their back on me, mostly," death row
prisoner Perry Williams says.
He's convicted of robbing and murdering a medical student in Houston nearly 16
years ago. He claims the crime was not intentional.
"A lot of stuff is really hazy because I was under the influence of PCP,"
Williams says.
"Who pulled the trigger on that man?" reporter Emily Baucum asks.
"It's up in the air because he swung on us," Williams responds. "The gun went
off during the process."
"I don't approve of it but I think they have 2nd chances," Buras says. "It's
not my job to judge."
A Norwegian mother and a Texas prisoner - it's an unlikely friendship Williams
admits is difficult to comprehend.
"I was skeptical because it was like, why do you want to help somebody that's
supposed to be killing somebody?" Williams says.
The death penalty has been abolished in all but one European country. In
Norway, the maximum sentence for murderers is 21 years. No prisoner there has
been executed in Buras' lifetime.
"That's why I think it's strange for me," she says. "If you're American and you
kill and if you're Norwegian you kill, you're still a killer. So how come we
are so different in our punishment?"
Websites show Europeans how to get in touch with and even visit American
prisoners. In Texas, wardens don't track where visitors are from but motels in
Livingston are often full of Europeans.
In an email, a woman who visits from Switzerland writes. "It wasn't because I
was bored with my life or something like that. It was a sincere interest to
know why people still get executed."
Sometimes the pen-pal friendships turn romantic. We heard from a woman who's
engaged to a prisoner. She writes, "They can't call overseas, so I have never
been able to receive a phone call from him."
Even face to face, Buras and Williams' friendship is through a window. They say
it's purely platonic - nothing sexual, but there is love.
"Yeah I love her," Williams says. "I love her because like I say, she's proved
a lot to me because she's doing something my family won't even do."
"Yes, I do love him," Buras says. "It's hard to have this kind of relationship
without getting to love them."
They exchange letters and poetry. Buras says because her children's university
costs are paid for by the Norwegian government, she's able to send Williams
money.
"I send what I have," Buras says. "If I have $50 I will send him that. If I
have $10 I will send him that."
Williams says he doesn't ask for money but does spend it on hygiene products.
"Do you feel guilty taking money from her?" Baucum asks.
"Yes, that's why I never say nothing," Williams responds.
If you find Buras' behavior naive, she understands - because she too feels a
culture shock.
"The Americans would not believe what we do with our prisoners back home,"
Buras says.
At Norwegian prisons, instead of barbed wire there's a system to help
reintegrate criminals into society.
But for Williams, the countdown is on.
"Until the last minute," he says. "Until 6 o'clock on July 14."
His execution will be the 1st time the 2 friends get to hug each other.
"I just appreciate her giving me a chance to show the world that I'm not a lost
cause," Williams says.
As he lives his final months with remorse, Buras will be there until the end.
"To imagine him in the chamber, getting strapped down to this bed and actually
getting killed - it's really, really difficult," she says.
Buras will make 1 more journey to death row in July when William is executed.
News 4 will be there, too, to document that experience.
(source: news4sanantonio.com)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Judge: Death penalty can be sought in veteran's burn death
A judge has agreed that prosecutors can seek the death penalty against a man
charged with beating and burning to death an Army veteran he had met at a bar
in 2014.
The News & Record of Greensboro reports (http://bit.ly/1qoqEUj ) that a judge
agreed with aggravating factors cited by prosecutors. Those factors included
the cruelty of the killing, putting other people at risk by setting a fire at a
motel and killing the veteran while committing another crime.
Authorities say 27-year-old Garry Gupton beat 46-year-old Stephen White with a
telephone, a television and other items in a Greensboro motel room in November
2014 before setting the room on fire.
White died nearly a week later from burns so bad that parts of both arms had to
be amputated.
(source: wral.com)
***************
Hewitt avoids death penalty, sentenced to life in prison
After deliberating on all mitigating factors, the jury returned a verdict
sentencing Everette Porshau Hewitt to life in prison Tuesday afternoon in
Catawba County Superior Court.
The jury found Hewitt, 37, of Claremont, guilty on 3 counts of 1st-degree
murder. Hewitt killed Susan Blevins, Connie Miller and Wade Sigmon at Oak Knoll
Mobile Home Park in Conover in 2011.
The jury was deciding on life in prison versus the death penalty. For Hewitt to
receive the death penalty, the jury would have to unanimously agree.
(source: Hickory Record)
FLORIDA:
The Death Penalty in Florida
Florida's death penalty law and the fate of the state's nearly 400 death row
inmates remains in flux. Last week a Miami-Dade judge ruled that Florida's
newly revised death penalty sentencing law is unconstitutional. That ruling
came in the case of Karon Gaiter who awaits trial for 1st-degree murder. Judge
Milton Hirsh ruled that the law goes against the long-time sanctity of
unanimous verdicts in death penalty cases because the system only requires 10
of 12 jurors to vote in favor of imposing execution.
Just days before that ruling, Florida Supreme Court Justices heard oral
arguments in the case of death row inmate Timothy Lee Hurst who murdered his
boss at a Pensacola Popeye's restaurant. In the Hurst case, the U.S. Supreme
Court declared Florida's death sentencing system unconstitutional earlier this
year arguing it gave too little power to juries. In response the Florida
legislature passed a revision of the law requiring 10 of 12 jurors to agree on
imposing the death penalty. In the Hurst case, opponents of the law argue that
all 390 of Florida's death row inmates should have their sentences changed to
life in prison because they were convicted under a flawed system. While
executions in Florida are currently suspended amid the legal wrangling, the
state has the second highest number of inmates on death row in the U.S. and is
1 of the most active when it comes to carrying out executions. Florida is among
just 3 states that have carried out executions in each of the past 5 years
along with Texas and Oklahoma. We'll take a closer look at the legal battle as
we explore the future of the death penalty in Florida.
(source: WCGU)
************
Jailed Spaniard could be transferred from US death row in 2 weeks----Florida
Supreme Court dismisses prosecution's appeal against retrial for 1994 triple
murder
The Florida Supreme Court has dismissed a prosecution appeal against the
decision to order a new trial for a Spaniard who has been on death row for 15
years.
Pablo Ibar, who has been behind bars for nearly 22 years at Rainford
penitentiary in Starke, Florida, has always maintained his innocence in
connection with a triple murder that took place in 1994.
In February of this year, the high court ordered a retrial on the basis that
mistakes were made during the 1st trial.
With this new decision, 45-year-old Ibar could be transferred from death row
"in 15 days at the outside," according to the Association against the Death
Penalty.
Andres Krakenberger, the association spokesman, expressed satisfaction at the
decision on Basque public radio station Radio Euskadi.
News of the court's dismissal of the appeal was sent to Ibar's lawyer, Benjamin
Waxman. The appeal was filed by Florida prosecutors in late February.
No trial date has been set yet for Ibar, the only Spaniard who was on death row
since his conviction in 2000.
The key piece of evidence in the prosecution???s case was a grainy, soundless
home security video that showed a group of men attacking nightclub owner
Casimir "Butch Casey" Sucharski, and 2 models, Sharon Anderson and Marie
Rogers, whom he had brought to his home in Miramar, Florida. The three were
shot and killed during the botched robbery attempt.
One of the suspects in the video appears to be Ibar, but his DNA was not found
on a shirt that the killer used to partially cover his face.
(source: elpais.com)
******************
Florida death penalty in chaos
Even now, nearly 20 years later, I can't muster much sympathy for the man I
watched die in Florida's electric chair.
Daniel Remeta and 2 others killed 5 people during a crime spree through f4
states.
His first victim was 60-year-old Mehrle "Chet" Reeder, a convenience store
clerk in Ocala, who he shot in a robbery that yielded just $52.
I was a reporter writing for my college paper and stringing for others around
the state when the guards brought Remeta, head shaven and spread liberally with
conductor gel for the electric volts that would kill him, into the death
chamber that morning in 1998.
He looked scared. Though probably not as scared as the people he callously
murdered. Remeta watched, almost without any expression at all, while the
corrections team carried out its protocol, strapping his arms and legs to the
oak chair, fastening the head gear and, finally, lowering a small black veil
that would cover his face during what was about to happen.
Remeta had nearly 12 years on death row to prepare for the moment. He did not
give a final statement
Just hours earlier he requested snow cones for his last meal, but had to settle
for the closest thing the prison cooks could find - slushies from a gas station
near the prison in Starke.
I remember wondering if this was really justice? A couple of icy drinks and
2,000 volts to the head?
The scene was barbaric. Not because a violent criminal was put to death, but
because of what the act said about us and the way we do justice in Florida.
Today as the death penalty in Florida is under more scrutiny than ever, I have
the same thought: This is much more about us than them - the inmates on death
row.
I would like to think that the state is capable of reserving its harshest
punishment for the most heinous criminals and carrying it out fairly.
But time and time again this has proven not to be true.
In Florida, 24 people have left death row - some proven innocent and others who
prosecutors declined to continue to prosecute after questions were raised about
their cases. A 25th man was exonerated just months after he died of illness.
That's higher than in any other state.
The system is inherently flawed.
The poor and defendants with mental illnesses receive the most death sentences.
And courts in small slices of the state sentence the most people to die.
The U.S. Supreme Court finally put a stop to one of the biggest failings this
year when it struck down the way Florida allowed judges, rather than juries,
decide if a convicted person would be put to death.
Florida is one of just a few states that doesn't require a unanimous jury
decision to impose the death penalty.
Undeterred, our state's lawmakers tried to fix the law the way one might use
duct tape to fasten a broken side view mirror to a car. The problem wasn't
really fixed. And it looked even worse.
The new law said 10 of 12 jurors must recommend a death sentence and jettisoned
language from the statute that said a judge could still impose the death
sentence without the recommendation of the jury.
Then last week a judge in Miami ruled that the new law is unconstitutional
because it doesn't require a unanimous jury verdict.
Amid all of the chaos over the law - for now the state has halted executions -
Florida is still determining what the U.S. Supreme Court decision will mean to
the nearly 400 inmates on death row today.
The Florida Supreme Court heard arguments on that earlier this month with some
lawyers, including former state supreme court justices, advocating for the
sentences to be thrown out.
Attorney General Pam Bondi is defending Florida's clearly troubled death
penalty.
But another curve ball was thrown the state's way last week when drug company
Pfizer said it would no longer allow its products to be used to carry out
capital punishment. More than 20 other companies have already taken similar
action, effectively cutting off the supply of the drugs, according to the New
York Times.
This is what it's come to.
The legalities of Florida's death penalty are under challenge. And now its
method of execution likely will be, too.
I haven't grown more sympathetic to killers on death row. But I am concerned
about the message we send to our children when we carry on a system that is so
fraught with problems.
Capital punishment today is more about politics and pandering than justice. How
else can you explain the enthusiasm from Bondi and other politicians when the
flaws are so obvious?
It's time for Florida's death penalty to be put out of its misery. For our
sake, not just for the condemned.
(source: Column, Beth Kassab; Orlando Sentinel)
ALABAMA:
Drug company's withdrawal limits death penalty options in Alabama
Drug giant Pfizer's decision to ban the use of its products in executions won't
necessarily stop capital punishment in Alabama, one expert says, but it's clear
the state's lethal injection options are running out.
"The sources of drugs on the open market are gone," said Robert Dunham,
director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a group that studies the
death penalty. "States are going to have to go underground, as it were, to
obtain the drugs for executions."
Pfizer, the New-York based pharmaceutical company, announced Friday that it
"strongly objects to the use of its products as lethal injections for capital
punishment" statement on the company's website.
One of the world's largest drug producers, Pfizer joins several other major
drug producers in a boycott that has been slowing the pace of executions in
America for years. European-owned companies have backed out due to widespread
opposition to the death penalty in their home countries. In America, major
medical and pharmacists' associations have declared their opposition to
participation in executions, arguing that the medical arts shouldn't be used to
kill.
Death penalty critics hailed Pfizer's decision last week as a major step toward
cutting off all execution drugs. Pfizer spokeswoman Rachel Hooper said Monday
that the company simply clarified an existing policy, 1 the company has held
since it acquired Hospira, 1 of the first major American drug producers to halt
sales of drugs for lethal injection.
"It's not a new policy so much as an update of a Hospira policy," Hooper said.
Hooper declined to answer questions about whether the company had sold drugs to
Alabama's prison system.
Alabama has executed only 2 inmates in the past 4 years, compared to 17 in the
4 years before that.
The drug boycott was a major factor in that lull. Federal regulators seized the
state's execution drugs, acquired through back channels, in 2011. Alabama
switched to a new main execution drug, but its supply of that drug expired in
2014 while lawyers debated the legality of the switch.
In January, the state executed convicted murderer Christopher Brooks with
injections of midazolam, rocuronium and sodium chloride. State officials have
never acknowledged where they bought the drugs. One maker of midazolam, the
Illinois-based company Akorn, joined the boycott after Alabama officials
mentioned the company in court filings in a death penalty case.
Dunham said the Pfizer decision does close off access to mass-produced versions
of the drugs typically used in executions. He said states could still turn to
compounding pharmacies - specialty pharmacies that make small, customized
batches of drugs - though many compounding pharmacists would likely refuse if
state officials can't produce a prescription for the drugs.
Alabama seems to have had trouble with that approach. In court records filed in
December, state officials said they asked every compounding pharmacist in the
state to make pentobarbital - once the state's primary execution drug - and
every pharmacist turned them down.
Attempts to reach Department of Corrections officials Monday for comment on the
Pfizer decision were unsuccessful.
It's not clear just how much midazolam the state has on hand for future
executions, where those drugs come from, or how long they'll last.
Court documents filed earlier this month again included instructions for the
use of midazolam made by Akorn, which has asked that its drugs not be used for
lethal injection. The court filings include photocopies of labels from boxes of
midazolam.
The expiration dates on those labels weren't visible.
(source: Anniston Star)
*************
Alabama inmate convicted in double murder to get new hearing on death sentence
A federal appeals court has ordered a new hearing for an Alabama death row
inmate convicted in an execution-style double shooting that occurred after 1 of
the victims allegedly used a racial slur.
Renard Marcel Daniel, 41, was sentenced to death 2 years after he was charged
in the deaths of 35-year-old John Brodie and his girlfriend, 39-year-old
Loretta McCulloch.
The attorneys representing Daniel on appeal argued that his trial attorneys did
not present mitigating evidence during the penalty phase of his capital trial -
specifically that jurors were not shown enough evidence about the violence and
sexual abuse of Daniel's childhood.
A U.S. District judge denied the petition, which Daniel's attorneys then
appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That court on Monday upheld
his conviction but ordered a new evidentiary hearing regarding his sentence,
calling his childhood "nightmarish by any standard."
According to news reports from the 2003 trial, Daniel was charged with killing
his East Lake neighbors after an argument on Sept. 26, 2001. Daniel, Brodie and
McCulloch were playing cards and drinking beers with another neighbor, George
Jackson, when Brodie called Daniel the "n-word."
An argument ensued, and the couple later apologized, Jackson testified.
When Daniel later asked McCulloch to return his cigarettes, she refused. He
then walked to the couple's front door and fired 4 shots into the apartment,
then entered and fired a shot into the back of each victim's head, according to
reports.
During the trial, Daniel's attorneys called into question all testimony from
Jackson, who they said waited nearly 14 hours before telling police about the
shooting. Daniel testified that Jackson shot the couple.
In May 2003, a Jefferson County judge upheld the jury's recommendation that
Daniel be sentenced to death. In April 2011, an appeals court upheld his
sentence.
The federal appeals court agreed with Daniel's argument that further evidence
about his childhood should have been weighed at his sentencing.
According to court filings, his mother killed his biological father with a
shotgun while Daniel, then 3, was in their home. Starting when he was 9, he was
repeatedly sexually assaulted by his stepfather, who also forced him to engage
in sex acts with his siblings.
He was placed in special education classes in school, and his test scores show
that he hovered on the borderline of intellectual disability.
None of that evidence was presented during his trial in 2003. Daniel argued on
appeal that his trial counsel did not conduct a constitutionally adequate
investigation into his background.
"While trial counsel presented some mitigation evidence during the penalty
phase through Mr. Daniel's mother, the description, details, and depth of abuse
in Mr. Daniel's background that he brought to the attention of the state courts
in his habeas proceedings far exceeded anything the sentencing jury and judge
were told," the appellate court's decision reads.
(source: al.com)
MISSISSIPPI:
Tupelo man faces possible death penalty
Mack Williams can't believe his son is dead.
"It's been awful shocking."
55-year-old Charlie Williams was a wrestler back in the day. He would later
work for the city of Tupelo in Public Works and eventually become a cab driver.
His life would end Friday night. Lee County Sheriff Jim Johnson says
23-year-old Leonta Gates would be his last faire. Gates came with a gun and a
motive-robbery.
"The victim was working not doing anything to provoke anything like this. He
was doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing and going about his regular
routine in life and fell victim to something that's very senseless."
"I'm sorry, but I just can't understand why it was him and I don't know why the
boy done it. I would like to ask him the question why he done it," said
Williams.
Sunday afternoon, with an arrest warrant in hand, law enforcement descended
upon the home Gates shares with his grandmother in Haven Acres.
"Mr. Gates had just left probably about 30 seconds or a minute before we got
there which allowed him to get a little bit of a heard start," said Sheriff
Johnson.
A search of the area was the next move. By 10:30 Sunday night, Gates began
negotiations on the phone with investigators.
"He knew that we meant business and he knew that we were coming after him."
Officials say Gates has broken the law before. He was out on parole for armed
robbery. He was just 17 at the time.
The sheriff says this is a failure of the system.
He was convicted of armed robbery at the age of 17.
"It was brought to our attention that he had missed several meetings with
probabtion and still was able to be out here in the free world," added Sheriff
Johnson.
(source: WTVA news)
LOUISIANA:
State Supreme Court rejects serial killer Daniel Blank's bid to overturn death
sentence, get new trial
River Parishes serial killer Daniel Blank would have been sentenced to death
whether or not allegations of an abusive upbringing were presented at his 1999
1st-degree murder trial in the slaying of Gonzales resident Lillian Philippe.
That conclusion came from Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Scott Crichton, who
concurred with a silent court majority Friday, in upholding a state district
judge's rejection in October of Blank's bid to overturn his death penalty
conviction and have a new trial.
Blank, 53, who is from St. James Parish, was convicted of slaying Philippe and
four others during a string of murders and armed robberies of well-off, elderly
residents in St. James, St. John the Baptist and Ascension parishes during the
mid- to late-1990s. Philippe, 72, was beaten to death in her home April 9,
1997, in a botched burglary. Blank was never tried in a sixth slaying tied to
him.
Blank's post-conviction defense attorneys argued at an evidentiary hearing in
July that he had ineffective counsel who did not do enough investigation to
challenge his lengthy confession they claim was false, investigative reports by
prosecutors they say were withheld and didn???t bring up his childhood at the
penalty phase of his case.
Crichton focused on the last aspect of Blank's appeal. He wrote that Blank's
appellate attorneys argued his trial attorneys did not focus on his childhood
of extreme poverty and sexual abuse, instead presenting Blank as part of a
happy family.
Had this version of Blank's past been presented, he may have avoided the death
penalty, the appellate attorneys argued.
Crichton disagreed and called that aspect of the appeal part of "the
unfortunate trend of turning capital post-conviction proceedings into a second
penalty phase." He wrote the trend "represents an extraordinary drain" on funds
for Louisiana's indigents defense.
The Philippe case was the 1st brought against Blank and is the only one
remaining for which he still faces the death penalty.
Assistant District Attorney Chuck Long said Monday that he plans to ask the
23rd Judicial District Judge Jessie LeBlanc in Ascension Parish to sign an
execution warrant once Blank's time to ask the high court to reconsider the
ruling passes in 2 weeks.
Gary Clements, director of the Capital Post-Conviction Project of Louisiana,
said he would get the warrant stopped, as happened Feb. 17 when the state
Supreme Court stayed Blank's execution.
"I don't believe Mr. Long will have any more success with this motion to
execute than he did with the other one," Clements said. "You cannot deny people
their right to litigation that they have."
Clements said the state Supreme Court's denial means Blank's case moves to the
federal courts. He has a year to file with the U.S. District Court in Baton
Rouge.
Louisiana death row procedures have been stayed as part of an ongoing federal
civil rights case while the state has also had trouble finding drugs to perform
executions.
The state Supreme Court ruling Friday drew a dissent from Chief Justice
Bernette Johnson over the same part of Blank???s appeal on which Crichton
focused. She wrote LeBlanc should not have dismissed that part of the appeal as
repetitive and added she would have remanded it back to the judge for a
hearing.
"Ever mindful that Daniel Blank has confessed to brutally murdering Ms.
Philippe and similarly attacking seven others, evidence of the extraordinary
abuse and deprivation he is alleged to have endured as a child may nevertheless
have swayed a juror in favor of imposing a life sentence," Johnson wrote.
(source: The Advocate)
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