Jan. 27
SOUTH CAROLINA:
If SC botches an execution, state doesn't have to show what went wrong
A little-known S.C. law, on the books for nearly a decade, exempts the state
from performing an autopsy on a death-row inmate who has been executed.
That means if a lethal-injection execution doesn't go according to plan, the
state is not required to conduct an autopsy, a procedure that could shed light
on what went wrong.
However, the state's corrections chief says nothing in state law prevents
others from pursuing an autopsy. "The body is immediately turned over to the
funeral home," where the family or lawyers of the inmate could decide to have
an autopsy done, said Corrections Department director Bryan Stirling.
But the autopsy waiver for executed inmates is troubling to some lawmakers and
prisoner advocates as the Legislature debates another controversial proposal
aimed at putting parts of the execution process deeper into the shadows.
S.C. lawmakers are debating whether to shield - as a state secret - the
identity of companies and pharmacies that sell the state drugs that are used in
lethal-injection executions. Without that so-called "shield law," the
lethal-injection drugs will be impossible to buy because suppliers fear the
backlash of being identified as the source of the drugs, Stirling says.
And that's an issue for the state.
Now, the state is out of stock of the 3 drugs used first to knock unconscious
an inmate; then, to cause paralysis and respiratory arrest; and finally, cause
cardiac arrest, stopping the heart.
Pressure is mounting for a solution.
Stirling said he has received 3 execution orders in recent months. But, he
added, "When we are calling folks to ask for the drugs, and we inform them of
who we are, the conversations stop."
Exemption long on the books
The law to waive the state's autopsy requirement for an executed inmate has
been on the books since the 2009-2010 fiscal year, when all state agencies were
reeling from massive Great Recession-era cuts.
Then-S.C. Corrections Director Jon Ozmint, who oversaw 15 executions, said he
asked legislators to adopt the waiver for autopsies, adding they were a waste
of money.
"I just remember thinking: 'This is insanity. We had 10 witnesses to the fact
that the overwhelming amount of drugs that we pumped into (the inmate's) veins
... killed him instantly.' It just seemed to me like taking money out into the
yard and burning it."
Had there been any indication that an execution did not happen as planned -
taking too long for the inmate to die, for instance - Ozmint says he would have
ordered an autopsy.
Despite the waiver being in place, an autopsy was performed on Jeffrey Motts
after his 2011 execution, according to the state Corrections Department. The
department could not say Friday why the autopsy was ordered. However, it used a
new combination of lethal-injection drugs in Motts' execution, the last one the
state has performed.
Questions about transparency
The autopsy waiver raises concerns for some lawmakers and prisoner advocates.
Already hesitant about making secret the source of lethal-injection drugs,
state Sen. Marlon Kimpson, D-Charleston, said the autopsy waiver gives him
further pause.
"If we did not have transparency, and there was a problem (with the execution)
for whatever reason, we don't even know where to start our investigation
because the identities of the material parties to the execution aren't
traceable," Kimpson said of the proposed "shield law."
"In addition to the shield law, now that we don't have the autopsy, then it
makes it more problematic that we would never get to the bottom of what
happened during the execution," he said.
"It just shrouds so much of the execution in secrecy," said Lindsey Vann with
Justice 360, a group that is fighting the shield law. "We won't know where the
drugs are coming from or who's testing them. Won't know if they're being
effective. ... If something goes wrong, I don't know how we would be able to
figure out what happened to prevent it from happening again in the future."
Stirling said he will conduct autopsies after executions if lawmakers decide to
change the law, but he sees no reason to spend the money.
"It doesn't really make much sense to me to have the state pay for an autopsy
when you have medical professionals" and other witnesses to the execution, he
said.
State House Speaker Pro Tempore Tommy Pope, R-York, said he never would oppose
an autopsy being performed if there was some question about whether an
execution went according to plan.
However, Pope, a former solicitor who prosecuted Susan Smith in a high-profile
death-penalty case, questioned the motivations of critics who call into
question the effectiveness of lethal-injection drugs. Their "real push has been
to not have the death penalty," he said.
Still, Kimpson said he would prefer the state perform an autopsy after a
lethal-injection execution to ensure the drugs were effective.
"That makes good sense, albeit at some expense to the state," he said. "The
safeguard is the Constitution which is even applicable to prisoners. No person
should be subject to cruel and unusual punishment."
3 S.C. execution orders issued
Pressure is mounting for the state to find a way to obtain lethal-injection
drugs - or find another way to carry out executions.
Lacking the needed drugs, the S.C. Department of Corrections could not carry
out the court-ordered execution of Bobby Wayne Stone on Dec. 1 of last year.
Stone was convicted of killing Sumter County Sheriff???s Sgt. Charlie Kubala in
1997.
Since Stone's execution order was issued, Corrections has received orders for 2
more executions.
Late last year, the state received an order to execute Anthony Woods, sentenced
to death in the 2003 death of a Manning school teacher. However, Woods'
attorneys have been granted a stay on his execution.
The most recent execution order came Friday for Marion Bowman, sentenced to
death in 2001 for the murder of a woman in Dorchester County. Bowman's
attorneys have requested a stay of his execution as his case is appealed.
(source: thestate.com)
***********************
As killer gets reprieve, solicitor suggests another execution option in South
Carolina: firing squad
After a former death row inmate from Dorchester County became the latest killer
to get a reprieve because South Carolina doesn't have the means to execute him,
a prosecutor on Friday suggested an alternative for others who deserve the
ultimate punishment: firing squad.
And lawmakers might consider it.
John Edward Weik had been sentenced to death for murdering his girlfriend,
Susan Hutto Krasae, at her Knightsville home in 1998. But the S.C. Supreme
Court in 2014 found issues with the penalty phase of Weik's trial and ordered a
new sentencing.
As the victim's family faced the lengthy proceeding and the fact that South
Carolina ran out of the ingredients for lethal injections a year before Weik's
successful appeal, 1st Circuit Solicitor David Pascoe decided earlier this
month to agree to a lifetime prison term for Weik, now 50.
"He absolutely deserves the death penalty, and I was willing to pursue the
death penalty," Pascoe said. "But we live in a state that doesn't have the
capability of executing someone, so I think we should bring back the firing
squad."
Lawmakers already are considering a bill to make electrocution the primary
means of execution if the dearth of the drug cocktail persists, but Pascoe, a
Democrat, said a firing squad might be a more effective and humane option.
It isn't a novel concept, Pascoe noted. 2 states already allow it: Oklahoma and
Utah, which brought back the method because of the injection shortage. Other
prosecutors here have discussed it, Pascoe added.
And South Carolina last considered a legislative proposal on the firing squad
alternative in 2015. The measure never gained steam.
Its original sponsor, Rep. Josh Putnam, R-Anderson, said Friday after learning
of Pascoe's case that he would likely reintroduce the bill in the coming week.
"People might think it's crazy," Putnam said. "But if I were a death row
inmate, I'd much rather be put to death by firing squad."
Family members of Weik's victim also did not want to again endure the lengthy
courtroom ordeal of re-sentencing, and they urged Pascoe to accept life, the
prosecutor said. Weik was sentenced Jan. 11 by Circuit Judge Diane Goodstein.
Fewer capital cases
Many prosecutors statewide in the past year have agreed to similar guilty pleas
in exchange for lifetime terms for killers who might otherwise be eligible for
the death penalty. And with various appeals in the works, inmates already on
death row are either dying of natural causes or getting their sentences
overturned at a much faster clip than South Carolina can carry out the
punishments.
In April, 9th Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson said a guilty plea on Emanuel
AME Church shooter Dylann Roof's 9 state murder charges was the "surest way" to
see that he's executed by federal authorities, who had already won a death
verdict.
Wilson also planned to pursue the ultimate punishment against Kenneth Ancrum,
who in May 2016 fatally shot three members of his girlfriend's family in
Hollywood, including a woman pregnant with twins. But the lack of the injection
cocktail weighed heavily in her decision not to.
Admitted Upstate serial killer Todd Kohlhepp got 7 lifetime sentences in May as
7th Circuit Solicitor Barry Barnette noted that the state "doesn't have a
functionary death penalty" anyway.
South Carolina ran out of the drugs in 2013 as more pharmaceutical suppliers
cited ethical concerns in holding them back. The state's last lethal injection
came in 2011.
Only 1 person has been added to death row since 2009: Ricky Lee Blackwell Sr.,
who was sentenced in 2014 for kidnapping and killing an 8-year-old girl in
Spartanburg County.
By Friday, records showed, 34 inmates were housed on death row at Kirkland
Correctional Institution in Columbia.
'Some closure'
Weik broke into his girlfriend's home and fired 4 shotgun blasts into Krasae as
her 8-year-old daughter watched.
His lawyers during a 1999 trial presented testimony about his paranoid
schizophrenia, but they failed to delve into his chaotic childhood and physical
abuse by his father. Because that crucial mitigation evidence was never
offered, the state's high court said it had no choice but to overturn Weik's
sentence.
But a new penalty phase could stretch for weeks, essentially amounting to a 2nd
trial nearly 2 decades after Weik's 1st, Pascoe said at the time.
Pascoe said Friday that Weik will now have to spend time in a prison's general
population.
"And the (victim's) family won't have to come back to court," he said. "They
can finally get some closure.
"I couldn't tell them I would get closure for them if (Weik) got the death
penalty again."
Putnam, the Upstate lawmaker, had envisioned the state's current problems with
carrying out executions when he made the "forward-thinking" proposal on firing
squads 3 years ago, he said. He wanted to start a debate about the
alternatives.
From a scientific standpoint, he said, it's a sound means that causes instant
death. But electrocution and lethal injection can go horribly wrong and cause
prolonged suffering, he said.
Such squads never have been an official method here. People were hanged before
electrocution became the accepted means. Lethal injections started in 1995,
though the condemned still can opt for the chair.
"If you just ... take the emotion out of it," Putnam said, "it really is the
most humane method of putting someone to rest."
Even U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, thought to be a more
liberal-minded jurist, said in a dissent to a 2017 ruling in an Alabama case
that a study showed 7 % of 1,054 lethal injections had been "botched" while
none of 34 firing squad executions in the U.S. had been.
"Some might find this choice regressive, but the available evidence suggests
'that a competently performed shooting may cause nearly instant death,'" she
wrote. "Death by shooting may also be comparatively painless."
(source: Andrew Knapp, Post and Courier)
FLORIDA:
Wife of man in death penalty trial gives emotional testimony
The wife of a Brevard County man on trial and facing the death penalty in a
2012 double murder took the stand Friday in gripping testimony.
Barbara Woodward testified she feared for her life long before the deadly Labor
Day encounter between her husband, William Woodward, and 3 men, who of whom
died.
"I'm sorry... it's so hard to talk about it," said Barbara Woodward, before
crying.
Barbara Woodward struggled on the stand, sometimes breaking down, when
describing alleged harassment she and her family endured from neighbors in the
months before the shooting.
"We took the threats very seriously. (There's) no doubt that they were capable
of doing it," she said.
She broke down several more times, describing how she said Keri Blake - the
wife of Bruce Blake, 1 of the men who was shot - told her she would rape her
then-12-year-old daughter.
"She would have all the neighbors participate, and then she would burn down my
house," Barbara Woodward said.
Woodward said she and her husband asked law enforcement to intervene, but
nothing was done, even trying and failing to get a court injunction.
William Woodward is accused killing Gary Hembree and Roger Picior after firing
a barrage of bullets. Bruce Blake survived despite being struck 11 times.
A home security camera from Woodward's Smith Drive home recorded the gunshots.
Prosecutors argue that Woodward, a former military member, laid in wait in
camouflage under the cover of darkness to gun down the men.
Woodward's defense team argues he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder
and was acting in self-defense to protect his family after months of
harassment, taunting and violent threats to his daughter.
But prosecutors are trying to paint a picture of an ongoing feud fueled by
anger on both sides.
Testimony in the death-penalty trial will continue Monday.
(source: mynews13.com)
**********
Another Duval County death row inmate loses appeal----Florida Supreme Court
rejects another 10 death row appeals
After issuing another batch of 10 rulings Friday, the Florida Supreme Court
this week rejected a total of 40 death-penalty appeals on similar legal
grounds.
The 40 appeals all were filed on behalf of death row inmates who received their
sentences before June 2002, though the Supreme Court's decision to release 4
large batches of rulings in a week was highly unusual.
The appeals stemmed from a 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a case known as
Hurst v. Florida and a subsequent Florida Supreme Court decision.
The 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling found Florida's death-penalty sentencing
system was unconstitutional because it gave too much authority to judges,
instead of juries.
The subsequent Florida Supreme Court ruling said juries must unanimously agree
on critical findings before judges can impose death sentences and must
unanimously recommend the death penalty.
But the Florida Supreme Court made the new sentencing requirements apply to
cases since June 2002.
That is when the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling known as Ring v. Arizona
that was a premise for striking down Florida's death-penalty sentencing system
in 2016. In each of the cases this week, the death row inmates had been
sentenced to death before the Ring decision and argued that the new unanimity
requirements should also apply to their cases.
The inmates who lost their appeals Friday were Richard Harold Anderson in a
Hillsborough County case; Charles William Finney in a Hillsborough County case;
Kenneth Hartley in a Duval County case; Sonny Ray Jeffries in an Orange County
case; William H. Kelley in a Highlands County case; Ian Deco Lightbourne in a
Marion County case; Robert D. Morris in a Polk County case; Kenneth Allen
Stewart in a Hillsborough County case; George James Trepal in a Polk County
case; and Melvin Trotter in a Manatee County case.
(source: Yhe News Service of Florida)
********************
Applying the death penalty deftly and fairly
It is possible to question the morality and deterrent value of the death
penalty and still appreciate the way Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren
has approached the issue of capital punishment during his first 13 months in
office. Warren recently announced he would seek the death penalty for Howell
Emanuel Donaldson III, who has been accused of killing four people seemingly at
random in the Seminole Heights neighborhood in 2017.
Unlike Aramis Ayala, his counterpart in Orange and Osceola counties who has
refused to pursue the death penalty under any circumstances, Warren did not
hide his beliefs on capital punishment before his election in November 2016. He
has readily acknowledged the problems with lengthy delays that contribute to
huge financial costs, the racial disparity in death penalty sentences and the
rare, but real, possibility of executing someone who was wrongly convicted.
Yet as a candidate, Warren said he believed a state attorney should invoke the
death penalty "fairly and consistently and rarely." Thus far, he has upheld
that standard. Warren has taken the death penalty off the table in a handful of
cases he inherited, and his office has specifically cited mental illness as a
mitigating factor that will be considered.
But Warren has also pursued the ultimate punishment in what he determines are
the most egregious cases, and the four killings of innocent people walking the
streets of their neighborhood qualifies. The worthiness of the death penalty
remains open for debate, but Warren has deftly juggled his reservations about
its use while still fulfilling the duties of his office.
(source: Editorial, Tampa Bay Times)
******************
Palm Beach County jurors hear escort, suspect in death penalty trial
In a grainy interrogation video from 2013, Jefty Joseph almost chuckled as he
explained to jurors that before he recognized his old "friend" Gustavo Falsetti
Cabral in a casino, he saw Cabral watching him and thought the man wanted to
rob him.
Cabral's widow, Christiane, and other relatives seated in a Palm Beach County
courtroom Thursday, shook their heads at the sound of those words. They and
everyone else in the courtroom, including the jurors who could sentence Joseph
to die if they convict him of 1st-degree murder, knew one thing about what
Joseph said:
It was all a lie.
Prosecutors told jurors at the start of Joseph's trial last week that Cabral,
born and raised in Brazil, had only moved to the U.S. a short time before his
body was found in an abandoned house in unincorporated Lake Worth. In the
video, Joseph called Cabral "Chico" and claimed Cabral had been a friend of his
older brother who'd interacted with him in South Florida ever since Joseph was
a child.
Koral Ben Shimon, arrested 2 weeks after authorities apprehended Joseph and
best friend Ilmart Christophe almost immediately after the shooting, told
jurors earlier Thursday how they all really met. Cabral, she said, was one of
several people who responded to an escort ad she'd placed on Backpage.com.
And though Joseph told investigators in his fake story that he initially
thought Cabral was contemplating whether to rob him, Ben Shimon told jurors it
was Joseph and Christophe, her boyfriend and pimp at the time, who had designs
on robbing a john and chose Cabral as their prey.
Both stories aside, the one thing that Joseph was adamant about in the 2-hour
interview played for jurors, however, was that he had nothing to do with
Cabral's death.
"You have a way you can test? You have that gunshot residue thing? Come through
with it, man. I did not shoot that man," Joseph said.
Assistant State Attorney Aleathea McRoberts, who is leading the case against
Joseph along with fellow prosecutor Terri Skiles, told jurors that they didn't
have to prove whether it was Joseph or Christophe who actually shot Cabral.
Both, they say, are guilty under the law of his murder, robbery and kidnapping
from the Super 8 Motel in Pompano Beach, where he met Ben Shimon in the early
hours of Dec. 1, 2013, just hours before his death.
Ben Shimon, arrested two weeks after Joseph and Christophe, had also faced a
murder charge until she accepted a plea deal in exchange for her testimony
against Joseph and Christophe, who also faces a potential death sentence but is
still awaiting trial. Under the terms of the agreement, prosecutors agreed to
drop the murder charge against Ben Shimon and allow her to serve a 10-year
prison sentence on the other charges.
Defense attorney Scott Skier, who, along with Robert Gershman and Shaun
Rosenberg, is representing Joseph, estimated on Thursday that with the time Ben
Shimon has spent behind bars since her 2013 arrest, the deal means she could be
out in as few as four additional years.
"That's much better than life in prison, isn't it?" Skier asked Ben Shimon on
cross-examination.
Ben Shimon agreed.
"But without you, there is no robbery, and there is no murder, right?" Skier
asked, prompting an objection from prosecutors that Circuit Judge John
Kastrenakes sustained.
Skier since the start of the trial had said that there is no evidence to
support claims that Cabral was robbed or kidnapped. Surely Cabral, who had
moved to Florida in hopes of opening a mixed martial arts studio, would have
put up a fight if 2 men tried to take him by force from the hotel room, Skier
said.
But the hotel room showed no signs of a struggle, Skier said. And the hotel
security worker who later saw Cabral leaving the hotel with Ben Shimon and the
2 men thought the group was an odd pairing but said Cabral didn't appear to be
in distress or leaving by force.
Ben Shimon said the men robbed Cabral at gunpoint, then forced him into his
car, told her to follow them and then went to a bank to try to withdraw some of
his money. The caravan wound up back in Palm Beach County in the Indian Pines
neighborhood, where Ben Shimon said Christophe told her to go to his mother's
house. She said she didn't find out Cabral was dead until Christophe and Joseph
were arrested.
In the interrogation video, Joseph said he wasn't in the abandoned house when
Cabral was killed and didn't know anything happened to him until police stopped
him and Christophe a short time later as they were walking on Eddy Court.
While Joseph sat on the ground immediately, Christophe ran. Joseph pointed that
out to investigators in the video as proof he didn't know Cabral had been
killed, a sentiment Skier echoed to jurors.
Aside from the video and testimony from Ben Shimon, jurors on Tuesday also
heard from Christiane Cabral, who told them she and her husband, who have 2
children, had moved to the United States looking to get away from
poverty-motivated violence in their native country.
Christiane Cabral last spoke to her husband less than a day before he was
killed. She had been back home in Brazil and expected to return Dec. 4, 2013.
After she heard of his murder, she said, she never returned.
Prosecutors are expected to rest their case against Joseph early Friday.
(source: Palm Beach Post)
ALABAMA:
AG: State will continue to pursue death sentence
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall says the state will continue to pursue
a death sentence for an inmate convicted of killing a police officer in 1985.
Marshall said Friday that he was disappointed in the U.S. Supreme Court's
decision to stay the execution of Vernon Madison since he had previously been
ruled competent to face execution.
The court delayed the Thursday execution that had been scheduled as it decides
whether to review claims that strokes have left Madison incompetent and that
his sentence was unconstitutional.
Madison was sentenced to death for killing Mobile Police Officer Julius
Schulte.
Marshall said Madison committed "a cold blooded crime for which there is no
doubt he is guilty."
(source: Associated Press)
INDIANA:
Defense attorney in death penalty case removed, chided as 'unprepared'
The attorney for a man facing the death penalty was removed from the case after
a judge said he was unprepared and inexperienced.
Nikos Nakos, the defense attorney in the state of Indiana's murder case against
Marcus Dansby, was removed as counsel by Allen Superior Court Judge Fran Gull
Friday morning during a hearing.
Dansby faces 4 counts of murder related to the Sept. 11, 2016, deaths of
37-year-old Consuela Arrington; 18-year-old Traeven Harris; 18-year-old
Dajahiona Arrington and her full-term baby named A.J., and another for
attempted murder related in the shooting and stabbing of 14-year-old Trinity
Hairston, all of Fort Wayne.
Since those charges were filed, though, Gull said there have been no
depositions taken and no mitigation investigation has taken place, including
acquiring a mitigation expert (though Gull signed the appointment for a
mitigation investigator in June 2017).
What's more, Gull argued that Nakos did not meet the expectations of a defense
attorney in a capital case as laid out by the American Bar Association. Gull
said Nakos has 22 open felony cases and lacks special training to represent a
client in a death penalty case. The judge also said Nakos has been generally
unprepared and has treated the case like any other case.
Prosecutors said they, too, have been concerned with the issues brought up by
Gull.
Gull enforced Dansby's 6th amendment right of high quality representation and
removed Nakos. The public defenders office will appoint Bob Gevers and Michelle
Krause to represent Dansby.
Nakos, who has twice filed motions to have Gull recuse herself from the case
for violating the code of judicial conduct, said he plans to appeal the ruling.
Dansby is next scheduled to appear in court Feb. 2. He's not expected to stand
trial until 2019.
The charges against Dansby stem from an incident that unfolded around 4 a.m.
that Sept. 11 morning inside a home at 3006 Holton Ave. There, police arrive to
find the victims bodies stabbed and shot, and Dansby covered in blood, leaning
over the couch, crying and asking for help, according to an affidavit. On him,
police found a large blood-soaked knife with a broken handle, the affidavit
said.
Police said that Dansby and Dajahiona Arrington had been in a relationship, but
the pair had separated after the woman became pregnant with another man's
child. Nakos had said Allen County Prosecutors will argue that Dansby killed
the family because the baby wasn't his but a DNA test confirmed with
near-certainty that Dansby was the father of the unborn child. Nakos said
previously that it was illogical Dansby would have killed the family armed with
the knowledge that he was the father of the child.
The Allen County Prosecutor is seeking the death penalty against Dansby.
(source: WANE news)
ILLINOIS:
In the 1920s, a Makeover Saved This Woman From the Death Penalty----Sabella
Nitti was the 1st woman sentenced to death in Cook County, and she was
innocent. And then she got a bob.
Sabella Nitti was ugly. At least, that's what the prosecutor said - in fact, he
built much of his case around her looks, leaning on sexism, racism, and
stereotypes to convince the jury that Nitti was an "ugly animal" capable of
killing her husband with their farmhand Peter Crudele, even though the actual
evidence was circumstantial and flimsy.
The newspaper stories about her were almost worse. On July 10th, 1923, reporter
Genevieve Forbes wrote in the Chicago Daily Tribune that the jury gave the
death penalty to "husband killer" Sabella Nitti, a "dumb, crouching,
animal-like Italian peasant." Forbes wrote that when the jury read the verdict,
"Mrs. Nitti ran stubby fingers, where the dirt was ingrained into broken nails
into her matted hair. She shifted her stocky legs and smoothed out the dark
blue skirt, made full and short for work in the field. She hadn't understood a
word. But she twisted up her face in a grotesque angle of fear, and
inferiocity, and cruelty and hope."
Nitti hadn't understood her own verdict and sentencing because she didn't speak
English. It took until the next day for someone to translate it for her. Nitti
spoke Barese, a dialect of Italian. Her translator spoke a different dialect,
and it's likely that Nitti did not understand every word, but she knew the news
was bad. When she heard that the state found her guilty and planned to hang her
for killing her husband, Francesco Nitti, she fainted.
Sabella Nitti was one of the first women to become part of murderesses row in
Chicago in the 1920s, where a spate of women went on trial for murdering their
husbands or boyfriends - or murdering for their husbands or boyfriends. The
city was captivated by the idea of female killers, who went so against the
idealized version of a submissive, nurturing woman. The coverage of their
trials turned into a media circus, later inspiring the play Chicago by
reporter-turned-playwright Maurine Watkins. The characters Roxie Hart and Velma
in the play were based on the very real defendants Beulah Annan and Belva
Gaertner. Annan and Gaertner were both likely guilty of murdering their
boyfriends - but they were acquitted.
No one treated Annan and Gaertner like they were animals. When they were
written about in the newspapers, Annan was called "beautiful" and Gaertner
"stylish." Though the evidence in their cases suggested they were guilty of
killing their boyfriends, perhaps on purpose, out of anger rather than
self-defense, they both were acquitted by the all-male, all-white juries of the
time.
"It was kind of understood that Belva would get off because she was this
wealthy woman, well dressed, and if you came from high society you were well
respected and you couldn't possibly be doing anything like murder," says
Douglas Perry, author of The Girls of Murder City, a book about the female
killers of 1920s Chicago who inspired the play. "And it was understood that
Beulah Annan would be acquitted because she was beautiful and she had this
lovely, soft Southern accent."
Nitti had none of these things. She wasn't seen as conventionally beautiful by
American standards of the 1920s. She was an immigrant woman who worked on a
farm. Her hair was long so she could tie it out of her face while she worked,
unlike the trendy bobbed haircut of the '20s, which kept women's hair short
around their chin. Spending most of her time on the farm didn't require her to
keep up with the latest styles of clothing - not that she could afford them
anyway.
The prosecution used her looks to support their case: that Nitti was a killer
who deserved to hang. "Can you see that woman? No. She isn't a woman, she is a
fiend, she is not a woman," the prosecutor Milton Smith said during the trial,
according to Ugly Prey, a book on Nitti's trial written by Emilie Le Beau
Lucchesi.
In reality, the evidence was circumstantial. The body that was found was never
even proven to be Francesco Nitti, who had disappeared from their farm one
night in July of 1922, along with the family???s savings of $300.
But Chicago hadn't been successful at convicting many women murderers. And Cook
County had never sentenced a woman to death. The prosecution was hungry for a
win, and Nitti became an easy target. "With Sabella Nitti they had someone who
not just didn't meet the American standard of beauty for the 1920s, but she was
also subject to the stigma that was affixed to women of her socioeconomic
status, as well as her immigration status," Lucchesi says. (That Nitti's
lawyer, Eugene Moran, was grossly incompetent didn't help. In fact, the judge
warned Moran multiple times that his incompetence was harming his client.)
When Nitti's appeal process started (Moran at least got that right), a group of
lawyers banded together to help Nitti and take over her and Crudele's defense.
One of them was a female lawyer named Helen Cirese.
Cirese and her colleagues helped Nitti navigate appeals, providing much more
competent service than Moran, who later underwent long-term care for mental
illness. But perhaps just as importantly, Cirese got Nitti new clothes, dyed
her hair, and taught her English. Instead of long gray hair piled on top of her
head, Nitti sported a dark brown bob. Instead of hands rough from work, Nitti's
nails were manicured. After this makeover, instead of calling Nitti an animal
in the newspapers, Forbes called her a butterfly.
Nitti's case eventually went to the Illinois Supreme Court, which granted her
and Crudele a retrial. When Nitti appeared in court to set a date for her
retrial, her transformation was obvious. "It was almost as big of a blow to the
state's case as the Illinois Supreme Court's decision the previous week,"
Lucchesi wrote in Ugly Prey. Nitti was later released on bail. With no new
evidence - and with Nitti garnering public support in part based on her new
look - her trial date kept being pushed back, until the charges were dropped
entirely.
This makeover helped the public, and possibly judges, see her as someone
familiar, someone sweet - someone who could be innocent. And other women on
murderesses row took note.
Often led by the stylish Gaertner, the women in Cook County jail began talking
about what to wear to trial. And the makeup cabinet available to women before
they went to court began to see much more use. In her many visits to the jail,
Forbes noticed this activity. In a 1927 article with the headline "Jail Can
Really Do a Lot for a Woman," Forbes wrote that the women were running a "jail
school," and that Nitti had been the star pupil. With a sarcastic tone, Forbes
wrote that Nitti???s jail cell became a "'salon de beaute,' and she worked
overtime at this business of making herself fair."
But women taking charge of their image at their own trials wasn't foolish at
all. There was a perception that a beautiful woman wouldn't get convicted in
Chicago, and to ignore that was to go into a trial that your life depended on
at a disadvantage.
"You have to know what the rules of the game are. And it's the same thing with
dressing," says Eva Hagberg Fisher, who recently wrote about her own experience
dressing for legal proceedings in the New York Times article "How I Learned to
Look Believable," where she described the outfits she wore after she filed a
sexual harassment complaint at UC Berkeley. Hagberg Fisher says she needed to
look presentable, attractive enough to be considered "harassable" - but not
like she was asking for it - and come across as a "poverty stricken,
beleaguered grad student" all at the same time. "The nuance of the presentation
that I had to do with my clothing was beyond anything that I'd ever thought
about," she says.
Dressing for court isn't just about appearing put together - though that's part
of it. It's more about dressing to match the story you're telling and making
yourself and your story familiar to the jury. Jury consultant Inese Neiders
says that in one case a woman brought a $600 purse to court, which sounds like
it would make her look respectable. But she was accused of embezzlement. "It's
not as easy as it would appear on the surface to dress somebody appropriately,"
Neiders says.
Nitti's appearance when she was first arrested matched the prosecution's story.
After her makeover, her appearance matched her own defense. It took a female
lawyer, which was rare at the time, to recognize and address this issue,
leading to female defendants having agency and learning to dress the parts they
needed to play in court.
It would, of course, be better to do without these stereotypes and role playing
at all, which disproportionately hurt poor women or women who don't fit certain
beauty standards, like Nitti. But these women were dealing with the world as it
is, rather than as it should be. "Very loving, very supportive friends of mine
were like, 'Fuck that, Eva, the patriarchy shouldn't be appearing in your
closet,'" Hagberg Fisher says. "But it's already there. It's already there."
(source: racked.com)
SOUTH DAKOTA:
State hopes to move forward with Berget capital sentence
Mental health experts and acquaintances of a man who pleaded guilty to killing
a prison guard during an escape attempt will testify next week to the convicted
killer's intellectual ability.
The state hopes the court next week will dismiss habeas proceedings to move
forward with carrying out a capital sentence for Rodney Berget, 55, who was
sentenced to death for the 2011 killing of correctional officer Ronald "R.J."
Johnson during a failed prison escape attempt. A habeas appeal is used to
determine if a prisoner's imprisonment is lawful. Next week's hearing could
take anywhere from two days to the whole week, depending on the length of
testimonies.
At a hearing in November 2017, Judge Doug Hoffmann heard attorneys debate over
Berget's mental status and determined the court needed more time to decide if
he was fit for the death penalty, and scheduled another competency hearing that
will start Jan. 29.
Attorney General Marty Jackley talked about Rodney Berget's mental state after
the hearing Monday, Nov. 20, at Lincoln County Court in Canton. Berget pleaded
guilty to killing guard Ron Johnson in April 2011.
Berget's attorney Eric Schulte at the November 2017 hearing said it was his job
to ensure a person with an intellectual disability was not executed, as doing
so would be unconstitutional.
"If there was a 12- or 13-year-old who wanted to be executed, the court would
bar that," Schulte said in November.
Berget had asked to appeal the death penalty verdict in August 2016 but later
withdrew it. Schulte had disagreed with the decision and told a judge in
September 2016 he wanted to check Berget's intellectual capability.
Berget last year sent a letter to the court saying he wants his death sentence
to be completed because he was worried the death penalty will be repealed in
South Dakota and that he didn't want to spend another 30 years behind bars.
Past IQ tests have shown "borderline" results of "average" intelligence levels
for Berget. He was given an IQ test in 1971 and received a score of 70, which
is considered "borderline" below average.
At the time of the escape attempt, Berget was serving 2 life sentences for
attempted murder and for raping a convenience store clerk.
Berget and another prisoner, Eric Robert, killed Johnson during an escape
attempt in 2011.
Johnson was working alone in an area where inmates do projects. Robert put on
Johnson's uniform and tried to move a large box with Berget inside it toward
the prison gate. The 2 were caught before leaving the prison. Robert was
executed in 2012 after pleading guilty.
(source: Sioux Falls Argus Leader)
UTAH:
Don't lose the death penalty
I believe the death penalty should not be removed. I know the death penalty is
reserved for the most evil of criminals. I choose to live in a society that
holds criminals accountable. If someone kills someone, they deserve to die.
I cherish life and I choose to live among people who also cherish the value of
life. A person who has chosen to comment a horrible crime, such as murder, has
shown that they chose not to cherish the value of life.
Imagine if your best friend or a loved one was killed for no reason. Wouldn't
you want justice?
I believe in our current judicial system and I know our current laws show our
society's values. If the death penalty is taken away, I am concerned that soon,
others will start wanting to take away other punishments. Removing punishments
in Utah could possibly increase crime, which would eventually result in Utah
being a more dangerous place.
In an earlier letter, Chris Harelson said "this would be real justice for our
state." Justice isn't someone killing someone and then their punishment is
simply being placed in an air-conditioned room with three hot meals a day. It
is them being put to death for an evil crime. I believe removing the death
penalty would appear that as a state, we have gone soft on justice.
A society's strength is heavily based on rewarding good and punishing bad. In
his letter, Harelson said, "I don't want to see the innocent punished for a
crime they did not commit, especially when the punishment cannot be undone."
I trust our judicial system and know they have gotten much better at doing it
right the first time. I know it is expensive to put someone to death on death
row, but I don't believe the answer is to not have the punishment fit the crime
simply to save money. I believe for our society to remain strong criminals need
to be held accountable for the crimes they commit. I recommend to never get rid
of the death penalty.
Mic Jensen, Salem
(source: Leltter to the Editor, Daily Herald)
USA:
Judge rules statements 'reliable' for death penalty trial
A federal judge in Vermont has ruled that statements made by a man who
allegedly participated in the 2000 killing of a Rutland woman alongside another
man now facing the death penalty are reliable.
The Rutland Herald reports Judge Geoffrey Crawford ruled last week that some
statements Robert Lee made to investigators before he died in prison provided
information about motive. Prosecutors had appealed Crawford's original ruling
to exclude Lee's testimony.
Prosecutors say Lee and Donald Fell kidnapped 53-year-old Terry King in a
carjacking plot and later killed her.
Fell was tried and sentenced to death in 2005 but his conviction was overturned
in 2014 for juror misconduct. Fell faces a 2nd death penalty trial.
It's uncertain if Lee's statements will be admissible if the trial reaches a
penalty phase.
(source: Associated Press)
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