[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, MINN., FLA., USA
Sept. 29 TEXAS: Man pleads guilty to murders Deal puts killer in prison for life A man charged in the killing of 2 men near Wildorado in April pleaded guilty to a capital murder charge Thursday. Michael Edward Ryan, 29, entered a guilty plea in exchange for a life sentence without parole for his role in the killing of Claude Robertson and Allen Hazelwood, according to Randall Sims, district attorney for the 47th District. A family member discovered Robertson's body lying beside his pickup about 1 p.m. April 18 on his property near Adkisson Road and Interstate 40 near Wildorado. When authorities moved Robertson's body, they found he had been shot once in the chest. While searching the area, authorities found Hazelwood - Robertson's employee - dead about 40 yards away. Court complaints filed against Ryan showed that he admitted to officers that he shot both Hazelwood, 51, and Robertson, 74, with a shotgun. Ryan's co-defendant, Jason Michael Williams, 30, is still in custody at the Potter County Correctional Center on a charge of capital murder and a bond of $1 million, according to jail logs. Families of both victims were in court Thursday. Several members of each family gave victim impact statements describing how the deaths of the 2 men affected their lives, Sims said. Ryan made no comment in court, Sims said. Making the decision on what punishment to try to seek on a capital murder case is the toughest decision you have to make as district attorney since another life hangs directly in the balance of that decision, Sims said in a prepared statement. Each case must be evaluated independently on all relevant circumstances. Taking into account all the circumstances that must be considered when deciding whether to seek the death penalty or allow a plea for life in prison, all family members, (Potter-Randall Special Crime Unit) members, and myself agreed this was the appropriate punishment to seek for this case. The break in the homicide case came when Potter County Sgt. John Coffee, a Potter-Randall Special Crimes unit investigator, found that jewelry from Robertson's home was pawned the same day at Cash for Gold, 1913 S. Georgia St. According to court records, Ryan reportedly pawned two of the gold rings that belonged to Patty Robertson, Claude Robertson's wife. One ring had a wide gold band with a large single diamond stone, while the other was a multi-diamond ring with wire-gold bands that are distinctive. Pawn receipts showed that Ryan received about $850 in exchange for the jewelry. Armed with an arrest warrant, a SWAT team later went to arrest Ryan at his home in the 1000 block of West 10th Avenue, where Ryan reportedly jumped out a window. Officers used a Taser to bring him into custody, according to police reports. (source: The Amarillo Globe-News) COUPLE TELLS OF SUSPICIONS ABOUT SUSPECT The Tyler couple who first alerted police to Clifton Lamar Williams' possible involvement in the slaying of an elderly woman testified Thursday in his capital murder trial. Williams, 23, is charged with beating, strangling and stabbing to death Cecelia Schneider, 93, before setting her body on fire and stealing her car and purse on July 9, 2005. He faces life in prison or the death penalty if convicted. Misty Winters, who used to live a few houses down from Ms. Schneider on Callahan Street, testified the victim was a friend and like a grandmother to her children. She said she cleaned Ms. Schneider's home monthly and was last there the Thursday before her murder. Mrs. Winters said she and her husband went out of town and returned Sunday, July 10, 2005, when they received a message about Ms. Schneider's death. She said after talking to her former neighbor, Sharon Harris, regarding her death and Williams' possible involvement, she felt that police needed to be informed. Ms. Harris testified Wednesday that she told Ms. Winters about a story Williams had told her daughter - that he had stabbed a man after the man threatened him with a gun. After seeing no news reports of a stabbed man and the news of Ms. Schneider, they became suspicious of Williams, Ms. Harris said. Mrs. Winters testified that she encouraged Ms. Harris to call police with the information. Her husband, Greg Winters, who is in the Navy and recently returned from Iraq, said he was out of town when Ms. Schneider was killed and said it hurt him when people around him get hurt and he's not available to help them. When his wife relayed the information about Williams, Winters decided that if Ms. Harris didn't call police, he would. He said he also encouraged Jamarist Monterrall Paxton to go to the police and tell them what Williams had told him. Paxton has testified that Williams came to his house early July 9, 2005, and told him the story of stabbing a man. Man, I just messed up. I just killed somebody, Paxton claimed Williams told him. Paxton said there was blood on Williams' white T-shirt and
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., PENN., NEV., ALA., MISS., OHIO
Sept. 29 CALIFORNIA: Death penalty hearing ends A federal judge could rule by early November on challenges a Stockton man made to the states method of lethal injection, claiming it causes cruel and unusual punishment. U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose conducted a hearing this week in the case of Michael Angelo Morales. Morales, 46, was sent to San Quentin State Prisons death row for hammering, stabbing and raping 17-year-old Terri Lynn Winchell in 1981. Morales came within steps of San Quentins execution chamber on Feb. 21 when his attorneys won a delay resulting in this week's 4-day hearing. In closing, Fogel expressed concern for the slain Winchell and her family, but added that he has a very specific job in deciding if Californias 3-drug lethal injection protocol might cause Morales an unconstitutional level of pain. One doctor testified that sodium thiopental the 1st of 3 drugs used in executions is quick acting and despite appearances doesn't keep the inmate unconscious even while painful drugs are injected to stop the heart and lungs. Fogel asked attorneys for Morales and for the state's Attorney General to file closing arguments by Oct. 27. I'd like to get a decision out as soon as possible, he said. Fogel left open the possibility of more oral arguments, if necessary. This is something I feel strongly about, Fogel said. I don't want to rush into something so important. After this week's hearing, Fogel will consider hundreds of pages of evidence and the testimony of expert witnesses, included nationally renowned anesthesiologists, pharmaceutical researchers and veterinarians. (source: Stockton Record) Doctor describes chaotic handling of executions Anesthesiologist testifies that methods used on San Quentin's death row aren't conducive to prisoner's pain-free death A medical witness at a federal court hearing on California's execution procedures described a chaotic system Wednesday in which untrained employees inject unknown amounts of lethal drugs into the prisoner from a dimly lit and overcrowded chamber, with little monitoring of the chemicals' effects. Anesthesiologist Mark Heath's testimony was the centerpiece of a constitutional challenge by lawyers for condemned murderer Michael Morales to the state's lethal injection methods. U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose has blocked Morales' execution, effectively halting all executions in California, while he considers whether the procedures contain flaws that pose significant risk of causing unnecessary and extreme pain. Morales, 46, of Stockton was convicted of raping and fatally battering 17-year-old Terri Winchell of Lodi in 1981. Courts have upheld his death sentence, but his scheduled Feb. 21 execution was stayed by Fogel when the state was unable to find anesthesiologists or other medically trained personnel to monitor his anesthesia, as ordered by the judge. Heath, a Columbia University physician who has testified against injection methods in other states, said the procedures used in California since 1996 ranked in the bottom quarter of the 37 states using lethal injection. He said evidence of a breakdown in the system appears in San Quentin State Prison's execution logs, in which doctors in more than half the executions reported that the prisoner appeared to be breathing after being given the sedative, which should have stopped his respiration. When somebody's breathing like that, they're not in a deep state of anesthesia, Heath said. They might not even be unconscious. If conscious, he said, the prisoner would be aware -- but paralyzed and unable to cry out or signal in any way -- as he was suffocated by a 2nd chemical. The prisoner then also would suffer excruciating pain and heart failure from the third drug, Heath said. Heath cited problems during December's execution of Stanley Tookie Williams, the former gang leader and multiple murderer who became an anti-gang crusader in prison. A staff member tried and failed to insert a backup syringe into Williams' left arm in case the syringe in his right arm was obstructed. Unable to insert the backup, the staff member finally used an intravenous tube that wasn't working as the backup. The warden nevertheless ordered the execution to proceed, and the team leader learned of the difficulty only after Williams was pronounced dead, Heath said. Williams was executed without any need for the backup syringe. There was a total breakdown of communication of critical information, Heath said. On cross-examination, Senior Assistant Attorney General Dane Gillette sought to portray Heath as biased, based on his opposition to capital punishment, and got him to acknowledge that he had no concrete evidence of consciousness or pain during the 11 lethal injections performed at San Quentin. Gillette also suggested that the chest movements recorded by doctors as breathing may have been unconscious reflexive activity. But Heath said there was
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----TEXAS, OHIO, N.J., USA, ARK.
Sept. 30 TEXAS: Judge rejects inmate's appeal In one of his last decisions before retiring Friday, state District Judge David Wilson denied the mental retardation claim of a convicted capital murderer. Wilson denied a legal writ filed by the legal team representing David L. Lewis, 42, according to an answer filed Friday in the Angelina County District Clerk's Office. The case is expected to move to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals by defense request. In order for the higher court to overturn his decision, it would have to find he made what is known as an abuse of discretion, Wilson said. Abuse of discretion means a trial judge has made such a bad decision during a trial or on a ruling that a person did not get a fair trial, according to a legal dictionary listing. Lewis was sentenced to die for the Nov. 30, 1986, murder of Myrtle Ruby, 74. Lewis shot her to death with a .22-caliber rifle as she confronted him in her Lufkin home during a robbery, Angelina County District Attorney Clyde Herrington said at a hearing on the case in June. Lewis was a 39-year-old former carpenter with an eighth-grade education when he surprised Ruby, returning home from church choir practice, according to a Northern Illinois University Web site study on the death penalty. Before the murder he served two years in prison for burglary in Brazoria County. Lee's attorneys in June argued he was retarded, making the enforcement of a death sentence against him illegal based on the 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision abolishing the execution of the mentally disabled as cruel and unusual punishment. At the June hearing, attorneys for Lee presented testimony on childhood abuse and school records. He had an alcoholic mother and an unstable childhood, contributing to his development problems, the defense said. Herrington pointed out once Lewis was out of that home environment, he improved, proving he was disadvantaged, and not retarded. Evidence of a GED earned in prison also proved Lewis' IQ was higher, Herrington said. Attending the June hearing was Lee's girlfriend Michaela Zenker, a German journalist who met him through Amnesty International in 2000. She travels to the United States periodically to visit him. Their visits are always through prison glass. Her dream would be to take him home to live with her, she said in June. The court of appeals in 2004 overturned the Lufkin capital murder case against Willie Mack Modden on the basis of mental retardation. Modden, who died in prison in April, was twice sentenced to die in 1984 for stabbing 27-year-old gas station attendant Deborah Ann Fontenot Davenport. (source: Lufkin Daily News) ** PROSECUTORS, DEFENSE REST THEIR CASES IN WILLIAMS TRIAL Prosecutors and defense attorneys in the capital murder trial of Clifton Lamar Williams rested their cases Friday. Monday morning, they will give closing arguments before the Smith County jury deliberates on whether Williams is guilty of beating, strangling and stabbing to death 93-year-old Cecelia Schneider on July 9, 2005, before setting her body on fire, and stealing her purse and car. Williams, 23, faces life in prison or the death penalty if convicted of capital murder. On Friday, the state concluded its ninth day of evidence, presenting more than 300 items of evidence and the testimony of dozens of witnesses. The defense rested its case without presenting any evidence. Tyler police Sgt. Connie Castle testified Friday that a fire can make the discovery of evidence, such as hair and blood, impossible. She said there was no evidence in Ms. Schneider's house, 311 E. Callahan St., connecting Williams to the case. She said she collected blood evidence from the victim's car, which was found wrecked in Greenbriar Road. She said she did not know how long the car sat on the road or if anyone tampered with it before police discovered it. DNA analysis matched the blood stains in the car to Williams and his fingerprint was recovered outside of the car, other witnesses have said. Sgt. Castle said police were unable to match a palm print located on the car to the suspect or others involved in the case and they did not have the victim's print to compare it with. Sgt. Castle said there were blood stains on the driver's and passenger's sides of the car. There was more blood that appeared to have been dripping from someone on the driver's side and more blood appearing to have been smeared on the passenger's side, she said. Several of the blood stains were located by the gear shift and ignition. Smith County Sheriff's Detective Noel Martin said he used Luminol on areas outside of the house, such as around the back door, in May 2006 to see if any blood evidence was left undiscovered but none was found. He said he also checked the inside of the home but it had been completely remodeled and no blood was discovered. He said he did a blood spatter pattern analysis of the victim's nightgown and pieces of
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., IND., ALA., S. DAK., MISS.
Sept. 30 CALIFORNIA: Judge says lethal injection ruling due in Nov The judge who effectively shut down California's death row in February said on Friday his ruling on whether the state's use of lethal injection is legal would hinge on evidence of how alert an inmate is as the toxic drugs take effect. U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel said he would issue his ruling in early November -- a decision that could have national consequences, as 37 U.S. states use lethal injection to carry out death sentences. Fogel said at the end of a 3-1/2-day hearing on California's lethal injection procedure that he was concerned only with the narrow question of whether a modified three-drug cocktail that would be used to execute condemned inmates violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. At issue in the court challenge is whether condemned inmates would fee excruciating pain from the drugs if they were not fully unconscious. Fogel stopped the execution of Michael Morales in February to take up claims by lawyers that California's death row inmates faced the possibility of painful executions by lethal injection, instead of a swift death the state claimed. There are a lot of issues that swirl around this case -- how people feel about the death penalty, the rights of victims, victims' families -- all of which are important, but the court has a very specific job to do, Fogel said. The critical question that the court has to look at is what evidence is there that there's a problem with consciousness, Fogel said, adding he aimed to issue a decision as soon as possible after November 1. CONSCIOUSNESS AN ISSUE Dane Gillette, a senior assistant California attorney general, told the hearing the state's use of a 3-drug combination to execute condemned inmates would result in swift, constitutional execution. But lawyers for Morales, on death row for the 1981 rape and murder of a 17-year-old girl, criticized the training of California's execution team. Attorney John Grele said San Quentin State Prison's maintenance man was responsible for controlling the rate at which lethal drugs were administered to condemned inmates and that no member of the prison's execution team had read its capital punishment procedures. Guards at the prison typically attach 2 intravenous lines to condemned inmates, one as a backup to assure a continuous flow of chemicals to anesthetize, paralyze and then kill. California has 655 people on its condemned inmate list, some there since the late 1970s. Anesthesiologist Robert Singler, an expert witness for the state, testified there was a possibility inmate Robert Massie was not fully unconscious during his March 2001 execution. Other states have grappled with the lethal injection issue since U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy in January ordered a hearing into a Florida inmate's claim the method was so painful it violated the Constitution. In August, South Dakota's governor postponed the state's 1st execution in 59 years, ordering prison officials to review the state's lethal injection protocol. Earlier this month, a federal judge in Missouri ruled officials there had yet to convince the court the procedure was not cruel and unusual. Federal courts in Arkansas, Delaware and Ohio have also postponed executions until lethal injection procedures are reviewed. (source: Reuters) ATTORNEY: EXECUTION TEAM DIDN'T READ LETHAL INJECTION GUIDE The individual who sets the rate that the drugs in California's lethal injection procedure drip into the condemned inmate's vein is the maintenance man at San Quentin State Prison, the attorney for condemned inmate Michael Morales said today. Attorney John Grele made the statement during the cross-examination of Dr. Robert Singler, a Napa anesthesiologist called as an expert witness by the attorney for the state of California. Were you aware of the fact that it is the maintenance man at San Quentin that sets the drip rate, Grele said. Singler answered that he knew that a member of the execution team set the drip rate but he did not know what that individual's job was at San Quentin besides being on the execution team. Grele also told Singler that the execution team has not read the state's written guide describing the steps of the lethal injection procedure. No team member has read the protocol, Grele said. Grele's cross-examination came on the final day of a 4-day hearing held in San Jose this week before U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel. Fogel must determine if California's proposed lethal injection procedure is legal or if it is an unconstitutional example of cruel and unusual punishment because of the possibility that the condemned inmates could experience excruciating pain if they are not fully sedated when the lethal drugs are injected into their veins. In February, Fogel effectively halted Morales' execution only hours before he was scheduled to be strapped onto the gurney by ordering a
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Sept. 30 RUSSIA: In Russia, Juries Must Try, Try AgainPanels saw 46% of their acquittals reversed last year. The fledgling system has some bugs. When a bomb killed 8 people at a busy marketplace on a steamy summer afternoon here 5 years ago, police quickly solved the case, as they often do with spectacular efficiency in Russia. A composite drawing of a mysterious woman seen at the market that day was distributed, and a local drunk who vaguely resembled her was soon arrested. One of her former lovers was hauled in next, and then a few ne'er-do-wells he knew. Soon the police had 4 confessions - all pointing the finger at a wealthy businessman who prosecutors say ordered the bombing to scare off elderly competitors. The jury didn't buy it, finding the businessman's claim that he had been set up by police for refusing to pay bribes much more plausible. All of the defendants were acquitted in late 2003. In a country with no double jeopardy clause, a 2nd trial began 11 months later, but that ended in a mistrial. So did a 3rd. A 4th jury again acquitted the suspects. In April, the Supreme Court upheld the verdict. But it's not over yet. Prosecutors have announced they are petitioning for a new trial with the presidium of the Supreme Court, the highest judicial panel in Russia. The businessman, Magomed Isakov, has come to believe that he will simply be tried until he is found guilty. When they acquitted me the last time, I thought my heart would stop, Isakov said in an interview at his home, to which he returned this summer after more than 4 years of on-and-off imprisonment. The whole courtroom was crying, even the jurors. But I'm sure they will keep appealing. The police, the prosecutors got so many awards for this. Lots of people were decorated for solving this case. They don't want to stop. More than a decade after the Soviet-era judicial system was overhauled, jury trials in Russia are still a work in progress. Panels are selected in an opaque process that sometimes produces juries with visible links to the security services. Jury instructions and verdict forms can be worded to leave no realistic alternative but conviction. On the other hand, bribery and threats are still so much a part of the Russian justice system that no one can guarantee that jurors are not being influenced to acquit the guilty, legal experts say. It has been a slow transition from the Soviet-era judicial system, in which there were no jury trials and courts largely carried out the will of the government. Of 1.1 million criminal cases tried in Russia last year, only 600 were decided by juries; the institution will not be fully in place nationwide until 2007. Jurors acquitted defendants in 18% of the cases they decided. Defendants tried by judges were found not guilty in 3% of the cases. Under laws allowing jury acquittals to be set aside in cases where serious legal violations occur during trial, the Supreme Court last year reversed 46% of the acquittals and ordered new trials. Russian jurors are growing increasingly vocal, especially those who may have spent months hearing evidence in a case only to see their acquittal reversed by what many see as a flimsy pretext by the prosecution. Earlier this year, the Novaya Gazeta newspaper published an open letter to President Vladimir V. Putin from members of 2 juries that had considered the case of two Moscow businessmen charged with fraud and smuggling. Jurors decided the case had been triggered by business rivals. The 1st trial ended in a mistrial after some jurors said they had been offered bribes to convict the defendants, the letter said. The 2nd jury acquitted the men, but the verdict was appealed. In January, the defendants entered their 5th year in custody by going on trial a third time. After the acquittal in the second trial, the jurors complained, the prosecutor opined that 'Russia wasn't ready for jurors.' Well, she is entitled to her opinion. But there's a constitution, and there are jurors like us who don't think so at all. Dear Mr. President, can you please explain why this prosecutor wasn't fired after declaring that 'the jurors freed smugglers'? Or is it really the prosecutor who makes the decision on whether the defendant is guilty? If so, why did we spend 8 long months studying all the smallest details of this case, and why did we vote for the verdict? Defense lawyers and legal experts said jury acquittals most often result not from renegade juries, but from poorly prepared police investigators and prosecutors unaccustomed to having to make a real case. Another factor, they said, is a public so familiar with police abuses that it tends to believe defendants when they say they were forced to confess. Before jury trials, our courts have always been on the same side as the prosecutor's office, said Sergei Nasonov, who has studied jury trials as a member of the Independent Council of Legal Expertise. The idea of admissible evidence entered the court
