[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----worldwide
Oct. 24 SOUTH AFRICA: SAHRC dismisses calls for death penaltyThe SAHRC has rejected calls to reinstate the death penalty The SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has again dismissed calls for the reinstatement of the death penalty to address the country's high levels of crime. Today it released a report that looks at crime's devastating impact on human rights. Instead the commission has called for a coordinated and effective approach to the legal and constitutional framework. Crime, dubbed as the country's malignant cancer, has devastating effects on society. Last week it cut short the life of reggae legend Luck Dube. "Everything we want to do as a nation can be threatened by the horrendous acts of criminality that pervade our society," says SAHRC chairperson Jody Kollapen. Calling for presidential back-up Amongst its recommendations, the commission suggests an improved coordination of the National Crime Prevention Strategy. It also suggests improved police efficiency, effectiveness, a review of community police forums and victim empowerment programmes. Against this backdrop, there are perceptions that the country's Constitution and legal framework is criminal-friendly. Calls for the reinstatement of the death penalty were dismissed. "We are convinced the death penalty offers no effective deterrent and doesn't assist in the fight against crime people think 'well if we can maybe kill them, then we can win the war against crime'" says Kollapen. The commission plans to present the report to President Thabo Mbeki, in which it will call for his backing. (source: SABC News)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----MO., ALA., FLA., TENN., CALIF.
Oct. 24 MISSOURIfederal death penalty trial Penalty Phase Starts in Stolen-Baby Case Jurors deciding whether to recommend the death penalty for a woman convicted of killing an expectant mother and cutting the baby from her womb listened Wednesday to a 911 call in which the victim's mother described the gruesome crime scene. "It's like she exploded or something,'' a sobbing Becky Harper told the dispatcher in the recording. "There's blood everywhere.'' The federal jury convicted Lisa Montgomery on Monday of killing Bobbie Jo Stinnett on Dec. 16, 2004, in the pregnant woman's home in the northwest Missouri town of Skidmore. The baby survived, and Montgomery was arrested the next day after showing the infant off as her own in her hometown of Melvern, Kan. The penalty phase of the trial began Wednesday. Prosecutors say Montgomery, 39, deserves a death sentence for the kidnapping resulting in death conviction. Her attorneys argue that she should get life in prison without parole - the only other punishment the jury can choose - because physical and sexual abuse she suffered as a child left her mentally ill. During opening statements for the penalty phase of the trial, one of her attorneys, Fred Duchardt, said the defense would call 2 mental health experts and two of Montgomery's daughters to testify. "It's obvious that Lisa has mental illness,'' he said. On the stand Wednesday, Harper described her daughter, Bobbie Jo Stinnett, as intelligent and fun-loving. "She never knew a stranger,'' Harper said. Stinnett's husband, Zeb, said her death "devastated my life.'' He described his wife preparing for the baby's birth. Prosecutors showed photos of the plastic tubs she had filled with baby clothes and blankets. Prosecutors also showed a photo of a baby monitor the couple used to listen to the baby's heartbeat. "It was very exciting,'' Zeb Stinnett testified. Prosecutors say Montgomery had a history of pretending to be pregnant to get attention and avoid work. Her ex-husband, Carl Boman, had told Montgomery he would use the fake pregnancy against her to obtain custody of 2 of the couple's 4 children. A custody hearing had been set for January 2005. The defense said Montgomery suffered from pseudocyesis, a mental condition that causes a woman to falsely believe she is pregnant and exhibit outward signs of pregnancy. They said her delusion of being pregnant was being threatened, causing her to enter a dreamlike, dissociative state when the killing happened. (source: Associated Press) ** In penalty phase of Lisa Montgomery trial, 911 tapes played In between gruesome details barked out to an emergency dispatcher, Becky Harper stopped to plead with the cold and lifeless body of her daughter, Bobbie Jo Stinnett. "Bobbie Jo, please," she said, her voice captured on tape by the Nodaway County Sheriff's Department. "C'mon baby, please c'mon baby, wake up." Jurors heard the 9-1-1 tapes Wednesday as the penalty phase of Lisa Montgomery's federal death penalty trial opened in downtown Kansas City. The penalty phase's closing arguments are slated for this morning, after which the case and Montgomery's fate will be turned back over to the jury. Earlier in the week, the same jurors convicted Montgomery of strangling Stinnett in December 2004 and cutting Stinnett's unborn daughter from her womb. Montgomery's defense had argued that the Melvern, Kan., woman suffered from mental diseases that left her unable to determine that what she was doing was wrong. The insanity defense failed at trial, but Montgomery's defense team began waging much the same battle during Wednesday's hearing to save the defendant from a lethal injection. The defense also keyed in on Montgomery's reportedly rough upbringing, noting that she was abandoned by her biological father and purportedly sexually abused by a stepfather. If the jury fails to unanimously opt for the death penalty, Montgomery will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The prosecution cited potential aggravating factors that the government maintains makes the crime eligible for the death penalty, including the brutal nature of the murder and the fact that Stinnett died during the act of kidnapping. The government's case on Wednesday otherwise focused on the impact of Stinnett's slaying on her family members. Zeb Stinnett, the husband of Bobbie Jo Stinnett, told the jury that Stinnetts killing in their Skidmore, Mo., home devastated his life. "My world just crashed," he said. In addition to talking to family members, prosecutors showed photos of Bobbie Jo Stinnett from her childhood through the few years of her marriage. They also showed pictures of the stacks of baby clothing she had accrued, sorted by age and stored in plastic containers in anticipation of the birth of her 1st child. Zeb Stinnett said he still hasnt told Victoria Jo, now almost 3, what happened to her mother. "Victoria reminds me a
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----N.Y., USA
Oct. 24 NEW YORK: News from NEW YORKERS AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY Statement by David Kaczynski - Court of Appeals Ruling in People v. Taylor The Court of Appeals made the right decision in overturning NY's last remaining death sentence in People v. Taylor. Today's decision is entirely consistent with the Court's 2004 ruling in People v. Lavalle, which found the state's 1995 capital punishment statute unconstitutional because of a flawed and coercive jury deadlock instruction. Today's ruling is also in step with a marked change in public attitudes toward the death penalty in New York, as measured by public opinion polls. Over 10 years, the death penalty in New York wasted $200 million in taxpayer dollars, could not be imposed fairly or reliably, and created an unacceptable risk that innocent people would be executed. There has emerged a consensus among the overwhelming majority of New Yorkers that a maximum sentence of life imprisonment without parole effectively protects the people of New York at a fraction of the cost of the death penalty. Ending the death penalty frees up millions of dollars in public resources that can now be redirected to effective crime control measures, including increased support for law enforcement and crime victims. Today's decision by the Court should in no way be interpreted as minimizing the harm caused by homicide. It merely underscores what the state Assembly discovered in 2004 and 2005 when it held a series of public hearings to study the issue of capital punishment - that the death penalty, despite its high cost, unfairness, and serious risks, benefits no one. On the contrary, it subjects surviving family members to years of re-victimization and uncertainty. In reflecting on the Court's decision, we must also remember the victims and their surviving family members and resolve, in their memory and honor, to oppose violence by every reasonable and rational means. As documented in last week's report on wrongful convictions in New York by the Innocence Project, our state is a national leader in the negative category of wrongful convictions, right up there with Texas. It would be truly unconscionable to impose the death penalty on the innocent. The Court's ruling effectively eliminates wrongful execution of the innocent as a possible outcome in New York's legal system - an enormous protection considering New York's shameful record of wrongful convictions as well as the 124 innocent people who have been exonerated from death row nationally. The Court has found, along with a majority of New Yorkers, that we can live without the death penalty. (source: ReadMedia. Oct. 23) Death knell for death penaltyState's highest courtfinds defect in law The state's death penalty law, which has not resulted in a single execution since its passage in 1995, met its demise Tuesday when the state's highest court struck down the capital sentence of the state's last remaining death row inmate. In the last judicial test of the death penalty statute, the Court of Appeals, in a 4-3 decision, overturned the death sentence given to a man convicted in the executionstyle killings of 5 workers in a Queens fast-food restaurant. The decision was tied to a constitutional defect in the law's sentencing provisions. "We believe the death penalty is over in New York," said Kevin Doyle, the head of the state's capital defenders agency, which after the decision will now start making plans to close down its offices, which were created in the wake of the 1995 law. The ruling by the Court of Appeals effectively means the State Legislature would have to pass a new law addressing the sentencing concerns the court has raised in several cases in which it has overturned capital punishment sentences. That is, for now, considered impossible, given the shift in the Democratic- led Assembly away from embracing the death penalty and toward a reliance on a system that provides for life without parole in the worst kinds of murder cases. "Some people are going to die," State Sen. Dale M. Volker, R-Depew, the co-author of the 1995 death penalty law, said of his belief that capital punishment deters murders. Critics, including members of the high court, said Tuesday's decision signals that the Court of Appeals has no intention of ever siding with a death penalty law. "Fair-minded citizens will be forgiven for wondering whether the Court of Appeals is simply unwilling ever to uphold a death sentence, no matter how the law is written [or may be rewritten], no matter how carefully the trial judge and the jury carry out their responsibilities," said the opinion of 3 judges, including Judge Eugene F. Pigott Jr. of Erie County, who dissented in Tuesday's decision. The case involving John Taylor, convicted of killing five Wendy's workers in 2000, was unusual. The court three years ago ruled that the sentencing provisions of the state's 1995 death penalty law were unc
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS
Oct. 24 TEXAS: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEACLU and Texas Innocence Network Appeal Innocent Man's Death Sentence At a hearing today before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Texas Innocence Network (TIN) argued that death row inmate Max Soffar was unfairly prevented from proving his innocence at his second trial in 2006. The groups hope to overturn Soffar's conviction in the capital murder case of 4 victims shot during an armed robbery in a Houston bowling alley in 1980. In 1981, Soffar was convicted and sentenced to death, but a federal court overturned his conviction in 2004 because his trial lawyers failed to argue that Soffar's confession contradicted the account of the sole surviving witness and other reliable evidence in the case. The state of Texas retried Soffar last year and he was again convicted and sentenced to death. "This case is a textbook example of a miscarriage of justice," said John Holdridge, Director of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project. "From a false confession to two unfair trials and death sentences, the problems with Max Soffar's case are gravely troubling. We must not allow the state of Texas to execute an innocent man." The ACLU and TIN argued that Soffar was denied the constitutional right to defend himself because Soffar's trial judge refused to admit evidence that another man confessed to committing the murders. This man, Paul Reid, formerly of Houston, also committed a series of highly similar robbery-murders and now awaits execution on Tennessee's death row. A photograph of Reid, taken in Houston nine days after the bowling alley incident, strongly resembles the police's composite sketch based on the description of the crime's sole witness. The ACLU and TIN also charged that Soffar was denied his constitutional rights when, during his second trial, the court refused to allow him to show that media reports of the crime contained all of the details in his false confession. The prosecution claimed that these details-although broadcast throughout Texas-could only be known by the person responsible for the crime. Soffar was known by the police in 1980 as an unreliable and feeble-minded informant who often traded information for police assistance or money. Shortly after the bowling alley crimes took place, Soffar fingered his friend, Latt Bloomfied, as the perpetrator. Soffar also told police that he and Bloomfield had burglarized the same bowling alley the night before the incident - a crime the press reported as potentially related to the robbery-murders. The police soon learned that Soffar's confession to the burglary was false and arrested others for that crime; yet even after Soffar's first false confession, law enforcement continued to rely on another confession of his that implicated Soffar and Bloomfield in the robbery-murders. After his initial arrest, Bloomfield was quickly releasedand has never faced charges for the crime. "Max Soffar has been on Texas's death row for almost 3 decades for a crime he did not commit," said David Dow, Head of the Texas Innocence Network and one of Soffar's attorneys. "We urge the court to do the right thing and strike down Mr. Soffar's wrongful conviction. Too many innocent people have been executed as a result of mistakes in the system. The risk of executing an innocent man is unacceptable in a just society." John Holdridge added, "False confessions are far more common than the public realizes. According to the Innocence Project, innocent defendants made incriminating statements, delivered outright confessions or pleaded guilty in more than 25% of DNA exoneration cases." More information on Max Soffar's case is available at: www.aclu.org/capital/innocence/29715res20070430.html Lawyers on this case are Holdridge and Brian Stull of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project and Dow and Jared Tyler of the Texas Innocence Network. (source: Common Dreams) ** Killing Time We all sat, separate but together, watching the clock and waiting to be summoned. Would-be witnesses were confined to an office; the warden and the guards gathered not far from the gurney; the victims' family was in a meeting room, the killer's friends were sequestered by the Coke machines. The anonymous executioner waited inside the prison to take his position behind the death chamber's 2-way mirror. The condemned was alone in his cell. Four hundred and five times in the past 25 years, the call had come for all to assemble and enter the Texas death chamber. The ritual had nearly always ended the same way--the dead in a hearse pulling away from Huntsville's old brick prison, the living left in search of a stiff drink. On this night, however, the evening would end with a beginning, with what appears to be the start of a nationwide moratorium on execution. Even in Texas. When the Supreme Court agreed on September 25 to consider whether lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, it tri
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Oct. 24 GLOBAL: BIANCA JAGGER CALLS FOR GLOBAL ABOLITION OF THE DEATH PENALTY Bianca Jagger, the Council of Europe Goodwill Ambassador for the Fight against the Death Penalty, supported the decision of the Council of Europe to declare the 10th of October European Day against the Death Penalty. "If today Europe is a death penalty free zone, it is largely thanks to the arduous efforts of the Council of Europe. In early 1980, the Council of Europe became a pioneer for the abolition of capital punishment; it regarded the death penalty a grave violation of human rights. "The Organisation's Parliamentary Assembly gradually persuaded governments to make Europe become the 1st region in the world to permanently outlaw the death penalty and in 1982 the Council of Europe adopted Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights. "It came into force on 1 March 1985 and became the first legally-binding instrument abolishing the death penalty in peacetime. The Protocol has been ratified by 46 of the Councils 47 member states, with one exception Russia ," said Ms Jagger. Since Protocol No. 6 didn't exclude the death penalty in respect of acts committed in time of war or of imminent threat of war, the Council of Europe made the final step in order to abolish the death penalty in all circumstances by adopting Protocol No.13, which entered into force on 1 July 2003. So far Protocol No. 13 has been ratified by 39 countries. Ms Jagger welcomed France's decision to ratify this important instrument in Strasbourg on 10 October 2007. Nominated Council of Europe Goodwill Ambassador in December 2003, Ms Jagger has campaigned against the death penalty throughout the world. "I call on all European countries which have not yet ratify Protocol No. 13 to do so and help pave the way to a global abolition of the death penalty," she said. "Our role is to convince countries throughout the world to follow the European model, outlaw the death penalty and make abolition a universally accepted value. Governments cannot ignore that it is impossible to ensure that innocent people are not executed; since the reinstatement of the death penalty in the US , 124 people have been released from death row after having been wrongfully convicted. "Capital punishment does not deter crime, it is disproportionately used against the poor, minorities and political opponents", said Bianca Jagger. (source: MaximsNewsNetwork) INDONESIA: Melbourne man facing death penalty in Bali A 50-year-old Melbourne man is facing the death penalty in Indonesia after being charged in a Bali court with intending to sell marijuana and hashish. Barry Wilfred Hess was arrested at his Kuta home in August. Hess comes from Melbourne, but in recent years he has called Kuta on the Indonesian island of Bali his home. It was there he was arrested in August for allegedly possessing 3 packets of marijuana weighing 2.7 grams, and 2 packets of hashish weighing 14.4 grams. Originally he was charged with drug possession, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail. But today at his 1st court appearance the 50-year-old learnt he was also charged with possessing drugs with an intention to sell - an offence which in Indonesia can be punished by the death penalty. (source: ABC News)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----N.Y., N. DAK., ALA., OHIO, N.C.
Oct. 24 NEW YORK: Court decision continues to oppose death penalty A divided New York Court of Appeals killed any hope for the death penalty in New York when it refused yesterday to make an exception that would have allowed for the execution of one of the men responsible for the slaughter of five people in the May 2000 Wendy's massacre in Queens. In a 4-3 ruling, the state's highest court said that it was sticking to its 2004 decision that had found the state's death penalty to be unconstitutional. In so doing, the court has allowed John Taylor, the man convicted of murder and sentenced to death in the case, to spend the rest of his life in prison without hope of parole. The court, in a decision authored by Justice Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick and joined by three other justices, including Chief Justice Judith Kaye, dealt a blow to an attempt by Queens District Attorney Richard Brown to find a loophole in the law that would have allowed Taylor to face death by intravenous injection. The court said that the "coercive effect" of an instruction to the jury on the death penalty nullified the capital punishment verdict. Taylor, the only person on New York's death row, was found guilty in 2002 of various counts of first-degree murder. The jury ruled that he should be executed on 3 of the 1st-degree murder charges. The presiding judge at the trial told the jury that if they didn't agree unanimously on the death penalty or life in prison without parole, he could give Taylor a sentence that would allow him to be eligible for parole in 20 or 25 years. But the trial judge added the caveat that the maximum in Taylor's case would be 175 years to life because he could sentence him to consecutive terms. But the court yesterday refused, as prosecutors had wanted, to minimize the coercive effect of that jury instruction. Keeping with its 2004 decision, which held that the state death penalty laws' "deadlock instruction" violated the constitution, the Court of Appeals said it saw no reason to make an exception in the Taylor case and invited the state legislature to make changes in the law so that it passes constitutional muster. "The Court's decision, for all intents and purposes, closes the book on the prosecution of those responsible for that which was among the most brutal and horrific crimes that this city has ever seen," said Brown in a prepared statement that emphasized that the court's ruling wasn't unanimous. Justice Susan Read, appointed to the court by former Gov. George Pataki, a proponent of the death penalty, wrote a dissent joined by two other Pataki appointments, Victoria Graffeo and Eugene F. Pigott Jr. Kevin Doyle, a spokesman for the Capital Defenders Office, which handled the appeal, said the ruling was the death knell in New York for its capital punishment law. "That is the end of the death penalty," Doyle said. But Benjamin Nazario, 53, of Flushing, whose brother Ramon Nazario, was killed in the massacre, said he didn't like the decision. "I want to know the people [judges] who voted against it [capital punishment,] why they don't want the death penalty," Nazario said. The victims at Wendy's The 5 killed execution-style in the May 2000 Wendy's basement massacre were all employees working late that night: RAMON NAZARIO, 44, who was born in the Bronx, was the father of a 2-year-old son, Ramon Jr. He had been hired at the Flushing Wendy's, where his sister Maritza worked, 3 months earlier. She happened to be off that night. JEREMY MELE, 18, the youngest to die, lived in Queens but was a recent graduate of Neptune High School in New Jersey, where he participated in the school's ROTC program and fostered an interest in someday pursuing a military career. JEAN-DUMEL AUGUSTE, 27, of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, with family in Amityville, was the manager that night. He immigrated with his parents and siblings from Haiti in 1989. He became a U.S. citizen 2 years earlier, and became engaged to be married about a month before his death. ALI IBADAT, 51, an immigrant from Pakistan, did not socialize much, and sent money he earned back to Pakistan to his wife and 2 children. He lived alone in a basement apartment in Ridgewood, Queens. ANITA SMITH, 22, was born in Queens Hospital Center, the same hospital where she was pronounced dead. A 1997 graduate of Springfield Gardens High School in Queens, she planned on becoming a social worker, and helped out at the Quality Services for Autistic Children in Astoria. THE INJURED The 2 employees who survived are: JaQuione Johnson, then 18, who sustained a bullet wound to the back of his head, and Patrick Castro, then 23, who was hit with a bullet through his cheeks, which shattered his teeth. (source: Newsday) * Death penalty law dead -- Queens killer avoids execution as high court affirms 2004 decision halting capital punishment in state The state's highest court Tuesday upheld a 2004 ruling that effectively overturned New York's death p
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Oct. 24 ST. KITTS and NEVIS: Cannonier Found Guilty in Slain Officers Murder Prosecution Seeks Death Penalty Romeo Cannonier, of Parsons Village was found guilty at 4:45 p.m. today, Tues. Oct. 23 for murdering 32-year-old no. 454 Police Constable Delvin Nisbett on Sunday, July 25, 2004 at Dieppe Bay. In a verdict handed down about 3 hours after the jury went into deliberation, the jury was not unanimous in their findings with an 11 to 1 in favor of guilty. SKNVibes was the only media that spoke to Cannonier briefly as the police escorted him to the Police vehicle and in an angry voice said that he will appeal the matter. "How do I feel? I feel set up!" he said. "The trial was not fair and Im going to appeal." Director of Public Prosecution Paulina Hendrickson told His Lordship Francis Belle in court when asked about the type of sentencing, requested the death penalty. The trial began last Monday, Oct. 15 with over 20 witnesses including important witnesses Makenya Lawrence, an ex-girlfriend, Gavin Gilbert (deceased) and Lionel Warner who were both friends of Cannonier. Those witnesses were said to have confessions and messages from the accused concerning the "murder weapon" according to their testimony. Lawrence testified and said that on the morning after the murder, Cannonier came to her home and told her that he had killed the police. She said he was acting nervous and in an unusual behavior. Gilbert's testimony said that Cannonier told him where to locate the "gun" and who to give it to and also to be careful with the gun as it was he used to kill the police with. Warner was describe by the Prosecution as the messenger of death as he told the court Cannonier told him to give messages to two people about getting rid of Lawrence and Gilbert. Serologists Caroline Zerbos, Rhonda Craig Forensic Examiner of the FBI Lab in Washington and Forensic Pathologist Dr. Stephen Jones were the witnesses that supported the Prosecution's theories of scientific evidence in the case. Sir Richard Cheltenham of Barbados assisted the Director of Public Prosecution in the case and acted as lead counsel for the prosecution. Cannonier was represented by Lawyer Hesketh Benjamin whose defense was not enough to have the jury deliver a verdict of 'not guilty.' Benjamin in his summation stressed on 2 points. "No one said they saw his client committing the murder" and a 5 dollar note after forensic examining was found with the deceased's blood on it. The said five dollar was said to have been taken from the accused by the Police on the day he was arrested and Benjamin sought to plant in the jurys mind that the note did not belong to his client. Sentencing is set for Nov. 12. (source: SKNVibes.com) INDONESIA: Execution of Bali bombers not final Justice and Human Right Minister Andi Mattalata said he was still waiting for the time and location of the execution for three of the 2002 Bali bombers. Andi on Tuesday told Detik.com he was waiting for the Attorney General's Office (AGO) to decide on the execution. "Once the AGO has decided on the execution, we can then talk about location, time and other technicalities," Andi said. The 3 Bali bombers on death row include Amrozi, Muklas and Imam Samudra. They are currently being held at the Nusakambangan super maximum security prison in Central Java. The bombers have exhausted all legal efforts at the court and have refused to request a presidential pardon as their last avenue. (source: The Jakarta Post) CANADA: Canada set to back world moratorium on executions Canada is expected to sign on to a world moratorium on the death penalty that the European Community plans to put before the UN General Assembly next month. In the 1990s, 2 attempts to have the General Assembly endorse a full ban on executions failed in the face of fierce lobbying by the United States, Singapore and other countries where capital punishment is still practised. The 27-member EU has now revived the issue with a draft moratorium and is seeking the support of Canada and all other UN members. Portugal, as EU president, is spearheading the drive. The EU declared in May it would renew the push for a world ban. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German foreign minister and European Council president at the time, argued: "The time is right ... to have another stab." Unlike Security Council resolutions, those of the General Assembly are non-binding, but abolitionists say a moratorium would send a strong message that abolition is the trend. "We believe people in countries where the death penalty still exists will see this is the norm, and that will encourage their governments to make the change," said Aubrey Harris, an Amnesty International official in Canada. To pass, the draft moratorium requires the support of a simple majority of 97 of the UN's 192 member states. The numbers appear to be moving in the abolitionists' favour. But while 133 countries have abolished the death p
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----TEXAS, N.Y., GA., ILL., MISS.. N. DAK.
Oct. 24 TEXAS: Prosecutors Not Worried About Death Row Cases Review Prosecutors do not believe a review of cases where people may have been wrongly convicted because of mistakes made by the Houston police crime lab will affect the outcome of 24 death penalty cases, KPRC Local 2 reported Tuesday. A panel is looking at 180 cases that have been identified as being potentially flawed. In the cases under review, investigators found the lab's serology department mishandled blood or body fluid evidence. "These are all cases that have been designated by the Bromwich investigation as cases which saw lab problems. The lab problems may not play any role in the conviction or they may be major," said Bob Wicoff, appointed defense attorney. 24 of those convictions are death penalty cases and 14 of the defendants have already been executed. So, does that mean innocent men have been put to death? Prosecutors said not likely. So far, the DA has reviewed all but 2 of the death penalty convictions. "We have not found a case yet through the review that it actually impacts the guilt or innocence of that person," said Roe Wilson, an assistant Harris County prosecutor. In those cases, prosecutors contend there was overwhelming evidence beside the blood and body fluid found on the scene that convinced jurors to convict. A case in point -- the Malibu Gran Prix murders, which was one of the worst mass killings in Houston history with 4 dead. Richard Wilkerson and Kenneth Ransom were executed for the killings even though there was blood found at the scene that didn't belong to the killers or the victims. But Wilson said that doesn't mean someone else committed the crime. "There were two confessions in the case. Wilkerson confessed. Ransom admitted the offense," Wilson said. "They told people afterwards they had done it. They split the money up, I mean there's just overwhelming evidence." Crime lab mistakes with DNA testing have led to at least 3 wrongful convictions. But prosecutors said guilt or innocence rarely hinges on serology evidence. "Serology is an indicator and it's not a smoking gun," Wilson said. In the cases under review, 8 inmates are still awaiting execution. 2 have been granted new trials based on the evidence. Prosecutors said all of those inmates have been notified that there are questions about the accuracy of serology testing in their cases. (source: Click2Houston.com) NEW YORK: Death Penalty Blocked Again in Wendy's Killings The State Court of Appeals ruled this morning that John B. Taylor, who was sentenced to death for his role in the murders of 5 people at a Wendys in Flushing, Queens, in May 2000, cannot be put to death. The 4-3 ruling [pdf] by the states highest court reinforces its ruling in 2004 that a central provision of the states capital punishment law violates the state constitution. It would take action by the Legislature to bring back the death penalty, but Assembly Democrats have shown little inclination to do so. In 2004, the high court ruled that an instruction judges were legally required to make to jurors in capital cases was unconstitutional. A judge was required to tell jurors that if they could not choose unanimously between a sentence of death and one of life without parole, he or she would impose a sentence that would make the defendant eligible for parole after 20 to 25 years. The Court of Appeals ruled in June 2004 that those instructions "gives rise to an unconstitutionally palpable risk that 1 or more jurors who cannot bear the thought that a defendant may walk the streets again after serving 20 to 25 years will join jurors favoring death in order to avoid the deadlock sentence." Mr. Taylor, who was sentenced to death by a jury in 2002, was the last remaining inmate on the state's death row. In his case, Queens prosecutors argued that the judge handling the case had effectively inoculated jurors from the concern by telling them he would "almost certainly" impose consecutive terms totaling more than a century behind bars. 3 of the judges, including Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye, essentially said in their opinion that the previous ruling was not open to wiggle room and that it was not the courts role to rewrite the law in this area to make it constitutional. 3 of the judges dissented, saying, among other things, that no coercive instruction was made in the Taylor case. The swing vote was made by Robert Smith, who was in the dissent in the 2004 ruling. While he wrote in his own opinion that he agreed with much of what the dissenters in this current case wrote, he said the 2004 case "rendered the death penalty statute wholly invalid. I wish it were otherwise." Mr. Taylor's case will now be returned to the State Supreme Court for sentencing; because of sentencing guidelines, he will receive life without parole. (source: New York Times) ** Court Of Appeals Affirms Death Penalty Unconstitutional The last remaining inmate on New
