[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----TEXAS, CONN., TENN., S.C., VA.
Nov. 8 TEXAS: Death penalty widow sues judge-Lawsuit claims appeals court's Keller violated rights with 5 p.m. closing time. The widow of Michael Richard, a convicted murderer executed by Texas 6 weeks ago, has sued the Texas judge who prevented his appeal from being considered in state court. The lawsuit by Marsha Richard, filed Wednesday in Houston federal court, claims Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller exceeded her authority when she refused to accept the appeal after the court's normal closing time of 5 p.m. Michael Richard's lawyers had asked for extra time. Keller's decision violated Richard's right to court access and led to his unlawful execution that night, said Randall Kallinen, Marsha Richard's lawyer. Keller had no comment on the lawsuit, her office said. To succeed, Marsha Richard's lawsuit will have to overcome the presumption that judges may not be sued for actions related to their duties. This one's simple, said Scot Powe Jr., a leading constitutional scholar and professor at the University of Texas School of Law. This suit will be dismissed on immunity grounds. But James Alfini, president and dean of the South Texas College of Law in Houston, said the lawsuit raises interesting questions about the limits of immunity afforded to Keller. Judicial immunity does not normally apply when a judge is performing administrative functions, said Alfini, co-author of Judicial Conduct and Ethics. So the question becomes, when she performed that act, was she performing it in her judicial capacity or in her administrative capacity as chief judge? Alfini said. I can see arguments on both sides that she was acting in her judicial capacity, because apparently what she did, did affect the outcome of a case, Alfini said. On the other hand, it was not an adjudicative function in the normal sense of the word. She was not making a judicial decision ... on the merits of the case. (source: Austin American-Statesman) CONNECTICUT: Prosecutors seek death for man charged with killing former Danbury couple Florida prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for a man accused of killing 2 former Danbury residents in 1991. Paul and Rita Stasny were murdered in their Port Charlotte, Fla., home just before Christmas. The homicides went unsolved until March, when a Florida law enforcement task force announced an indictment charging Jeremy Sly, 37, with the crimes. Florida prosecutors filed notice Tuesday saying the death penalty would be pursued. I would like to see the case move forward. He admitted to being involved in that crime, said Melanie Bonjour, the Stasny's daughter. First and foremost, I want to see that there is a conviction. Sly's trial is scheduled to start in December. (source: The News-Times) TENNESSEE: Insanity Issue Eyed In First Local Federal Death Penalty Case The defense in the first local federal death penalty case may bring up insanity issues. Attorneys for Rejon Taylor filed a motion that defendant may introduce evidence respecting his mental health. It says the defense may introduce evidence that Taylor, an Atlanta youth charged in the murder of Atlanta restaurant operator Guy Luck at Collegedale, suffers from post traumatic stress disorder. The defense may also produce evidence concerning frontal lobe development and its impact upon the defendant. Defense attorneys said an expert witness will testify about Taylor's psychological status relative of the commission of the alleged offense. In response, federal prosecutors said they want their own court-ordered psychiatric examination of Taylor to determine whether or not he was insane at the time of the alleged offenses. Defense attorneys said their expert will not testify that Mr. Taylor is incompetent to stand trial, is mentally retarded or meets the legal test of insanity, but he will testify regarding Mr. Taylor's school records, medical records, criminal history and the charges presently pending against him, as well as other records. Taylor is set to go to trial next year. 2 co-defendants, Sir Jack Matthews and Joey Marshall, have entered guilty pleas and may testify against him. Defense attorneys are Bill Ortwein, Lee Ortwein, Howell Clements and Leslie Cory. Prosecutors are Chris Poole and Steve Neff. (source: The Chattanoogan) SOUTH CAROLINA: Defendant acts as own attorney in death penalty trial A Lexington County man on trial for killing 2 people is acting as his own attorney as he tries to avoid going to death row for a 2nd time. Norman Starnes said he decided to represent himself after the state Supreme Court 7 years ago overturned his murder convictions and death sentence for the shootings of 2 men in his Pelion home in January 1996. I believe that I know this case better than any lawyer can present, Starnes told jurors during his opening statement Wednesday afternoon. Starnes said he killed Bill Welborn and Jarrod Champlin in self-defense. He has 2
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., USA., IND., MASS., OKLA., CALIF.
Nov. 8 NORTH CAROLINA: Death row inmate to get a new trial A judge has ordered a new trial for a Hickory man on death row since 1994, saying the lead investigator in the man's double-murder case withheld critical evidence and lied on the stand. In a 186-page ruling issued Tuesday, N.C. Superior Court Judge Robert Ervin also said Glen Edward Chapman's 2 defense attorneys did a poor job of investigating the two killings, missing evidence that 1 of the victims was alive after Chapman last saw her and that she may have died of a drug overdose. 1of the 2 defense attorneys was Tom Portwood, whose representation of at least 2 other men, 1 executed in 2001, has been challenged in court. Portwood, who died in 2003, had testified that he was an alcoholic and drank every evening during several death penalty trials. A jury convicted Chapman, now 39, in November 1994 for the killings of Betty Jean Ramseur, 31, and Tenene Yvette Conley, 28, whose bodies were discovered in abandoned houses in Hickory in August 1992. The cases were combined for trial, and prosecutors alleged Chapman killed the women, hid the bodies, and twice burned the house where he had stashed Ramseur's body to conceal evidence. But Ervin found that, among other failings, the Hickory Police Department's lead investigator, Dennis Rhoney, withheld information that a key witness in the Ramseur case identified someone other than Chapman in a photo lineup. Ervin also said investigators withheld information about witnesses who said they saw Conley alive after prosecutors said Chapman killed her. Frank Goldsmith, a Marion lawyer representing Chapman on appeal, said the ruling represents the first step toward justice for a man he believes is innocent. I've been practicing law for 37 years, and I have never encountered a case that made my blood boil like this one, Goldsmith said. It was really atrocious, at multiple levels. Attempts to reach Rhoney, now a patrol sergeant with the Burke County Sheriff's Office, at his home and office failed Wednesday. The case's lead prosecutor, Jason Parker, called Ervin a fair judge and said his office can only try cases on the evidence it's given. A retrial date hasn't been set. Ervin was ruling on a 2003 motion by Chapman's attorneys to have the convictions reversed; the judge has held 6 hearings in nearly five years on the case. Ervin found that Rhoney withheld information, then lied under oath when he testified that he had provided to prosecutors all evidence that might have pointed to Chapman's innocence. Prosecutors would then have been required to turn it over to defense attorneys. Among Ervin's other findings: Witness Alvin Ray Creasman, a vagrant then living at a house on Highland Avenue, told police he had seen a man and woman at the house around daybreak on June 12, 1992, when prosecutors alleged Chapman beat Ramseur to death and started a fire at the house to conceal the killing. But that December, Rhoney showed a photographic lineup to Creasman, who identified someone else as the man he had seen. Rhoney never told prosecutors about the identification, and the lineup photos are missing. --A man jailed in Catawba County jail in 1992 told Rhoney he overheard an inmate, referring to Ramseur, say: What I done with her, I thought they would never find her unless they tore the damn house down. Rhoney later determined that the man knew Ramseur and had a history of violent behavior. But Rhoney never filed a report on the conversation, admitting during a later hearing that he had no excuse for not following up on the lead. --The 2nd fire at the house where Ramseur's body was discovered happened in November 1992, 3 months after the body was found. Police never turned over an N.C. State Bureau of Investigation file on that fire, allowing prosecutors to suggest at trial that Chapman set both fires before her body was found. --Police never provided prosecutors with information from at least 2 witnesses who said they saw Conley alive on Aug. 14, 1992, several hours after prosecutors alleged Chapman had killed her. At least 1 witness would have testified that he saw her that night with a boyfriend known to be violent with her. --A forensic pathologist who testified during one of the post-conviction hearings said Conley may have died of a drug overdose. He cited the lack of any obvious lethal trauma to the body. Prosecutors alleged that Conley had been strangled. --The investigation of the killings by Robert Adams, Tom Portwood's co-counsel and the lead defense attorney during the trial, was rather limited, to say the least, Ervin wrote. It was Adams' first time as lead counsel in a capital case. The attorneys used court-appointed investigators to look into Ramseur's killing but not Conley's, and the investigators' activity reports reveal only one attempt, which was unsuccessful, to locate a witness. (source: Charlotte Observer) USA: Put away all the death penalty machinery As a
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----worldwide
Nov. 8 YEMEN: Hafidh Ibrahim, after his narrow escape from death sentence: I will study at the Faculty of Law and Human Rights. Talking to the reporter in the police station. Hadfidh Ibrahim's case aroused large-scale interest among those interested in delinquents' issues. Ibrahim was sentenced to death for murder. The court insisted on carrying out the verdict, but both civil society and international organizations, including Amnesty International, as well as media outlets publicized the case. Such intervention resulted in the court halting the death sentence. President Ali Abdullah Saleh ordered negotiations with the victim's blood relatives in order to settle their claim. It worked and the verdict was overturned, thus securing Ibrahim's release from prison. He immediately went to the Yemen Times Taiz bureau to give the following interview: How long were you in the delinquents' prison? I spent 7 years there, since I was 12. Despite the fact that I was an underage delinquent, they put me in the general prison. I appeared in person before the court to be tried as a suspect below the legal age or even the age of puberty; however, they forged my age in the lawsuit. They put me in the Central Prison and sentenced me to death as well. As a delinquent inside the prison, what were your impressions? They treated me well, particularly the head of the prison, and allowed my family to visit me. I found some others the same age as me, so I acclimated to the living conditions inside the prison. I also was allowed to pursue my studies, earning a high school certificate with an 84 % average. Did your death sentence affect your concentration while studying? First, I'd like to say that it was terrible. I was very confused because it was the 1st time to hear it. However, I trusted Allah and my attorney, who I was sure was very clever, professional and believed in my acquittal, so I kept in touch with him. For these reasons, the verdict didnt affect me while studying. I want to continue my studies by studying law because I like that field and I saw the value of being a lawyer because such profession has a very important role in defending justice. Therefore, I'll study at the Faculty of Law and Human Rights because the legal profession is a noble one. How did you feel when they overturned the death sentence? It was an indescribable feeling. I felt like I was born again. I felt the value of life; it was priceless. I thanked God, who caused me to feel this and to know the value of being alive. I think most people don't know this, but when they are in the same situation as me, they'll realize it. Additionally, I hope those attorneys who are unfaithful and disloyal to their profession will be placed in the same situation in order not to issue verdicts like mine until they verify and seek justice before issuing any such verdicts. What do you plan to do after your release and what do you want others to do? I'l Hafidh before his release. l pursue my studies by enrolling in university where I'll study law and human rights so that I can defend justice. I want others to put away their firearms, which lead to calamities, as it did in my case. My problems were caused by my carrying firearms, although I didn't mean for it to happen. For this reason, I call on all not to carry any type of firearms. Additionally, I request the Yemeni government continue its campaign against carrying weapons in order to reduce this phenomenon. I also urge parents to prevent their children from doing so as well, so they won't be involved in such tragedies. Those who carry weapons may kill themselves or others by mistake. I further demand suing judges and reforming Yemens judiciary system because there is a lot of corruption there. Additionally, I demand encouraging the press due to its vital role in correcting the existing regime. If the Yemen Times hadn't made a big deal of my case, I would have been executed because it was the Yemen Times' coverage that made them correct and review my case. Otherwise, I would have been a victim of corrupt judicial action. I want to promote such newspapers in order to follow up human rights issues, especially those involving children and delinquents. Many people know nothing about their issues, so they become victims of illegal violations. If newspapers like the Yemen Times discovered and revealed the news, many things would be corrected. Therefore, I call on human rights organizations to support such newspapers because they can facilitate many of their humanitarian goals. Do you have any message for civil society organizations? I thank all of the civil society and human rights organizations for their support of me because they took a serious stand in my case and this is a great achievement. Special thanks to the Sisters Arab Forum, Amnesty International, the European Union, the French Embassy, the Yemen Times, President Saleh, attorney Essam A. Hamoud and those others who supported me.
