[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CONN., PENN., N.J., MD.
Jan. 27 TEXAS: Texas' support for death penalty remains strongOn hold nationally, capital punishment is a tradition in the Lone Star State, an author says. In a prison cemetery, Mack Matthews and George Washington are bound by the manner of their deaths. The men were among 5 condemned killers who on Feb. 8, 1924, were strapped one by one into Texas' new wooden electric chair for what the Austin American-Statesman described as a 2-hour harvest of death. At the time, state officials had just taken over execution duties from county sheriffs. They used the chair for more than 360 executions over the next nearly 50 years. Although the death penalty is under attack across the nation - and is in abeyance as the U.S. Supreme Court considers a challenge from 2 Kentucky inmates to the lethal injection - support for capital punishment remains strong in Texas. Here, a history of frontier justice, a law-and-order culture, and conservative politics keep the execution chamber busy. It's a tradition here, and something we want to do and we're not going to back away from, is how James Marquart, coauthor of a history of the death penalty in Texas, describes local attitudes. Texas retired the electric chair in 1972, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that executions under state death-penalty laws were unconstitutionally cruel and unusual. Legislators quickly rewrote laws to reopen the death chamber using lethal injection, which was considered more humane. The revised law was approved by the courts in 1976, and executions resumed 6 years later. Since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976, Texas has executed 405 inmates - more than any other state. Virginia is 2nd with 98. Texas also leads the nation in the number of prisoners convicted and later set free after DNA evidence showed they were innocent, although none of those 30 cases involved death-row inmates. Texas might sentence people to death at rates that are not horribly out of line, but they execute more, said Michael Radelet, a University of Colorado capital-punishment expert. He said execution figures might reflect lack of public defenders and lack of attorneys to pursue appeals. 26 of the 42 U.S. inmates executed last year were in Texas. No other state did more than 3. In 2006, Texas executed 24. Ohio was next with 5. It's a scenario that has played out nearly every year over 2 decades. Even in the electric-chair days, Texas was among the most active death-penalty states. The graves of Matthews and Washington are surrounded by others marked with the 2- or 3-digit inmate numbers reserved for those on death row. In 1923, the state took over execution duties from county sheriffs, who had conducted public hangings. Legal local hangings by the 1920s were a long-established part of the state's landscape, Marquart, director of the criminology and sociology programs at the University of Texas at Dallas, wrote in his 1994 book, The Rope, The Chair and The Needle. Indeed, one of the most enduring stereotypes of Texas surrounds the public hanging of cattle rustlers on the range, he wrote. As governor in the mid-1980s, Mark White presided over 19 executions. I think people of Texas are most fair-minded when presented with facts, he said. They're not mean-spirited, but are supportive of strict enforcement of law and severe penalties for those who repeat their crimes. White, who was attorney general when executions resumed in 1982, said he wanted his office to be aggressive when handling the appeals of capital cases. That policy remains in effect today. My approach was: OK, everybody has adequate time to prepare an appeal, but let's not delay it and risk creating a backlog, he said. That's what happened in New Jersey, which reinstated the death penalty in 1982 but has executed no one since 1963. Last month, it became the 1st state in 4 decades to abolish the penalty. The determined pursuit of the death penalty has left Texas open to criticism about overzealous judges and the prospect that innocent people may have been executed. The judge issue intensified with September's execution of Michael Richard, the last inmate in the nation to be put to death before the Supreme Court agreed to take the Kentucky case on lethal injection. Sharon Keller, presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, refused to keep the court open past 5 p.m. to let Richard's lawyers file a late appeal that would have spared his life at least until the Supreme Court decided the Kentucky case. Keller, who has declined to speak about her decision, has distributed campaign literature touting herself as a law-and-order judge. (source: Associated Press) CONNECTICUT: Death penalty on trial in Connecticut Chasity West decided the best way to have her lover all to herself was to kill his 2 young children. Before first light on July 9, 1998, West, a 23-year-old nurse, slipped into the Windsor home of her boyfriend's ex-wife, Tammi Cuyler, who was also West's
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Jan. 27 JAMAICA: Say 'no' to death-Career Education Career Education shares with you in the Thinkers' Corner this week an essay by Xaiver Campbell, 18, of Campion College. Campbell placed first in the Independent Jamaica Council for Human Rights Secondary School Essay Competition for this entry last year. He addresses the question: Does a justice system need to have faults for the death penalty to be undesirable? CAMPBEL. the Declaration of Human Rights serves as a guide on how to treat your fellow human being YOU should not kill people to show that killing people is wrong. That is always my outlook in debates on the subject of the death penalty and its function. It is also how I have chosen to convey my view that the death penalty is wrong and should be abolished. Before I venture into the depth of this essay, I believe it is necessary to define the important terms that comprise the initial statement. The justice system refers to a country's method of coordinating and regulating its laws. Fault, as defined by Funk Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of the English Language is, 'a slight offence, failure, imperfection or error'. The death penalty is the use of execution as a form of punishment. After 1992, in Jamaica, the death penalty was mandatory for convictions of capital murder. Capital murder refers to the murder of a member of the police force, a judge, a juror or murder in the course of a crime such as robbery, a sexual offence or terrorism. The word 'undesirable' as defined by the same dictionary is, 'unwanted or unwelcome'. So, do the methods used by a country to regulate its society need to be imperfect for punishment by death to be unwanted? No! The death penalty in a 'perfect' society should also be unsolicited. First and foremost, the death penalty is a direct and blatant disregard for human rights. It defies Article Two of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states, 'Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person'. When a person is sentenced to death, you have taken away their right to life. That individual is put on death row and waits from day to day for his life to come to an end. How is that treatment befitting of a human being? It also violates Article Five of said publication, which says: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. How on this planet can anyone look you in the eye and tell you that the execution of the death penalty by any means - whether it is by hanging, electrocution, lethal injection or otherwise - is neither inhumane, nor degrading? Well, it is! The Declaration of Human Rights serves as a guide on how to treat your fellow human being. It is crucial that we adhere to the articles it has so outlined. The death penalty is completely opposite to the issues it enforces. To be honest, we all know there is no justice system that can be considered perfect. Each system is flawed. It is defective because people with biases administer it. No matter what oath may have been taken, people are guided by their individual socialisation and they may try to not affix their personal beliefs to the case but it is impossible, as it is done subconsciously. For that reason, the justice system is blemished, carrying out the death penalty would be a terrible blunder as it is irreversible. Once carried out it can never be corrected. With the stakes raised so high, the consequence of any judicial error takes on monumental proportions, as was so eloquently expressed by the Independent Jamaican Council for Human Rights (IJCHR) on the death penalty. It has been studied and found that in seven out of 10 instances where the death penalty was administered further evidence was discovered after continued investigation that would have altered the outcome of the case. How do you express to an individual that it was a mistake to have killed their loved one? You cannot! In addition, the death penalty does not run parallel to the belief that rehabilitation of the individual criminal is both possible and desirable. I honestly believe that the criminal should be given a chance to repay his debt to society. The reason for having programmes in prisons is to give them the opportunity to right a wrong. To give them the chance that upon release they can better themselves and society. To live within a justice system that does not perpetuate these beliefs is not a society I would recommend to anyone. Ask any child in Jamaica what is our country's major downfall, and off the top of their heads they will say crime and violence, and they are correct. We are oftentimes referred to as the murder capital of the world. That is awful! For us not to abolish the death penalty, we as Jamaicans are telling the world that if it is somehow legitimate, or even deserved and that violence is acceptable. The death penalty travels with an enormous amount of violent acts. To our youth it depicts that revenge is more
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., OHIO, MD., TENN., US MIL.
Jan. 26 ALABAMA: Inmate recants in bizarre Alabama murder case A Walker County man who pleaded guilty to murdering 1 of his wife's 3 husbands in a bizarre show of love has recanted his confession, which helped send the woman to Alabama's death row. Tim Richards said he was goaded by his lawyer into giving a false confession and that Shonda Nicole Johnson alone carried out the killing of Randy McCullar, who had filed a bigamy case against her. Richards, who pleaded guilty and testified against Johnson at her capital murder trial in 1999, was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole. Johnson, married to 3 men at the same time, was sentenced to death for having one kill another while the 2rd died of AIDS. But now Richards claims Johnson killed McCullar on her own. My lawyer told me we needed to stick with the story ... to get her, Richards said in a telephone interview Thursday with The Associated Press from Kilby prison. I have evidence to prove my innocence. Walker County prosecutors did not immediately return messages seeking comment, but Richards' former lawyer denied exerting any undue influence. I can assure you he wasn't coerced by me to confess to it, attorney Ronald Sandlin said Friday. That happened in 2000, and Mr. Richards signed a plea agreement stating that he was the shooter. Richards has filed documents in federal court seeking to get his guilty plea and life sentence thrown out. State courts have already turned aside his challenges. Richards and Johnson, both 38, are imprisoned for a murder that drew notice for its odd circumstances. Now Richards says he no longer loves Johnson, but he would like to help her if he could. In his court testimony during Johnson's capital murder trial and later during a jailhouse interview with AP in 2000, Richards detailed how he and Johnson followed McCullar in his car to a rural church parking lot, where McCullar stopped to change a flat tire. Richards said he had cut the tire while McCullar was in a bar, part of the plot to kill him. McCullar had filed a bigamy case against Johnson, and Richards said she thrust a deer rifle into his hands and urged him to shoot when McCullar stopped to change the tire. She just kept saying, 'Do it! Do it!,' Richards said in the AP interview. The last thing I remember seeing was him falling. But now Richards says all that was a lie. In an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in November, Richards said he pulled into the church parking lot alone after Johnson already had murdered McCullar. She threatened to kill me if I ever told this story, Richards said in the statement. In the telephone interview Thursday, Richards said he never would have confessed without pressure from Sandlin, a claim the attorney denied. He is eligible for parole one day and his wife got the death penalty. That's all I want to say about it, Sandlin said. An appeals court overturned Johnson's death sentence, but the Alabama Supreme Court reinstated it in 2006. (source: Associated Press) OHIO: Rice says criticism unfair in 5 death penalty cases Judge says process can take years before it reaches his court. It was a 1-page administrative order that transferred five cases from U.S. District Judge Walter H. Rice to another judge, but Rice's critics in the Hamilton County Prosecutor's Office pounced fast and hard. Prosecutor Joe Deters told the Cincinnati Enquirer that Rice's office was like a black hole in the universe and that once a case goes in there, we don't hear from him for 8 years. Deters spokeswoman Megan Shanahan said Friday that it appears to be a delay, specifically of death penalty cases. It's no secret that Judge Rice does not favor the death penalty. However, when asked if she was saying that Rice was purposely delaying justice, she said no, adding I would not accuse a judge of purposeful delay, before adding that 8 years is excessive and inexcusable. Not fair, Rice said Friday, denying that he had sat on any case for 8 years. In fact, the process can take years before it even comes to him, he said. Rice said Chief Magistrate Judge Michael R. Merz serves as the court's coordinator for death penalty appeals for both Cincinnati and Dayton. We don't get them until the state courts get a crack at every issue, Merz said. But once those cases do get filed in federal court, the process starts anew, with new lawyers appointed, who generally need time to familiarize themselves with hundreds of pages of records, Merz said. Then there are new hearings, new discovery requests and new filings that can have dozens of individual arguments. In the death penalty cases, we are required to decide every claim that's filed, Merz said. The end result is a process that can take years before Merz is ready to give a set of recommendations to the judge who is assigned to the case. In reality, Rice said, the 5 cases that were reassigned were with him for 3 years or less, including one that was in his hands for
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----IND., USA, S.C., PENN.
Jan. 26 INDIANA: Wilkes sentence sets up test case for 2002 death penalty change Vanderburgh Circuit Court Judge Carl Heldt's decision Friday to sentence convicted murderer Daniel Ray Wilkes to death marks the 1st time since Indiana law was changed in 2002 that a judge has had to determine the sentence in a capital murder case after a jury deadlocked over the penalty. The 2002 amendment required a judge to follow a jury's sentencing recommendation in the case. Before that, judges needed only to consider the jury's recommendation, but could enter a different penalty in a capital murder case. Last month, 12 jurors seated to hear the trial in Clark County, Ind., convicted Wilkes of 3 counts of murder in the April 2006 slayings, but in the penalty phase of the trial were deadlocked 11-1 regarding Wilkes' sentence. Amended law Defense attorneys have said the law in some other states requires a judge to sentence a defendant to life in prison without parole when a jury cannot reach a unanimous decision regarding the death penalty. But in Indiana laws require that if a jury cannot reach a unanimous verdict about the penalty in a capital murder case, the trial judge alone determine the sentence. During and after Friday's sentencing hearing, defense attorneys said repeatedly that a death penalty ruling in the case could open the door to years of appeals, possibly leading all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Addressing their assertions that any penalty other than a prison term would be unconstitutional, Heldt said the laws are clear. The law in Indiana clearly states the indecision of a jury cannot be considered by the court, Heldt said. He set Wilkes' execution date for Jan. 25, 2009, but that will likely be delayed, as defendants issued the death penalty are guaranteed an automatic appeal. After the sentencing, defense attorney Barbara Williams said Wilkes' case had exposed a clear flaw in the statute. That portion of the statute has never been reviewed by the federal courts, she said. This will be a huge appellate issue and could result in a U.S. Supreme Court case. (source: Courier Press) USA: Why Would Anyone Support the Death Penalty? (Part I) In November, the United Nations called for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty. In December, Gov. John Corzine signed legislation abolishing the death penalty in New Jersey. Now, in January, the Supreme Court has heard arguments on whether lethal injection violates the 8th Amendments ban on cruel and unusual punishment. So, with New Jersey and the UN on one side and Texas and Iran on the other side, the Supreme Court seems poised to pick for us all between the new morality and the old. Granted, New Jersey hadn't actually executed anyone in 45 years, so this was a bit like Bill Cosby announcing that he will stop using profanity in his sketches. But the official decision is still noteworthy, as is the fact that New Mexico, Montana, and Nebraska all came close to doing the same thing this year. In the face of the seemingly unstoppable modern sensibility, why would anyone continue to support executing murderers? There are 5 possible objectives of any criminal justice system: incapacitation, rehabilitation, retribution, deterrence, and symbolism. Starting with these values, lets explore the differences between the 2 alternatives: capital punishment and life in prison without the possibility of parole. Incapacitation Incapacitation is the goal of making it physically impossible for the criminal to commit further crimes against his fellow human beings. Clearly, both capital punishment and life in prison without the possibility of parole fully incapacitate criminals with respect to the general society. The only exception is if the prisoner escapes, but given that there is such a long delay between conviction and execution that death row becomes a de facto prison sentence until then, there is less distinction here than initially appears. But, for the sake of argument, let's say that once the 2 paths diverge, execution is 100 % incapacitation and life in prison without the possibility of parole or LIPWPP (pronounced lip-whip) is 99-plus % incapacitation. As an advocate of the death penalty, I'm not interested in quibbling about numbers, so Ill grant that incapacitation is the same for both alternatives. Within the prison community, however, things are not so clear. Unless LIPWPP is upgraded to permanent solitary confinement, such prisoners will still be a threat to guards and other prisoners during their confinement. This is no trivial difference given the obligations of prisons to protect prisoners from each other. Nonetheless, as long as such isolation is the form of sentencing advocated, I'm willing to grant that incapacitation is a non-issue in this debate. Rehabilitation Rehabilitation is the goal of reforming the criminal so that he can be reintegrated into society as a well-behaved, productive citizen. Several recent studies
