[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CONN., PENN.
Oct. 26 TEXAS: Man charged with capital murder in deadly home invasion A man jailed on an unrelated charge has been accused in a fatal shooting at a home in northeast Houston earlier this year. Kenneth Ray Nelms Jr., 19, is charged with capital murder in the death of Terrance Nelson, 28, at 3904 Kress near Makeig about 3:30 p.m. July 17, according to the Houston Police Department. Police said Nelms is currently in the Harris County jail on an unrelated robbery charge. He was charged Monday in Nelson's death. Police said officers were dispatched to the scene on a emergency call about a burglary. When they arrived, they found Nelson dead. He appeared to have been killed during a home invasion. And, police said, his 2007 Dodge Charger was missing. Investigators later determined Nelms was the suspect in the case. (source: Houston Chronicle) *** “Witness To Murder” by Tony Medina Supporters of Tony Medina are pleased to announce the publication of “Witness to Murder”, his book of original poetry and essays. Dedicated to his friend and fellow inmate, Dominique Green, who was executed on Oct. 24th, 2004, this book both meets a promise made between them, and represents an astounding education to those who wonder how an innocent man can survive 15 years on death row, knowing that the next might bring his wrongful death. Tony invites you to join in the fight to ensure justice for him, and to understand why only the abolition of the death penalty can help other innocent men and women in the future. London, United Kingdom. Oct 26th, 2011 -- Tony Medina, 36-year-old father of three children, has been waiting on death row for his execution in Texas for nearly 15 years. He was accused of shooting into a crowd of young people with a semi-automatic weapon from a dark colored car. 2 children were fatally wounded during the shooting. Nevertheless, he is innocent according to the furnished evidence and the testimony of witnesses. He is only guilty of not having enough money to engage a competent lawyer who would handle his case seriously at the time of his trial. Tony owes a great debt of gratitude to Dominique Green, a fellow inmate on Texas death row before his execution on Oct. 24th, 2004. Dominique showed him how to channel his anger, at wrongful incarceration and sentence of death, into creative endeavors, most especially in writing poetry. Both men vowed to work to publish a book of poetry and essays, and although Dominique didn’t live to see the dream come true, Tony is proud to have completed the project today in his memory. Dominique’s final words were, “You are all my family. Please keep my memory alive. This book is dedicated to him. Although the bulk of the works in the book are written by Tony Medina, there is one important contribution from his sister Angie, and some others by Dominique Green, who gave them freely for use in the book. Together, they tell a story of hurt, of love, and of hope - hope that you, the reader of his book, will come to understand that Justice does not come from the broken death penalty process that persists in many parts of the United States. The innocent (the many that are exonerated or have their sentences commuted clearly demonstrate that there are far more of these than the public understand) can be trapped by a system that more often than not refuses to believe that a trial verdict can be wrong. It is as certain as can ever be demonstrated after the event, that innocent men and women have been wrongly executed. The book can initially be purchased from Lulu Press, which has a number of International online locations for easy purchase in US dollars, £ Sterling or Euros. Please visit their website and select the most appropriate location. Further information about Tony Medina’s case and ways of helping/donating can be found at: www.tony-medina.info Witness to Murder Author: Tony Medina Paperback: 112 pages Price: £10.25 / $16.43 / €12.09 Language: English ISBN-13: 978-1-4709-3028-8 Publisher: Lulu PRESS / Peter Bellamy (source: Tony Medina) CONNECTICUT: Doomed from birth killer should be spared death: lawyer Joshua Komisarjevsky was doomed from birth, his lawyer on Tuesday told a jury that convicted him of a murderous home invasion and will now decide whether he should be punished with the death penalty. Komisarjevsky, 31, was convicted of murdering Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, and her daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, and beating unconscious Dr. William Petit Jr. at their Cheshire home. Hawke-Petit was strangled and the girls, tied to their beds, died of smoke inhalation after the home was set on fire. His accomplice, Steven Hayes, was convicted separately and sentenced to death. As the penalty phase of Komisarjevsky's trial began on Tuesday, Petit, the lone survivor of the 2007 attack, left the courtroom. Petit was a constant presence throughout the
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., N.C., OHIO
Oct. 26 CALIFORNIA: Death penalty foes launch initiative drive Capital punishment opponents launched a drive Tuesday to place an initiative on the November 2012 ballot to replace the death penalty in California with a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole. Organizers must collect 504,000 valid voter signatures by the March 18 deadline to qualify the initiative for the election. They've dubbed their measure the Savings, Accountability and Full Enforcement for California Act. Californians are ready for the SAFE California Act because now they realize we have wasted literally billions of dollars on a failed death penalty system, said Natasha Minsker, statewide campaign manager for the effort. It's time to take our resources and put them instead toward public safety. Minsker, an attorney in the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California who has long specialized in opposing executions, said the campaign has 800 volunteers and expects to have 2,000 by March. She estimated the campaign to qualify for the ballot will cost as much as $1.5 million, and we have some great donors. The drive was announced at a news conference on the steps of San Francisco City Hall. California has not executed anyone since January 2006, shortly before a federal judge halted enforcement of the death penalty because of the possibility that flawed procedures were inflicting agonizing deaths on condemned prisoners. The state is still trying to satisfy the court's concerns. A Field Poll released last month showed that 68 percent of California voters surveyed favored keeping the death penalty. But for the 1st time since the poll began asking the question 11 years ago, more voters - 48 % - said they would prefer that someone convicted of 1st-degree murder serve life without the possibility of parole. 40 % preferred the death penalty. Proponents who spoke at Tuesday's event included 2 women who lost relatives to homicide. Others supporting the measure include retired or active law enforcement officials, including San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey. They pointed to a study by a federal judge and a law professor, released in June, showing California has spent $4 billion on the death penalty since the Legislature restored it in 1977. That works out to $308 million for each of the 13 executions carried out since then. Abolishing the death penalty, they said, would save the state $1 billion in 5 years. (source: San Francisco Chronicle) ** Death-penalty trial gets started Jury, courthouse must meet special requirements The capital murder trial of Sherhaun K. Brown got under way here last week, 4 1/2 years after the Moreno Valley man was charged with the stabbing death of a Yucca Valley woman. In a phone interview, Susan M. Israel, deputy public defender, said attorneys in the case are arguing motions, and the jury will begin assembling Nov. 9. Jurors will be chosen from a pool of about 600 people, and the process will likely take quite a while, she said. Israel explained potential jurors must first be time qualified, meaning they must be able to take the time off work for a lengthy trial. In addition, potential jurors must be death qualified. The person has to at least be willing to consider the death penalty in order to serve on a capital murder trial, she said. Israel said she and prosecutors likely will address the jury panel beginning Dec. 5. Brown is accused of breaking into a house in the 57000 block of Canterbury in the Yucca Mesa area around 6:30 a.m. May 7, 2007, and stabbing 54-year-old Kristy Vert to death. He also is charged with raping and slashing the throat of Vert's daughter-in-law, who lived at the home with her 2 young children. The children were home at the time of the violent attack, but were not harmed. Despite her traumatic injury, Vert's daughter-in-law was able to get to a neighbor's home and summon help. Brown was taken into custody later that day in Moreno Valley after a be on the lookout alert was issued. He allegedly was driving the victim's car. Brown was charged with nine felonies, including murder, attempted murder, rape, burglary and robbery. The district attorney's office upgraded the charge to capital murder in August 2007, and the case was transferred to Victorville, which along with Rancho Cucamonga and San Bernardino is one of only three courthouses in the county equipped to deal with capital cases. California Penal Code Section 190.2 states murder committed during the commission of a robbery, kidnapping, rape, arson and burglary are all special circumstances that qualify a crime as a capital offense. Riverside County court records indicate Brown has several prior convictions. In 1998, he pleaded guilty to burglary, possession of a controlled substance and driving under the influence. In 2001, he was charged with attempted burglary, a felony, but
[Deathpenalty] [SPAM] death penalty news----USA, S.DAK., ALA., ORE., IDAHO, LA.
Oct. 26 USA: The death penalty: valid yet targetedNo serious constitutional argument can be made against the death penalty. The endless campaigns to ban it cost taxpayers millions to defend. On the September night that the state of Georgia put Troy Davis to death, a crowd of several hundred gathered at the Supreme Court in Washington to protest America's continued practice of capital punishment. But they were in the wrong place. The protesters should have assembled 600 miles southeast, in Atlanta. The Constitution does not empower the Supreme Court to proscribe capital punishment or to regulate it out of existence, and those who ignore that point have made it increasingly expensive and less effective. Every legal argument against the death penalty begins with the 8th or 5th Amendment. The 8th bars cruel and unusual punishments, and the 5th guarantees due process of law before a person can be deprived of life, liberty or property. But there is no serious constitutional argument against the death penalty. The 5th Amendment itself recognizes the existence of capital crimes, and executions were common before and after the Constitution's framing. No framer ever suggested that the Constitution divested states of this part of their historical punishment power, nor has there been a constitutional amendment that does so. Matters not addressed by the Constitution are left to the democratic process and, in the main, to the states. As in Europe and Canada, a solid majority of American citizens supports the death penalty, believing it to serve both as a deterrent and an appropriate societal response to particularly heinous crimes. Unlike in Europe and Canada, however, U.S. courts and political leaders have not overridden public opinion to end the practice. But they have tried. At the tail end of the criminal rights revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, the Supreme Court put a halt to all executions. While the public acquiesced or supported other innovations in criminal law, such as Miranda warnings, the death penalty moratorium was less well received. Pushed by their citizens, states passed new laws requiring juries to find specific aggravating factors justifying the death penalty, and in 1976, the court allowed executions to resume on that basis. Those laws were early additions to the elaborate legal superstructure that has been erected around capital punishment. Since then, the courts have gradually discovered additional capital-punishment-related constitutional requirements. These include exhaustive prescriptions for trials involving capital cases, performance standards for defense attorneys representing those facing the death penalty, and limits on who may face execution — not rapists, not minors, not those with low IQs. Every single one is now the subject of endless litigation. The result has been to narrow the death penalty's availability while enormously extending the burden of imposing the sentence. Appeals and post-conviction reviews regularly take a decade or more and can cost millions in legal expenses. States seek the death penalty more rarely than in the past, and the number of executions is also in decline. And that, say those pushing today to end the death penalty, actually renders it unconstitutional. Because it is so rarely carried out, they argue, its application is inevitably arbitrary and fundamentally incompatible with the requirements of due process. But it's an absurd leap of logic to say that because many of those eligible for and deserving of the death penalty aren't executed, those who are actually put to death — after all the elaborate safeguards and procedures — have been subjected to unlawful punishment or denied due process. The dry term due process does not even begin to describe the path to execution. First there is a trial, with a separate penalty phase after conviction. Then there are appeals in state courts, and perhaps a request that the Supreme Court take the case. Then state post-conviction proceedings, followed by appeals, followed by habeas review in a federal court, appeals, then another request to the Supreme Court. In all, the average case is likely to be reviewed by various courts 10 times — and that's not even counting the inevitable last-minute habeas filings that keep judges up late at night or requests for executive clemency, which has fallen into unfortunate disuse as courts usurped the right of reprieve. Troy Davis even received a rare extra round of review after he petitioned the Supreme Court directly for relief. The result was a 174-page decision that concluded flatly, Mr. Davis is not innocent. Unable to convince the public on the merits of abolition, death-penalty opponents have a new strategy, attacking capital punishment on fiscal grounds. That is the basis for a ballot initiative to stop executions in California that backers of a capital punishment ban hope to qualify for
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Oct. 26 EGYPT: Egyptians unhappy with lenient sentence for Khaled Said's killers The 2 policemen who beat Khaled Said to death and planted evidence on his body, helping fuel Egypt's revolution, each received 7-year sentences for manslaughter. A lenient prison sentence for the killers of a man whose death helped spark Egypt’s revolution has outraged Egyptians, who had hoped their uprising would wipe out the corruption and injustice symbolized by the case. An Alexandria judge Wednesday found 2 policemen guilty of beating Khaled Said to death, said a lawyer in the case, and sentenced them to 7 years in prison, the maximum sentence for manslaughter. The judge’s failure to bring harsher charges against the policemen left Egyptians bitter and disillusioned after hopes were raised recently that the case would be treated justly. Egyptian activists, already embittered by a long string of disappointments and increasing repression by Egypt’s military, took the news badly. But while activists have become increasingly isolated from much of the population, which does not seem to share their virulent opposition to the military, Wednesday’s news united Egyptians in anger. Egypt erases history: 5 places where the Mubarak name will be removed “They should have been given the death sentence,” says Hassan Ahmed, a doorman who lives in Cairo’s downtown district and does not care for politics or activism. “This is not the justice we demanded in [Cairo's Tahrir Square]. Did we make a revolution, or not?” Hafez Abu Saeda, a lawyer for Mr. Said’s family, said the family has authorized him to appeal to Egypt’s attorney general to overturn the verdict and sentence. The policemen should be charged with torturing Said to death, he says, which carries a sentence of 25 years imprisonment to the death penalty. Such charges are required by Egypt’s commitment to international conventions against torture, he said. “I hope that the attorney general will accept my argument,” Mr. Saeda said. “I will do my best, and my memo will be based on Egypt's ratification of the international Convention Against Torture.” The 2 policemen dragged Said out of an Internet café in Alexandria on June 6, 2010, and according to witnesses, brutally beat him to death on the street. He had posted a video online that purported to show police splitting the spoils of a drug bust. Police said he died when he choked on a packet of marijuana, but photos of his mangled and bloody body soon began circulating on Facebook. The photos provoked a groundswell of fury against widespread police brutality, torture, and injustice in Egypt. A Facebook page created soon after his death, called “We are All Khaled Said,” attracted huge numbers, and organized thousands to protest the coverup of Said’s death. It was the administrators of that page who called for a day of protest against the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak on Jan. 25. That protest turned into an 18-day popular uprising that swept Mubarak from power. Before the revolution, the policemen in the case faced lesser charges, and the official forensic report submitted for the trial said Said choked to death on a marijuana packet. But in June the judge ordered a new report, and evidence was presented in September that the package was put into his mouth after his death, raising hope the charges would be elevated as well. (source: Christian Science Monitor) BARBADOS: Judge: Some killers may never die MANY CONDEMNED CRIMINALS on death row in Barbados and the rest of the Caribbean may never face the death penalty, according to Justice Diego Garcia Sayan, president of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. He thinks the likely stay on future executions may result from binding conventions which countries have signed that place conditions and restrictions on carrying out punishment in certain circumstances. “What is happpening in the Caribbean in the last years is that without the major amendment in constitutions and national law, the death penalty is not fully implemented because of conventions that [result in] people staying on death row for years or months [and] because there is a climate in which the current in the world is to diminish the death penalty as the magic response to crime.” Sayan pointed out that more than half the countries in the world have suppressed or don’t apply the death penalty anymore because it has not been proven to be a deterrent to crime. The top judge spoke to the MIDWEEK NATION after presiding over a recent historic sitting of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Barbados. He acknowledged there was “this thirst for reprisals by the public” when heinous crimes were committed. But he insisted that “the rule of law should prevail”. “In Mexico, a country in which more than 50 000 people have been killed in the last 3 years, in the last 2 months the Supreme Court has decided that the
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, MD., CALIF.
Oct. 26 TEXASimpending execution Convicted San Antonio cop killer set to die A San Antonio street gang member set for execution Thursday told police that he knew officers often wore bulletproof vests so when one responded to a domestic violence call at his home, he shot him in the head. Frank Garcia, 39, was sentenced to die for the fatal shooting of police Sgt. Hector Garza, 48. Authorities say Garcia killed his wife, Jessica, in the same outburst. She was shot three times -- one bullet to her forehead and two others lower on her face. I just turned and went: `Pow, pow.' And I shot the officer, Garcia later told detectives. He said he didn't notice whether Garza had pulled a gun but just went crazy. Garcia's attorneys asked a San Antonio judge last week to halt his execution date, contending Garcia was mentally impaired and ineligible for the death penalty under U.S. Supreme Court rulings. The court refused the request. He will become the 12th Texas inmate executed this year, and the state has at least four other lethal injections scheduled, including two in November. Garcia, who belonged to a gang known as the Angels of Sin, had been married about seven years and lived with his wife, their two children and his parents, court records show. He and his wife married when she was 15 and he was 21 and still in high school. He dropped out a year later at age 22. Their relationship was marked by domestic abuse, and testimony at his trial showed Jessica Garcia sought help from a women's shelter at least once. She called her stepmother on March 29, 2001, to say she was leaving and needed help with her children. Her stepmother sent her sister-in-law and her husband, John Luna, to help her. When they arrived, Jessica Garcia was on the phone with her husband, telling him she and the children were clearing out. Luna called police. Garcia soon drove up, left his truck in the middle of the street, brushed aside Luna's attempt to grab him and ran to the house. Luna flagged down Garza, who was approaching, and the sergeant went into the house, where Garcia was in a bedroom with his wife. He had a machine gun pistol. I know officers wear bulletproof vests, and when I shot I aimed for his head and that's where I hit him, Garcia told detectives after his arrest. Garza, who had been on the San Antonio force for 25 years and had 5 children, was shot 4 times in all. Evidence showed any one of the shots -- single to the head and abdomen and 2 to his neck -- would have been fatal. Then, Garcia told investigators, My mind just went blank and I turned towards my wife and I shot her, too. He went outside and began firing. Luna was wounded, and some shots hit an elementary school across the street. By that time, more police had arrived. One officer, Robert Carter, described the scene as chaos ... people just running, screaming. Garcia surrendered to Carter. The officer later testified he found Garza on the bedroom floor and when he tried to pick him up, the sergeant's brain literally fell out of his head. Bexar County District Attorney Susan Reed, who prosecuted Garcia, said he had a history of violence, an arsenal of guns and was known to go behind his house and fire them. A court-appointed defense expert during an early appeal described Garcia as cold-blooded, remorseless and anti-social. Garcia declined to speak with reporters as his execution neared. The San Antonio Police Officers Association has chartered buses and expects at least 50 people representing the police department to be outside the Huntsville prison Thursday evening, association president Mike Helle said. He remembered Garza as a friend and colleague with a good sense of humor and one of the veterans on the shift that guys could go to if they had any questions. Garza's family, in a statement released through the San Antonio Police Department, said the execution would close a sad chapter in their lives. It comforts us to know Frank Garcia will never destroy another family, they said. (source: Associated Press) MARYLAND: Guilty verdict in murder-for-hire scheme; defendant could face deathWalter P. Bishop Jr. convicted of fatally shooting gas station owner A Baltimore County man was found guilty Wednesday of shooting a Towson gas station owner to death in the first case to test Maryland's revised capital punishment law. Walter P. Bishop Jr., 29, was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder in the killing-for-hire of William Ray Porter and faces the penalty portion of the trial Thursday n Harford County Circuit Court. Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty. Wearing a dark suit and a lavender shirt open at the collar, Bishop showed no reaction when the foreman of the five-man, seven-woman jury announced the guilty verdicts. Bishop, who appeared unshaven and had dark circles under his eyes, sat at the defense table, his head slightly bowed.
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Oct. 26 IRANexecution 1 man was hanged in public in Gharchak (west of Tehran) this morning 1 man was hanged publicly in the town of Gharchak (Qarchak; Tehran province) early this morning. According to the state run Iranian news agency Fars, a 29 years old man identified as Bakhshali Asgari was hanged convicted of murdering a 9 year-old girl and her grandmother, sexual abuse of the girl and stealing the woman’s jewelry in 2009. The man was hanged publicly at 06:16 AM in front of tens of people. He had also been sentenced to 74 lashes and the sentenced was implemented in the prison yesterday. Based on the reports from the official Iranian sources, so far 35 people have been executed, seven of them publicly, in the month of October 2011 (source: Iran Human Rights) ___ DeathPenalty mailing list DeathPenalty@lists.washlaw.edu http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty Search the Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/deathpenalty@lists.washlaw.edu/ ~~~ A free service of WashLaw http://washlaw.edu (785)670.1088 ~~~
