[Deathpenalty] [POSSIBLE SPAM] death penalty news----TEXAS, ALA.
Feb. 27 TEXAS: High Court Won't Hear Death Row Inmate's Evidence of Innocence The U.S. Supreme Court today refused to consider stopping the execution of Larry Ray Swearingen, a Texas death row inmate who says newly uncovered evidence proves his innocence. Swearingen's lawyers had asked the high court to decide for the first time whether executing an innocent person constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under the Constitution. Lower federal courts declined to intervene in Swearingen's case in part because, as the law now stands, even uncontested scientific proof of innocence isn't a valid reason for a federal judge to stop an execution. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who opposed Swearingen's request for a Supreme Court hearing, said Swearingen's new scientific testimony doesn't outweigh a mountain of other evidence that Swearingen is guilty of capital murder. Federal courts also don't need to intervene because Texas's justice system provides methods for review of innocence claims, the state attorney general's brief said. A state court has said it will consider Swearingen's claims, Abbott said. Swearingen also could get a pardon or commutation from Texas Governor Rick Perry. 'Brooding Omnipresence' Questions about the constitutionality of executing an innocent person are a brooding omnipresence in federal law that have been left unanswered for too long, Judge Jacques Wiener wrote in a 2009 ruling on Swearingen at the New Orleans- based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Swearingen's appeal might be the very case for the Supreme Court to recognize actual innocence as a ground for federal habeas relief, Wiener wrote. Swearingen was sentenced to die for the murder of 19-year- old Melissa Trotter, a college student who disappeared on Dec. 8, 1988, and was missing for 25 days before her body was discovered in Sam Houston National Forest, north of Houston. Swearingen, who knew Trotter and was seen with her on the day she disappeared, was considered a suspect early in the police investigation. He was arrested Dec. 11, 1988, on unrelated warrants and has been in jail ever since. Medical Examiner Swearingen's lawyers say forensic specialists -- including the medical examiner who testified for the prosecution -- have looked at evidence that wasn't considered at Swearingen's trial and now agree that Trotter's body was placed in the forest no earlier than Dec. 18, 1998, a week after Swearingen's arrest. More than that, Swearingen's lawyers say medical examiners who looked at tissue samples say Trotter's internal organs were in a condition suggesting that she was killed no more than several days before her body was found. The Innocence Network, an umbrella group of more than 60 organizations that helps prisoners uncover favorable evidence, said in a friend-of-the-court brief that Swearingen has an airtight alibi -- he was in jail when the victim was murdered. Imposing the death penalty on someone who isn't guilty of a capital crime, Swearingen's lawyers said, would violate the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment and the 14th Amendment's due process protections. Trotter's Hair Texas authorities said strands of Trotter's hair were found in Swearingen's truck, and fibers matching Swearingen's jacket, bedroom carpet and truck upholstery were found on Trotter's clothing. Cleaning Swearingen's trailer after Trotter's body was discovered, the suspect's landlord found part of a torn pair of pantyhose that, prosecutors said, matched hosiery used to strangle the victim. Swearingen's case involves rules for habeas corpus petitions, which let federal judges intervene in criminal cases if there is reason to believe an inmate's rights have been violated. In a 1993 Supreme Court decision, seven justices said they at least presumed, for argument's sake, that the Constitution prohibits putting innocent people to death. The high court, however, has never turned that hypothetical discussion into a concrete rule of law. Earlier Investigation The court ruled in 1993's Herrera v. Collins decision that new evidence, by itself, says nothing about whether a defendant's rights were respected during an earlier investigation and trial. An inmate needs additional evidence of a separate constitutional violation to warrant a federal court's involvement, the high court ruled. Federal habeas courts do not sit to correct errors of fact, but to ensure that individuals are not imprisoned in violation of the Constitution, then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote for a 6-3 majority. Claims of actual innocence based on newly discovered evidence have never been held to state a ground for federal habeas relief absent an independent constitutional violation occurring in the underlying state criminal proceeding. 'Truly Persuasive' Rehnquist acknowledged the stakes would be keenest in death penalty cases. We may assume, for the
[Deathpenalty] [POSSIBLE SPAM] death penalty news----TEXAS, ALA., USA, FLA., MISS.
July 30 TEXAS: Condemned inmate Swearingen gets reprieveIt's the 3rd time he's been spared in teen's death Death row inmate Larry Swearingen has dodged an execution date for a third time in the 1998 slaying of a Montgomery County college student. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled Thursday that new evidence in Swearingen's appeal raised the issue of due process violation. The court remanded the case to the 9th state District Court in Montgomery County for a hearing. Swearingen was set to die by lethal injection Aug. 18. He won reprieves in January 2007 and January 2009, each handed down a day before his execution. Swearingen's attorney, James Rytting, said his client was convicted on false forensic testimony. A former Harris County medical examiner who testified during Swearingen's capital murder trial changed her testimony in 2007. It was a courageous decision by the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals, Rytting said. It was the right decision, and it acknowledges the science in this case is powerful proof that Mr. Swearingen could not have committed the crime. 'Claim is unfounded' Montgomery County prosecutor Bill Delmore said Swearingen's new evidence is the same evidence from previous appeals, which were denied. We're surprised and disappointed that he took the same argument and supplemented it with additional reports from different pathologists and convinced the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that it is a legitimate issue, Delmore said. We remain confident that our evidence will ultimately show his innocence claim is unfounded and the jury that found him guilty beyond reasonable doubt reached the right verdict. Swearingen was convicted in 2000 for the kidnapping, strangulation and sexual assault of Melissa Trotter, who was last seen with Swearingen on the Montgomery College campus on Dec. 8, 1998. Her body was discovered on Jan. 2, 1999, in Sam Houston National Forest in Montgomery County with a partial pantyhose around her neck. Prosecutors said Trotter was killed on the same day she was abducted, and their evidence was bolstered by an autopsy report by former Harris County Medical Examiner Joye Carter. She had determined that Trotter's body had been in the woods for 25 days, placing the date of death on Dec. 8. But Carter now says, after reviewing the case in late 2007, that Trotter's remains had been in the forest no more than 2 weeks, placing the date of death on or after Dec. 12. Swearingen was in jail on Dec. 11, 1998, on an unrelated charge and remained there until his trial. Swearingen, 40, has maintained his innocence from the beginning. In a 2007 interview at the Polanski Unit in Huntsville, he said he had an alibi and that police did not thoroughly investigate the case. Sandra Trotter, the victim's mother, said the family is devastated over the stay. She said the only consolation is that he is still on death row and not able to hurt other women. How long can they examine this evidence? Trotter said. From the victims' rights view, when does this end? It's hard to understand how he can have so many rights. The state appeals court granted Swearingen's first stay on Jan. 23, 2007, because Swearingen filed a motion saying he had new insect evidence that proved his innocence. His attorneys had an expert witness who estimated Trotter's time of death after Dec. 11, 1998, based on insects found near her body. After listening to testimony in a subsequent hearing, state District Judge Fred Edwards denied Swearingen's request for a new trial. An appeals court affirmed the decision. Swearingen's 2nd stay was granted by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Jan. 26, 2009. The court found his due process rights were violated. His appeal was based on the insect evidence and new pathology evidence, Carter's reversal on the time of death, that contradicted state evidence. Other evidence found Rytting also found experts, including current Harris County Medical Examiner Dr. Luis Sanchez, who said Trotter died after Dec. 11 and as late as Dec. 18. With the latest reprieve, prosecutors said they again are prepared to refute Swearigen's evidence. They have retained an entomologist who has reviewed the case and has concluded that, based on insect activity, Trotter died a day or two after her Dec. 8 disappearance, Delmore said. Delmore, who recently took over handling post-conviction cases for the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office, said entomology evidence is more reliable than pathology evidence when estimating time of death. He said when Carter testified during the 2000 trial, no one, not even the pathologist for the defense, questioned the date of death. Delmore's predecessor, former Montgomery County District Attorney Marc Brumberger, said in previous interviews that prosecutors had strong evidence linking Swearingen to the crime, including fibers and hair found in his truck, his
[Deathpenalty] [POSSIBLE SPAM] death penalty news----TEXAS, ALA., MD., CALIF.
Dec. 7 TEXAS: Harris sends nobody to death row First I learn that Houston's air is getting cleaner. Now I learn that we haven't sentenced a single scumbag murderer to death this entire year. This is not the city I signed up for. In 1999, Houston displaced Los Angeles as the smoggiest city in the nation. This year we set a record low with only 16 days exceeding federal standards for ground-level ozone, smog's main ingredient. In 2003, the year I moved here, Houston sent 9 murderers to death row. That was 35 % of the state's death sentences that year, an amount that is more than twice our 16.5 % share of the state's population. From 15 a year to zero In 2004, we did even better, accounting for fully 1/2 of the 20 Texans who landed on death row. Back in the 1990s, a less populous Harris County was even more prolific in sending murderers to meet their Maker or not. For the 5 years beginning 1993, Harris County condemned more than 15 annually, contributing 39 % of the state's migration to death row. But this year, which for capital crime trial purposes is basically over, we've contributed precisely zero % to the state's nation-leading cadre of dead men walking. The Rosenthal factor? I know what you're thinking: That's what happens when at the beginning of the year you banish the tough-on-crime likes of Chuck Rosenthal for minor indiscretions such as using his office computer for racist, romantic and obscene e-mails. (Separate e-mails, not racist, romantic and obscene all in one.) And, oh yes, defying a federal judge's direct order by erasing a couple of thousand other e-mails that could have proved even more entertaining. But acting District Attorney Ken Magidson declines to take either credit or blame for the county's paltry annual contribution to death row. Magidson said he personally reviewed each capital crime to see if prosecutors could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they met the standards set by law for the death penalty. Only 2 death-penalty cases were presented to juries. In one of them, prosecutors agreed a plea bargain of 60 years during the trial. In the other one, the defendant was acquitted, more on which below. Statistics from the past 3 years agree with Magidson's suggestion that he wasn't the difference. From 2005 through 2007, Harris County condemned just 7 men, or 15 % of the Texas total. Prosecutors throughout the state appear to be seeking the death sentence less often. This year only 16 cases have come to trial (and one currently under way). In addition, juries appear to be showing more skepticism. One found the accused not guilty. One jury hung on the question of guilt. 4 juries found the accused guilty but chose life sentences without possibility of parole. One was the jury in the sole Harris County death penalty case that of Juan Quintero, an illegal immigrant convicted of shooting a police officer 4 times in the head during a traffic stop. When you have a Texas jury refusing to give the death penalty to an illegal immigrant who killed a cop if the significance of that doesn't speak volumes, nothing will, said David Dow, an anti-death penalty activist and professor at the University of Houston Law Center. Dow believes that Texas juries have joined the national mainstream. The recent passage in Texas of the sentence of life without parole offers some jurors a satisfying alternative to death (which is why Rosenthal and other Texas district attorneys long opposed it). What's more, say Dow and others, with the advent of highly publicized DNA-based exonerations, jurors across the country have become more concerned about imposing the death penalty. In August, Michael Blair was released after 14 years on Texas death row. DNA evidence cleared him of the 1993 rape of a 7-year-old girl. Dow notes that while Texas jurors seem to have joined the rest of the nation in increasing concern about the finality of the death penalty, state officials seem to be uniquely stubborn. In other states, executions have been slowed. But not in Texas. According to figures compiled by the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, Texas this year has performed 18 executions, exactly the number as the rest of the nation combined. The runner-up was Virginia with 4. Florida executed only 2. Texas already has 11 executions scheduled for next year, running only into March. Only 1 is from Harris County. Tarrant County has 3. So it looks like we may lose our title as the Death Penalty Capital of America. (source: Rick Casey, Houston Chronicle) ALABAMA: Execution is revenge, not closure The recent scheduling of 5 executions by the Alabama Supreme Court (with input from the attorney general) leads me to ask you to engage in a brief thought-experiment with me. Forgive the example which speaks to my Catholic background. --Assume that Mehmet Ali Agca had killed Pope John Paul II that day in 1981 in St. Peter's Square. --Assume that all of the world's more than 1
