Oct. 31
TEXAS:
Activists march against the death penalty
Although she grew up in a pro-death penalty Republican family, Terrie Been
chose to speak out in front of a crowd on Saturday for her brother Jeff Wood, a
Texas death-row prisoner whose execution was halted in August.
While Wood didn't shoot the victim, he was sentenced to the death penalty under
Texas' Law of Parties for his involvement in a 1996 murder case. The ruling has
since been appealed by Wood's lawyers and will be sent to the original trial
court for re-evaluation.
"I want the world to know that my brother, Jeff Wood, is not a monster," Been
said. "I want the world to know that he is not the worst of the worst. Jeff is
a human being, he does not deserve to be referred to as number 999256."
A crowd of more than 30 people consisting of activists, student organizations,
UT students and families of death row inmates gathered at the south side of the
Texas State Capitol for the 17th annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty.
However, Been wished her voice could be heard by a larger audience.
"It's breaking my heart." Been said. "Every year there are less and less
people."
Linguistics senior Elizabeth Dean, a member of the International Socialist
Organization, said the death penalty is a cruel and undeserved punishment for
people who don't get proper representation.
"The rich committing crimes can buy their way out of it, and the poor,
innocent, are subject to far worse penalties." Dean said. "Especially, black
and brown people are targeted by the police."
After an open-mic speech at the Capitol, the crowd walked up to the governor's
mansion while shouting chants like, "Texas death row, we say hell no," and "Law
of Parties, shut 'em down."
As the 2nd-most populous state, Texas has accounted for more than 1/3 of the
nation's total executions since 1976, but the number is declining, according to
the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
"There are increasingly signs that conservatives, as well as liberals, are
concerned about problems with the administration of the death penalty," said
Raoul Schonemann, clinical professor and co-director of the Capital Punishment
Clinic. "The repeal by the Nebraska legislature in 2015 may signal abolition by
other 'red states' in the future. So while I don't think Texas will abolish the
death penalty soon, I also don't think it's inconceivable that it will happen
eventually."
(source: The (Univ. Texas) Daily Texan)
ARKANSAS:
Jury picking starts in trial of Bella Vistan accused of killing son
Jury selection will begin Tuesday for a Bella Vista man accused of killing his
son last year.
Mauricio Alejandro Torres, 46, and his wife, Cathy Lynn Torres, 45, are charged
with capital murder and 1st-degree battery. They will be tried separately.
Prosecutors opted to try Mauricio Torres 1st. Cathy Torres' trial is scheduled
to begin May 5.
Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against both. Mauricio and Cathy Torres
are being held in the Benton County Jail without bail.
The couple are accused of killing Maurice Isaiah Torres, 6.
Nathan Smith, Benton County prosecuting attorney, declined to comment on the
case. Deputy prosecutors Stuart Cearley and Carly Marshall will assist Smith.
Jeff Rosenzweig, Bill James and George Morledge will represent Mauricio Torres.
Rosenzweig declined to comment on the trial. He said the defense will reserve
its comments for the courtroom.
A witness list filed by prosecutors includes more than 90 witnesses who may be
called. A witness list from the defense team was not included in Torres' case
file. The trial is expected to last 3 to 4 weeks.
75 prospective jurors are scheduled to report at 9 a.m. Tuesday for jury
selection.
The 1st stage of jury selection will take place in Circuit Judge Robin Green's
courtroom. Circuit Judge Brad Karren will preside over the case and the trial
will be in his courtroom.
The boy was pronounced dead at an area hospital on March 29, 2015. A medical
examiner determined he suffered chronic child abuse and his death was from
internal injuries caused by rape, according to court documents.
The autopsy also found there were multiple healing and healed wounds and blunt
force trauma to the child's head and other parts of his body, according to the
probable cause affidavit.
The Torreses could be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole or the
death penalty if convicted of capital murder. They face from 5 to 20 years if
convicted of 1st-degree battery.
The Torreses also were arrested in connection with rape, a Class Y felony, but
Benton County prosecutors did not file rape charges. Smith previously said the
suspected rape occurred in Missouri, not in Benton County.
Zachary Holly's murder case was the last death penalty case tried in Benton
County.
Holly, 30, of Bentonville was sentenced in May 2015 to die by lethal injection
for killing 6-year-old Jersey Bridgeman in 2012. A jury found Holly guilty of
capital murder, rape, kidnapping and residential burglary. Holly is being held
on death row at Varner Supermax Unit.
(source: arkansasonline.com)
NEBRASKA:
Juror calls Anthony Garcia trial 'its own little world,' death of 11-year-old
cemented in mind----'It was so much blood. It soaked through the floor
underneath her. I can't imagine Dr. Hunter walking into that house and seeing
her and his son. I just can't imagine'
Jurors found Anthony Garcia guilty on 4 counts of 1st-degree murder Wednesday.
Prosecutors charged Garcia with the 2008 murders of 11-year-old Thomas Hunter
and the family's housekeeper Shirlee Sherman, and the 2013 murders of Dr. Roger
Brumback and his wife Mary.
They were revenge killings, prosecutors claimed, after Dr. William Hunter --
Thomas' father -- and Brumback fired Garcia from the Creighton pathology
department in 2001.
One of the 12 jury members was Drew Lyons of Omaha. Lyons says it was a trial
by fire in "its own little world." It would also be Lyons' 1st time serving on
a jury.
'DO YOU RECOGNIZE ME?'
During the voir dire phase of jury selection, Lyons says prosecutors and
defense attorneys were passionate about finding people who didn't know much
about the well-known case.
According to Lyons, during the questioning of potential jurors, the defense
attorneys were surprised that anyone couldn't be familiar with the case. Lyons
says he has his reasons for not knowing much detail.
"A case hits the news, you see it, and you hear it," said Lyons. "You say it's
terrible, but unless you're either a hound for those things, or have a personal
connection, it doesn't register in long-term memory and I speak for myself."
Lyons says one of the questions asked by the defense attorneys during voir dire
was from Bob Motta Jr. Lyons says he asked, "Do you recognize me?" Lyons
replied "No? Should I?"
Lyons says Motta Jr. had been reported on by several news outlets prior to the
start of the trial, but he claims "it wasn't important in my world."
'GOING HOME EXHAUSTED.'
Lyons says each day of the trial came with exhaustion.
"At the end of the day, you're glad that day is over," said Lyons. "It was far
from a slam dunk."
Lyons says when it came for deliberations, it took hours upon hours as they
comb through hundreds of pieces of evidence and hundreds of documents including
"all types of reports on the phone extraction and DNA evidence."
"We spent a lot of time deciding which witnesses were credible, and which were
not," said Lyons. "We spent a lot of time working on timelines because it was
mostly circumstantial evidence and very little hard evidence."
Lyons says one thing they had to do was to make sure it was "absolutely certain
that Garcia could have been in Omaha" at the time of the slayings. He adds it
was easier on the Brumback's case because Garcia used credit cards. The
Sherman-Hunter case didn't include any paper trail.
Still, Lyons adds, "Based on eyewitness testimony and eyewitness circumstance,
we were confident."
'SO MUCH BLOOD. IT SOAKED THROUGH THE FLOOR.'
Lyons says one of the moments he'll never forget, during the course of serving
as a juror, is seeing the photo of 11-year-old Thomas Hunter.
Hunter was photographed deceased with a knife in his neck.
"They were all horrific and horrible crimes," said Lyons. "(We were told to)
think about what went through Tommy's mind in the last minute or two of his
life."
Lyons has a 9-year-old grandson and when he saw the photo displayed by
prosecutors in court, he instantly began thinking about his grandson.
"It didn't influence my decision, but it sort of cemented that in my mind,"
said Lyons.
Lyons talked about the photograph of Shirlee Sherman, who was also photographed
deceased with a knife in her neck.
"It was so much blood," said Lyons. "It soaked through the floor underneath
her. I can't imagine Dr. Hunter walking into that house and seeing her and his
son. I just can't imagine."
'I FOUND IT ALL VERY ATTRACTIVE.'
Lyons says some of the most fascinating testimony came from Omaha police
Detective Nick Herfordt as he describe his process in cellphone extraction.
"I found it all very attractive," said Lyons. "They tried to discredit some of
his process, but he did just fine."
Lyons says the exotic dancer, Cecilia Hoffman, gave key testimony on the
circumstantial side saying she "was quite credible and his confession to her,
we felt was real and valid.'
"We found her to be very credible," said Lyons. "She was shook up. Her life was
pretty much ruined by this, but she stuck to her guns even when Mr. Motta was
inappropriate and made her cry."
Lyons also credited testimony from neighbors in the Sherman-Hunter case saying
they "all had such similar stories and such similar timeliness."
'HE DID HIS JOB'
Lyons says Garcia's defense attorneys ultimately did their jobs. He references
Motta during his reflection.
"His job as a defense attorney is to try and create reasonable doubt and that's
what he was doing," said Lyons. "He did his job."
Lyons continues saying, at times, Motta Jr. was a bit much.
"I will say that I was rather surprised at the level of disrespect for the
court," said Lyons. "(He has to) distract you from the facts."
Lyons also remembers other distractions in the courtroom including Garcia
sleeping and distracting himself from the trial. Lyons says he had to see it
and then unsee it.
"We could not consider that in any way, nor could we consider Mr. Garcia's
reactions," said Lyons. "You can't take any of that into account when deciding
the case."
'HIS SHIP WAS SUNK.'
Lyons says he looked at Garcia during the trial. Some jurors chose not to.
Lyons says he didn't allow himself to use Garcia's actions in the court when
deciding the verdict.
"I did look at him, and he slept a lot," said Lyons. "I found that to be
unusual."
Lyons says Garcia knew his ship was sunk.
"He's de-compensating over time," said Lyons. "I'm not sure he was done and I
would classify him as a sociopath."
Lyons says he thinks Garcia would've killed again if he was let go.
"Obviously, this man can hold a grudge for a long time. We're talking years. I
think he's a person that would go after anyone who had felt had wronged him,"
said Lyons. "Each time he wouldn't get a job or a license, it would reopen old
wounds."
'WE WERE VERY METHODICAL.'
It was time for the jury to deliberate and reach a verdict.
"During the trial, it was important to keep an open mind the entire time until
we received the case," said Lyons. "As we went through the deliberation
process, it became clear, with no doubt in my mind, that he was guilty."
Lyons says the jurors went through each piece of evidence and each piece of
paper before voting on each charge.
"As you go along and say 'yes, yes, yes, yes' and you finally get to the point
where we pass around a secret ballot to vote on the actual guilt, it became
clear that there was no doubt," said Lyons.
Lyons says the jurors acted very orderly.
"We were very methodical. The very first thing we did was laid out each witness
one-by-one, and we decided which ones were credible and which ones were not. We
developed these very detailed timelines and we considered each piece of
evidence," said Lyons. "We look at the gun. We looked at the forensic
extraction. We looked at it all."
'HE ENDED 4 LIVES ABRUPTLY.'
Lyons says he thinks the death penalty is appropriate in this case. He said it
was a "no brainer" deciding if this case was appropriate for capital
punishment.
"I personally am voting to repeal Nebraska's current law to reinstate the death
penalty," said Lyons. "I think it's an appropriate form of punishment and I
think he deserves it. He ended 4 lives abruptly."
Lyons added, "The particularly heinous aspect of it was, again, not really hard
to determine, gruesome and it wasn't just murder."
Lyons says having this case be his 1st time serving on a jury was quite a load
to bear, but he's confident in the decision made by the jurors and himself: "I
am 100 % certain in my own mind, conscience, and soul. He's guilty and we did
the right thing."
(source: KETV news)
*******************
Death penalty in Nebraska: 3 death row inmates claim innocence, muddying the
waters ---- Voters will consider a historic ballot measure on Nov. 8 to restore
Nebraska's death penalty after the Legislature repealed it in 2015. The
World-Herald is exploring several aspects of capital punishment; this is the
final installment. Today: Innocence claims by death row inmates
* * * * *
The 2 sides in Nebraska's highly charged death penalty debate say they agree on
at least 1 point: No one wants to see an innocent person executed.
In a recent opinion column, Gov. Pete Ricketts called the question of possible
death row innocence an "important conversation to have." But then he sought to
address what he described as "misinformation" spread by out-of-state advocates
regarding a possible wrongful execution.
"Nobody is claiming that any of Nebraska's 10 death row inmates are innocent,"
the governor said.
He's not the only one to make such a pronouncement. While debating the
Legislature's 2015 death penalty repeal, Sen. Beau McCoy of Omaha said much the
same.
But, in fact, 1 death row inmate, Arthur Lee Gales, has a formal innocence
claim pending before Nebraska courts. A 2nd inmate, Marco Torres Jr., says his
current appeal supports his innocence claims. And a 3rd, John Lotter, continues
to maintain his innocence, even though his claims have been repeatedly rejected
by the courts.
County attorneys and lawyers with the Attorney General's Office dispute the
claims and are defending the convictions.
In the context of the Nov. 8 referendum that will decide the fate of Nebraska's
death penalty, the issue of guilt and innocence represents a major fault line.
Death penalty supporters say redundant safeguards in the system protect the
innocent, but opponents say repealing capital punishment removes the
irreversible consequences of a capital mistake.
As one death penalty critic put it, "You can???t undo dead."
Public awareness of the fallibility of the criminal justice system may be at an
all-time high with the popular "Making a Murderer" television series. And proof
that wrongful convictions can happen in Nebraska was recently underscored by a
$28 million federal court judgment for 6 people imprisoned for a 1985 Beatrice
slaying they did not commit.
Nationally, 156 of nearly 7,900 death row inmates have been exonerated since
1973, according to a database maintained by the Death Penalty Information
Center. A total of 1,439 executions have been carried out since 1977.
A 2014 analysis published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences estimated the rate of false conviction could be 4.1 percent, which is
higher than the exoneration rate. That would equate to 119 of the 2,900 inmates
currently on death rows across the country who could potentially be innocent.
Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the pro-death penalty Criminal Justice
Legal Foundation in Sacramento, California, argued there's a difference between
an inmate who is "factually innocent" and one who wins a reversal because of a
procedural error. He said true innocence on death row is rare.
"A claim of innocence has to be looked at," he said. "If there are any with
substance to them, they have to be looked at in detail. But those with
substance are not very common."
Robert Dunham, director of the Death Penalty Information Center, defended the
list maintained by his organization. To be included, a former inmate must have
been acquitted on retrial, fully pardoned or had his conviction vacated by a
judge or dismissed by a prosecutor.
"Everybody who was on that list was wrongly convicted, wrongly sentenced to
death and was legally exonerated," he said.
When asked last week about the innocence claims on Nebraska's death row, the
governor said he is confident the courts provide thorough reviews and adequate
opportunity for criminal defendants to make their cases.
"The Nebraska Supreme Court has repeatedly found Nebraska's death row inmates
to be guilty," he said.
Among those who watched the public television broadcasts of the Legislature's
death penalty debate were the men on death row, which is at the Tecumseh State
Prison. When Marco Torres heard lawmakers discount the possibility of innocence
on death row, he said in an interview with The World-Herald, he felt compelled
to make it clear that's not the case.
"I'm hoping that if I can show there is an innocent man on death row, hopefully
that would ... show the system is flawed," said Torres, who was the last person
sentenced to death in Nebraska.
A Hall County jury convicted Torres of the March 2007 shootings of Ed Hall and
Tim Donohue of Grand Island.
In addition to being shot in the head 3 times at close range, Hall, 60, had
been bound with an extension cord and gagged with a cloth bathrobe belt.
Donohue, 48, who had been staying at Hall's residence, was shot 3 times in the
head and chest.
Among the evidence presented against Torres was bank surveillance video that
showed him using Hall's ATM card and the discovery of Hall's burned-out Ford
station wagon in Texas, where Torres had driven it.
Also, Torres could not be excluded as a contributor of the DNA recovered from
the extension cord, the robe sash and cigarette butts found in Donohue's
upstairs room.
Prosecutors told jurors that Torres needed money and transportation to get to
Texas, where he wanted to carry out a drug deal.
Torres says he was framed.
In court documents, he said his trial lawyers failed miserably to bring out
evidence that he believes would have raised reasonable doubt in the minds of
jurors.
Hall's house was used by Donohue and others to manufacture methamphetamine,
Torres said. Another man involved in the drug operation was the killer, Torres
said.
Torres explained the ATM card by saying Hall had given it to him. And he said
he was staying in a Grand Island motel when someone brought him Hall's car to
make the trip to Texas. He panicked upon learning that authorities were looking
for it in a murder investigation and set it on fire.
Records indicate that Torres had been to Hall's house a few days before the
slayings, which Torres said could explain how his DNA turned up on the robe
belt and extension cord. He alleged 2 possible ways his DNA could have been
transferred to the items: the investigators did not change out exam gloves when
processing the crime scene, nor did they ensure that the belt and cord did not
contact other surfaces in the room where Hall was found.
Finally, Torres said authorities released the home back to Hall's extended
relatives after only 2 weeks, which he said prevented his lawyers from
conducting an independent investigation of the crime scene. The house was later
burned down for a firefighter training exercise.
Gail VerMaas, one of the deputy Hall County attorneys who prosecuted the case,
said Torres has raised his claims both at trial and in appeals.
"I don't believe his arguments are viable," she said. "I think we disproved
each one of his points of contention. (His guilt) was proved in the trial, and
12 people found him guilty."
Arthur Lee Gales is on death row for the 2000 murders of a 13-year-old Omaha
girl and her 7-year-old brother. Among the evidence used to convict Gales was
his DNA recovered in the apartment where the children were found, including on
the girl, who had also been raped.
The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed his conviction on direct appeal.
In seeking to have his conviction overturned, much of Gales' claim involves
allegations that his trial lawyers were so ineffective that his constitutional
rights were violated. Gales argues in court documents that they didn???t do
enough to challenge the DNA evidence that incriminated him.
Gales said the DNA got in the apartment because he had engaged in consensual
sex with the mother of the children and left behind a used condom. He alleges
that his DNA was planted on the girl.
Gales also pointed to the fact that former Douglas County crime lab director
David Kofoed had a role in processing the crime scene in his case. Kofoed was
later criminally convicted of evidence tampering in a different case.
Gales raises many additional claims to support his innocence, including an
alibi defense, challenges of incriminating statements from the mother of the
children that Gales said should not have been heard by the jury, and theories
about others who could have targeted the children.
John Lotter, the 2nd-longest-serving inmate on Nebraska's death row, has always
maintained he was innocent of the 1993 slayings of 3 people at a Humboldt
farmhouse. The killings inspired the 1999 film "Boys Don't Cry."
His co-defendant testified that Lotter pulled the trigger on all 3 victims. But
in 2007, the co-defendant recanted.
Nonetheless, state and federal judges who have reviewed the case concluded that
any doubts about the co-defendant's testimony did not overcome other evidence
that pointed to Lotter's guilt. That evidence included testimony that he stole
the handgun and knife used in the slayings and told his girlfriend to lie to
authorities about when he got back home the night of the murders.
James Smith, one of the top lawyers with the Nebraska Attorney General's
Office, said the state's judicial system provides 5 avenues of appeal and
post-conviction review for death penalty cases. And nearly all death row
inmates also seek a federal court review of their cases.
In his opinion, none of the 10 on death row have a legitimate claim of
innocence.
"The idea of an innocent person in Nebraska actually being executed, I don't
see how that would be possible," Smith said.
Many people find it hard to accept that sometimes the criminal justice system
gets it wrong, said Nina Morrison, senior staff attorney with the Innocence
Project in New York, a legal clinic that helps inmates obtain post-conviction
DNA testing. She was part of the team that just last week helped overturn the
sentence of a Florida man convicted of killing 2 women.
An Innocence Project analysis of 250 exoneration cases found that 10 % of the
time, judges reviewing the cases on appeal had previously declared the evidence
of guilt "overwhelming," Morrison said.
"The system is only as perfect as the human beings who run it, and nobody is
perfect," she said.
(source: omaha.com)
*******************
The men on Nebraska's death row
10 inmates are currently on death row in Nebraska, even though the Legislature
eliminated the death penalty last session.
The last execution in Nebraska was on Dec. 2, 1997, when the state executed
Robert E. Williams, who committed a rape and double murder in Lincoln in 1978.
The state also executed Harold "Wili" Otey and John Joubert in the mid-1990s,
but has not executed anyone since.
Nebraskans will vote on Election Day whether to uphold the Legislature's 2015
decision to replace the death penalty with life without parole or whether to
reinstate capital punishment.
Under Nebraska law, the only crime that carries the death penalty is 1st-degree
murder, and the death penalty can only be used when the crime was committed
with "aggravating circumstances."
The state has 9 different criteria that qualify as "aggravating circumstances."
Those circumstances usually apply when multiple murders are committed at once,
or if a murder was exceptionally brutal. All 10 of the current prisoners either
have multiple 1st-degree murder convictions, or killed a child.
Moore
The longest serving prisoner on death row is Carey Dean Moore, who murdered 2
cab drivers in Omaha in 1979. Moore has appealed his sentence multiple times
since being sentenced in 1980, but has claimed responsibility for the killings.
Lotter
The next longest serving inmate is John L. Lotter, who committed a triple
murder near Falls City in 1993. Among the victims was a transgender man born
Teena Brandon, who went by the name Brandon Teena at the time of his death. The
murders were the subject of the 1999 film "Boys Don't Cry."
Lotter has appealed all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the court
denied hearing his case in 2012.
Mata
Raymond Mata was sentenced to death in 2000 for the 1999 murder and
dismemberment of a 3-year-old child in Scottsbluff.
Mata's death sentence was originally vacated in 2003 due to a Supreme Court
ruling in Ring v. Arizona that said only juries, not judges, could sentence
someone to death. Mata was re-sentenced to death in 2005.
Gales
Arthur Gales severely beat and raped a woman, raped and murdered the woman's
13-year-old daughter and murdered the woman's 7-year-old child in Omaha in
2000. Gales also had to be re-sentenced in 2003 after the Ring v. Arizona
ruling.
Galindo, Vela and Sandoval
3 men were convicted and sentenced to death for 5 murders that took place in
Norfolk, during a botched bank robbery on Sept. 26, 2002.
Jorge Galindo, Eric Vela and Jose Sandoval walked into a U.S. Bank and killed 5
people within 1 minute, according to police. They carjacked a nearby car and
police tracked them using the car's navigation system. The 3 men were found 3
later in O'Neill. A 4th accomplice served as a getaway driver and is serving 5
life sentences.
Hessler
Jeffrey Hessler was convicted of raping and murdering a 15-year-old girl in
Scottsbluff in 2003. Hessler filed a motion in 2012 saying he was mentally ill
and was not fit to stand trial when he was convicted and that he was given
ineffective counsel. The motion was denied, and Hessler remains on death row.
Ellis
Roy L. Ellis was convicted and sentenced to death for the abduction and murder
of 12-year-old Amber Harris of Omaha, a missing person case that generated
national attention. Harris disappeared in 2005 without a trace, but her
belongings and remains were found 6 months later. When Ellis was sentenced in
2008, after the electric chair was declared unconstitutional but before lethal
injection was made the legal method of execution.
Torres
The most recent death sentence in Nebraska was given to Texas native Marco
Torres, Jr. for a double murder in Grand Island in 2007. He was sentenced in
2010.
Rescinded
The number of inmates on death row has fluctuated since the state's last
execution in 1997. Several inmates have died in prison after being sentenced to
death, such as David Dunster in 2011 and Michael Ryan in 2015. Several people
sentenced to death in Nebraska have since been given lesser sentences or been
freed altogether, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Jeremy Sheets was sentenced to death in 1997, but was freed in 2001 after the
Nebraska Supreme Court overturned his conviction due to lack of evidence.
2 prisoners, Jerry Simpson and Clarence Victor, were taken off death row in
1999 due to intellectual disabilities. Later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in
2002 that it is unconstitutional to execute people with mental disabilities.
Randy Reeves was taken off death row in 2000 due to "improper procedure of the
court" at his trial. He is now serving 2 life sentences for a double murder in
Lincoln in 1980.
Peter Hochstein and Michael Anderson were taken off death row in 2001 and now
serve life sentences for a contract killing of an Omaha man in 1975.
(source: North Platte Bulletin)
CALIFORNIA:
Forgive evil: No on the death penalty
As a budding newspaper reporter back in 1981, I was sent to Michigan City,
Ind., to cover an execution. The state was about to kill Steven Judy, who had
driven alongside a mother traveling on the highway, and falsely indicated that
something was wrong with her car. She had 3 small children in the back. She
pulled over. Pretending to try to fix her car, he disabled it. When it wouldn't
start, she agreed to a ride to her destination, but she didn't get there. He
pulled over into a remote area, drowned her children in a creek, then raped and
killed her.
Indiana used the electric chair back then, before switching to lethal
injection. When I and my fellow reporters arrived, we saw a thick electric
cable strewn across the parking lot. When we asked why, the warden said that
when the switch was thrown, the lights in the prison might blink because of the
electrical surge, and prisoners would know that the execution had just
happened. So they laid an extra cable to bypass the system and keep things calm
inside.
Waiting for midnight, the macabre hour of death, protesters against the death
penalty rallied for the TV cameras in the parking lot against the groups
rallying for it. Those of us in the press interviewed people on both sides,
trying to figure out what angle, what story, to tell. I had already written
about what I thought to be a bizarre story: that the electric chair itself was
constructed from wooden boards taken from the old hangman's gallows.
Seats for witnesses to watch Steven Judy die were few. Our society had moved
beyond the era of mass public executions at the hangman's gallows. The
families' next of kin got seats first, but there were a certain number of seats
reserved for the press. Because of the large number of reporters, prison
officials held a lottery to determine who would be allowed to take one of the
precious few witness seats. We took our numbers, continued reporting and
waited.
I won.
I couldn't believe it. I didn't want to believe it. Stunned, I looked at the
correctional officer handing me the pass to the death chamber and stuttered. I
asked, "Could I give this pass to someone else from my newspaper?" He shook his
head. If I didn't take it, he said, my number would go back into the kitty and
be drawn again in the larger pool. I didn't know what to do - I felt torn;
should I do my reportorial duty and go and watch?
During my interviews in the parking lot I had talked to a woman on the
pro-death penalty side. She had been the victim of a mass shooting. Her sons
had been involved in drugs, and one day some of their enemies had come to their
home, made everyone lay face down and then shot each in the back of the head.
The woman I interviewed had been wearing a wig, and when the bullet skimmed her
head, it knocked off the wig. The killer thought it was her skull, and left her
for dead. Amid her dead sons, she played dead. She lived to testify against the
gunmen. She wanted the death penalty for Steven Judy, too.
In Michigan City, I looked at the officer handing me the pass to watch Judy's
electrocution. I couldn't accept it. I did not want to watch an execution. My
pass went back into the pool and was taken by another reporter, from another
newspaper.
My fellow reporters were furious. Later my editor told me I would be better off
to quit journalism, that I wasn't cut out for it. She might have been right,
but I don't think so. I didn't want an execution haunting me for the rest of my
life. I wanted to tell the truth, to report what I saw, but I didn't have to be
part of the actual act.
Firing squads do a queer but smart thing: They give one or a couple of guys
blanks to shoot so no one ever knows if they were the ones who shot the fatal
bullets.
We're all on that firing squad, right now, in California.
Next week our state will either pass or turn down Proposition 62, which
abolishes the death penalty.
We have to be better than our previous generations.
I want to be the guy with the blanks, which is why I'm voting yes, to stop the
death penalty.
(source: Opinion; Chris Lavin is a freelance writer in the East Bay----San
Francisco Chronicle)
_______________________________________________
A service courtesy of Washburn University School of Law www.washburnlaw.edu
DeathPenalty mailing list
DeathPenalty@lists.washlaw.edu
http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty
Unsubscribe: http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/options/deathpenalty
