Use the firing squad. And televise it.

With tongue planted firmly in cheek, a North Carolina columnist weighs in on the lethal injection controversy:

Death need not be kind

What a bunch of snivelers. Whining, crying, bleeding hearts, worrying about the pain suffered by murderers meeting their maker at the hands of the state?

Why should we care?

The U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing the use of lethal injection, previously viewed as the most humane way to kill our own citizens.

Turns out it may not be so humane.

Not for the snivelers.

Lawyers for death row inmates now say the combo of drugs used to put inmates to sleep, then deliver the death blow, may be more painful than previously recognized.

The drugs may burn in the veins. A woman who had experience with one of the drugs during a failed sedation told a reporter it burned "like the fires of hell."

The drugs may paralyze the body but fail to ease the pain.

We've seen it here in North Carolina. Central Prison was the site of three "botched executions" on a list compiled by Human Rights Watch. The group cites information compiled in a lawsuit challenging our lethal injections.

The cases:

• Willie Fisher, who beat and fatally stabbed his fiancee, executed March 9, 2001. After appearing to lose consciousness, Fisher began convulsing, and his eyes opened.

• Killer Eddie Ernest Hartman, executed Oct. 3, 2003. As the drugs were being administered, Hartman's throat began alternately thrusting outward and collapsing inward. His neck pulsed, bulged and shook. Hartman's eyes were open, and his body convulsed and contorted throughout the execution until he died.

• John Daniels, executed Nov. 14, 2003, for strangling his aunt. He lay still as the warden announced that the execution would proceed. Then he started to convulse. He sat up, and witnesses could hear him gagging. After lying down again briefly, he sat up, gagged and choked. His arms appeared to be struggling underneath the sheet covering him.

I have a solution.

Instead of looking at the cocktail of drugs that helps us best kill our own people, let's move to what we know works -- and quickly, too.

The firing squad.

Utah has it. Why not North Carolina?

After all, it's the most humane.

So says Fordham University law professor Deborah Denno, who has studied execution methods. Her research shows that, black hood and anticipation aside, waiting for five rifles to take aim at a piece of white cloth pinned to the heart is more humane than the sleepy needle.

That's because it's usually over in a flash. And while we're making changes, let's bring the death penalty out of that quiet room in Central Prison.

If we're going to kill our own people, let's do it in public, in the light of day, like other civilized countries. Iran doesn't perform its executions at 2 a.m. Not its legal ones, anyway.

Televise it. If we're going to execute our own people, let's own the deed.

Roll the tape and fire away.

If by chance one of the 4 shooters with real bullets should miss?

The prisoner will eventually bleed out.

I know you won't mind watching.

(source: Ruth Sheehan, News & Observer)

Heh.

Poll: Do you believe the Death Penalty should be abolished?

Yes
95%

No
4%

Need to do more research
0%
Votes: 293

Okay, okay....not only was that nonscientific, it also was from Daily Kos. Go here to heck out the blog entry.

'Hippocratic Paradox'

Earlier this week, Human Rights Watch issued a marvelous report on the problems with lethal injection executions. You can read the report here; we recommend it.

However, there is an interesting conundrum that comes out of the report. Human Rights Watch recommended abolishing the death penalty. However, should the death penalty not be abolished, the organization recommended convening a panel of experts (including medical doctors) to examine lethal injection protocols. Which, of course, would be a violation of medical ethics, because doctors inherently can't be in the business of recommending ways to kindly and nicely execute people. Here's a letter from one of the leading experts in the field that addresses this paradox. Because of the importance (and timeliness) of this issue, we present the letter in its entirety:

April 24, 2006
Executive Director
Human Rights Watch

Dear Sir or Madam:
I am writing in response to the report on lethal injection ("So long as they die: Lethal injections in the United States") recently released by Human Rights Watch.

This report is a thorough account of the vast array of problems plaguing lethal injection executions in the United States. I applaud Human Rights Watch for the enormous effort researching this report.

I must, however, take issue with the report's recommendations. While I enthusiastically support the recommendation to abolish the death penalty, I am quite concerned with the other recommendations in the statements below:

"Review lethal injection protocols by soliciting input from medical and scientific experts, and by holding public hearings and seeking public comment"

"If the death penalty is not abolished, suspend all lethal injection executions until each state convenes a blue ribbon panel of medical, scientific, legal, judicial, and correctional experts authorized to review and recommend changes to lethal injection execution protocols as necessary to ensure the protocol adopted causes the inmate the least possible pain and suffering."

problem with these recommendations. The American Medical Association's opinion on capital punishment (opinion E-2.06) clearly states that:

"Physician participation in an execution includes, but is not limited to, the following actions: prescribing or administering tranquilizers and other psychotropic agents and medications that are part of the execution procedure; monitoring vital signs on site or remotely (including monitoring electrocardiograms); attending or observing an execution as a physician; and rendering of technical advice regarding execution."

While I do not claim to represent the AMA, I am quite confident that holding public hearings in which physicians testify about how to perform lethal injection properly, or creating a blue ribbon panel of physician experts to "recommend changes" in lethal injection procedures, would clearly constitute "rendering technical advice" and would be a violation of the AMA ethics guidelines.

To illustrate this point, on March 26, 2006, in a Richmond, Virginia newspaper story about lethal injection, I was quoted as saying, "Everybody agrees on every side of the execution issue that 5 grams of the sodium thiopental properly administered is fatal." The following day, I received a phone call from gentleman at the AMA in which he admonished me for making this statement, since rendering technical advice regarding executions violated AMA ethical guidelines.

It is my contention that the writers of the Human Right Watch report were trapped by what has been called the "Hippocratic Paradox," meaning that lethal injection is structured so that physicians must violate their fundamental ethical principles in order to "help" make the execution "humane." Thus, it becomes ethically impossible for physicians to become involved in lethal injection in any capacity, including endeavoring to make the protocols "better."

It is possible that the only way out of this dilemma is to abolish the death penalty, which is, after all, the HRW's strongest recommendation.

Sincerely,
Jonathan I. Groner MD
Associate Professor of Surgery,
The OSU College of Medicine and Public Health
Trauma Medical Director
Children's Hospital

A new take on the lethal injection debate

Interesting piece in the New Standard today:

Lethal Injection Debate Misses Bigger Point, Abolitionists Say
by Jessica Azulay

While heated deliberations rage over an execution method considered the "most humane" practiced today, those opposed to the death penalty altogether hope their side gains traction.

Apr. 25 – Mounting evidence that America's favored method for state-sponsored execution of prisoners may cause its victims excruciating pain has infused fresh rigor into at lease one narrow aspect of the death-penalty debate.

Defense attorneys and medical ethicists are squaring off against state executioners in a fight for judicial and public opinion on whether lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

Meanwhile, many of the leading death-penalty abolition groups are staying above the fray, saying that rather than discussing how best to put people to death, the nation should be discussing whether to kill them at all.

To read the whole piece, and to see NCADP's and CUADP's quotes on the subject, go here.

(Hat tip, Scott at Ohio Death Penalty Information)

Klan leader almost hired as prison guard

Here's a scoop that you don't see every day. Mike Ward, a former colleague of mine and reporter at the Austin American-Statesman, broke the following in Sunday's editions:

A miscue that still troubles
Klan leader almost hired as prison guard
By Mike Ward
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, April 23, 2006
HUNTSVILLE — Five years later, they're still wondering how James Lee Roesch slipped in.

Roesch, then 20, was an aspiring Texas prison guard. He'd passed his background checks and was within weeks of graduation from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's spring training academy. He'd even volunteered to work on the tougher-than-nails East Texas prison that houses death row.

Then, he opened his mouth.

According to internal prison system documents obtained by the Austin American-Statesman, Roesch seemed to know too much about the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, a notorious prison gang, during a presentation to his trainee class by a gang-enforcement officer.

He even bragged that "he had friends who were members of ABT and who had been in prison."

Prison investigators decided to dig deeper into Roesch's background.

What they found was a story that never has been publicly told: Roesch was the national Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, whose white separatist views had earned him national headlines and a rap sheet with Ohio authorities, two years before the prison system hired him.

Somehow, that hadn't turned up in prison officials' previous background checks, which included a search of state criminal history files with the Department of Public Safety. If it had, officials insist, Roesch would never have been hired in March 2001.

Before the prison system hired him, Roesch had been interviewed dozens of times by reporters, chronicling his fast rise to become head the Klan's old-school, hard-line Knights of the White Kamellia faction. His photo in Klan regalia had appeared in national magazines.

Police in Ohio — where he lived before moving to Jasper in 1999, just after the racially motivated dragging death there of James Byrd — had arrested him as a teenager for menacing another teenager with a handgun and for plastering posters to a tree that demanded: "Deport Niggers."

In one magazine interview in April 2000, Roesch even acknowledged pasting stickers on Byrd's gravestone in Jasper: "A Ku Klux Klansman Was Here."

On his application to become a prison guard, Roesch acknowledged the Ohio arrests for misdemeanor crimes — menacing and mutilation of a public tree. But apparently no one delved further, officials now privately concede, since misdemeanors do not automatically keep someone from being hired as a prison guard in Texas.

"It is my belief that Trainee Roesch may be associated with or have ties to Aryan Brotherhood of Texas and that he needs to be monitored for ABT activity," gang-enforcement officer Irma Fernandez wrote in a memo after meeting Roesch at a training session a few weeks after he was hired. "Trainee Roesch was informed that correctional officers are not to associate with ex-convicts. Roesch then corrected himself and said that he has not associated with them."

Roesch was interviewed by internal affairs investigators on April 12 and gave a written statement detailing his rise to power in the Klan, beginning at age 15 when he and a friend "started a little group called NWO (New White Order)." Ohio state police quickly filled in other details.

Roesch was let go four days later, officials said.

Roesch, who lived in the Woodville area at the time he was hired, could not be reached for comment last week.

Though investigators were unsettled that Roesch was even hired, another fact left them even more unsettled.

Just after he started his training, Roesch submitted a handwritten request to work in Livingston, where the prison that houses death row is located. There, two of the three men convicted of killing Byrd awaited execution.

Did he want to work on death row? And to what end?

60,000 and counting!

During the next 24 hours or so, this blog will receive its 60,000th visitor!

For returning visitors: thanks for continuing to stop by and we'll try to keep it interesting!

For first-time visitors: welcome and make yourself at home! If you oppose the death penalty and are interested in joining the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, please visit www.ncadp.org

If you're undecided on this issue, that's okay, too! The issue is best served when folks like you learn more about it. Jump on in; the water's fine!

And thank you, all of you, for allowing this blog to perhaps have some small but discernable impact on the abolition movement!

And speaking of awards...

Earlier today we blogged on the Birmingham News, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for its series of editorials calling for an end to the death penalty in Alabama.

That blog reminded us that we forgot about another impressive award: Lise Olsen of the Houston Chronicle won the "Star Reporter of the Year" award, given by the Associated Press Managing Editors' Convention of Texas.

Olsen won for her two-part investigative series into the 1993 execution of Ruben Cantu. Cantu, the Houston Chronicle strongly suggested, was innocent of the crime for which he was executed. An investigation is ongoing, although the Bexar County district attorney seems to be dragging her feet a bit.

Congratulations, Lise and Houston Chronicle, for a job well done.

A prize worth fighting for

Alabama's Birmingham News was a finalist in this year's Pulitzer Prize competition for a series of editorials the newspaper published. The editorials pointed out flaws in Alabama's death penalty system (one of the worst in the nation) and called for repeal of death penalty statutes.

Editorial writer Robin DeMonia writes about the experience of almost -- but not quite -- winning a Pulitzer:

A prize worth fighting to win
Wednesday, April 19,
2006
Monday was an exhilarating day here at The News - exhilarating and nerve-wracking. After weeks of rumors, the editorial page learned our death penalty series last year was a finalist for the biggest honor in journalism, the Pulitzer Prize.

Another paper, The Oregonian in Portland, won the award for editorial writing. But we were among the three finalists, which is no small thing. As my boss put it, it was the next best thing to winning a Pulitzer.

Sadly, the series met with less success in Alabama's legislative process than it did with the Pulitzer process.

Monday, as this year's Pultizer cycle was coming to an end, the Alabama Legislature was drawing its session to a close.

Not a single death penalty reform survived the session. Nothing to make the state's death penalty system more sensible. Nothing to make it more reliable. Nothing to make it more fair.

To read the entire column, go here.

Way to go, Birmingham News. Although you did not win the Pulitzer, you shined public light on a very important issue -- and reminded us all that a newspaper can demonstrate courage, leadership and inspiration.

On dogs and dying

Columnist John Brummett from the Arkansas News Bureau has an interesting column today:

Overkill on death row

They were among my saddest days when we had our Labrador retrievers put to death, first Bubba, at 15, then Sissy, nearly 14.

But I remember wishing that, when my time came, I could go as they went.

In Bubba's case, a veterinarian with a special attachment to him came on a bright and mild spring April day to his backyard domain. She gave him a shot as he lay in the grass near the rock waterfall amid flowers. Before long he simply didn't breathe anymore. He had passed out of his misery and into our memory.

This was a far dearer soul than your garden-variety death row inmate. But there is a worthy argument emerging that says we should endeavor to treat death row inmates like dogs, which is to say as humanely, at least when we end their lives.

I recall when an Arkansas legislator argued for his bill to implement lethal injection in place of electrocution as the means for imposing the death penalty. He concluded by pleading, "Gentlemen, what I'm saying is that when you vote on this bill, try to act like human beings and not legislators."

Now, 2 decades later, judges across the country have begun looking favorably on death row appeals based on the charge that the way 35 states do lethal injection is, like the electric chair before it, needlessly cruel, even torturous. What once was considered a stalling tactic has come to be taken seriously.

The argument is that vets treat household pets much better, and that Oregon's assisted suicide law is based on the veterinary model, not the death chamber.

Our courts say the Constitution permits a death penalty. But our courts say the Constitution does not allow unusually cruel treatment. That is to say we seem to be under license to kill, but under mandate to do it painlessly.

In North Carolina, a judge said that a scheduled lethal injection could not proceed unless a doctor was present to make sure the three injections that actually compose the fatal process were handled properly. When the 3 shots aren't handled properly, it apparently is pure hell.

But the American Medical Association's code of ethics prohibits member participation in executions. Widespread imposition of such a physican-attended requirement would seem either to effectively end lethal injections or require the AMA to change its code.

This developing issue could force states to give death row inmates a single lethal dose of a long-lasting barbiturate, which is the standard veterinary practice.

But, to be frank, doctors can't really be sure that the single shot appearing so painless and peaceful in pets would be as painless and peaceful in the human brain. What we don't know about the central nervous system could fill libraries.

The three-step process used in prisons actually seems best in terms of being humane, I'm told, but only if done expertly. And postmortem evidence has shown that nonphysician technicians administering lethal injections in prison death chambers often make errors, and that if the first shot, a barbiturate, is not properly given, the paralyzing effect of the 2nd shot and the heart-stopping effect of the 3rd can be torture.

At its core, the issue seems to be what we might call overkill, literally.

Actually, that's not the core issue at all. The core issue is whether it's right for the state to take human life, period.

Our constant struggle with the fairness, equity and humanity of the death penalty suggests that we may not have the stomach for it that we think we do. It may be that we're re-evolving to the notion that killing as punishment without exercising unusual cruelty is a hopeless contradiction in terms.

I'll take my chances on what Bubba got, but, like Oregonians, only by my choice and only when the time comes.

Rude Pundit on Moussaoui

There's this wonderful post over at Rude Pundit on the ongoing Moussaoui trial. I can't post all of it here, because, even though Rude Pundit might be one of my more favorite blogs in the world, Abolish the Death Penalty is the official blog of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and there is some language over there that we can't use here.

But I will give you a taste. Here's one paragraph:

In essence, the prosecution's approach has been to take out a crowbar and beat the jurors bloody and unconscious until they can do nothing but drool and piss their acquiescence to the revenge that the government wants to enact on Moussaoui. The whole ridiculous, overemotional exercise of the prosecution has even been criticized by William F. Buckley. In his most recent column in his ongoing series "Clenched Patrician Anuses Can't Be Pried Open Even With Silver Spoons," Buckley barely moves his thin lips to say, "Thought renders unintelligible what the prosecution is up to in describing the luridities of 9/11 on Flight 93. The only explanation for what they are doing is that they are covert agents for the movie United 93, which is simultaneously going out from Hollywood."

To read the whole post (and remember: we warned you!) go here.

Who would Jesus kill?

Talk about a timely posting: Over at Kansas Death Penalty Focus, there's a posting about what that "eye for an eye" phrase in the Bible means. You can read it here.

The absurdity of it all

Thanks to Talk Left (and to my friend Hedda for pointing this out to me):

John Farmer, former attorney general of New Jersey and a death penalty supporter, had this to say about the U.S. government's ridiculous decisiont to seek a death sentence for Moussaoui:

Through a perverse confluence, Mr. Moussaoui's interest in becoming something in death that he never was in life -- important -- has combined with the government's interest in executing someone for the 9/11 attacks. The likely result is an odd form of assisted suicide, in which Mr. Moussaoui will claim martyrdom as he is executed, and the United States will claim that the rule of law has been vindicated by bringing a terrorist to justice for 9/11.

To read the whole thing, go here.

Regarding mental illness

Mental illness is probably one of the diseases we understand the very least. Lots of people on death row are mentally ill -- either they got their way because of death row conditions or, more commonly, it was a form of mental illness that caused them to commit their crimes to begin with.

That's why the following letter to the editor, published in the Dallas Morning News today, caught my eye:

'You can't see mental illness'----I can't imagine world without my daughter

Re: "Unlike tumor, you can't see mental illness, but it's there," by SteveBlow, Wednesday Metro.

My heartfelt thanks to Mr. Blow for his comments on our culture's double standard about mental illness. As the parent of a mentally ill daughter, I have experienced the lack of understanding and support.

If you met her, you would have no idea of the pain, despair, search for services and long list of medications. I ache for the times she reads of the mistreatment of mentally ill people blamed for acts out of their control.

At the worst times, I have wished she had a visible illness so compassion, understanding and treatment would be available. Then I think about who she is, how much she has accomplished, how courageous she is when she has to explain her limitations to a stranger or ask for medical help.

I think of how sensitive she is to the needs of others and how much fun she can be. I think of the dreams she has realistically let go and the wonderful life she has built. I cannot imagine the world without her, justa s she is.

Elizabeth Francis, Richardson

Interesting new web site

Just got wind this morning of a fascinating and invigorating new web site. It's called "I Was In Prison" and it features articles by Dale and Susan Recinella of Florida. I've heard of these folks before, although I have never met them. They minister to people on death row as well as to the families of people being executed.

The website has an easy-to-remember URL.

It features a number of different articles and personal essays, such as one in which Dale had to witness the execution of a friend:

7:20 pm. We’ve been sitting in the witness room seats for one and a half hours – the longest wait in the history of Florida executions. In absolute silence, without motion or distraction. Staring at our own reflections in the window. Reflecting on the man who will be lying behind the closed curtain, stretched out on a gurney on the other side of the glass window.

Almost six years ago, I met that very angry man on death row. I wrote of our first meeting in “A Glimpse of Harvest” (March 9, 2000). During the ensuing weeks, months and years, we became friends, like brothers. He asked me to be his spiritual advisor if his death warrant were signed. Even the expected can be unexpected when it actually happens.

7:21 pm. Still waiting. I can see the reflections of the victims’ advocates and the survivors of the victim—tense with apprehension that a stay may be in the works. Superimposed over them are the reflections of the defense lawyers in the second row, tense with apprehension that a stay may not be granted. The two sets of images meld into a collage of our community, torn against itself by adversarial interests and homicidal violence, seeking redemption through an adversarial process that promises restoration through more homicidal violence.

You can read the entire piece here. Another outstanding essay is here and another here and yet another here. And you can sign up for email updates from this site by going to the front page.

What do the death penalty and the Iraqi war have in common?

What the death penalty and the Iraqi war have in common is this: We will see a number of returning veterans suffer from the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. A very small percentage of them (yet nonetheless a significant number) will commit crimes that will lead them to death row.

In the four and a half years that I've been at NCADP I have seen a number of combat veterans executed. Some were veterans of the Vietnam war; others fought in the first Gulf war, when the U.S. drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.

The reason I bring this up to today is that I noticed this post on daily kos:

An estimated fifty-thousand Americans will suffer Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The sensorium of war will furnish the survivors with a lifetime's supply of guilt, delicately filed between reel after reel of ghastly snapshots recorded by the senses and replayed endlessly in the virtual cinema of the Mind. It may manifest itself as anxiety, chronic depression, substance abuse, or conduct disorders. These 'lucky' survivors will struggle with recurring images, sounds, and smells of dead men, women, and children. Even flashbacks of the living can haunt; the memory of an abandoned toddler spied through a smoking gun turret, bloody and wailing in a bullet chipped alley, too young to understand and too helpless to cope, can break a man or woman years later.

Some will manage, some will stumble and right themslves, some will need help, some will be driven over the edge by these demons. A few may take their own lives, a handful may become monsters and take the lives of others, each tragedy adding more casualties from this war, more lost, whose names will never be listed on a Department of Defense website or inscribed on a bronze plaque next to a memorial.

It's sad to think about, but it is also something to think about.

mtvU Spring Break

Texas Moratorium Network has a short video clip up about the recent Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break, which took place in Austin. mtvU, a subsidiary of MTV, filmed the event. Go here to check it out!

Conference on innocence

Kate Raven, an intern with the ACLU of Northern California, dropped this off in my email inbox the other day:

On my first day as a Criminal Justice Policy Intern for the ACLU, I spoke with a dozen men and women who had been wrongfully imprisoned in this state. Many were on death row until their convictions were overturned. Although I had a general
idea of the facts of each case, nothing could have prepared me for the humanity and strength I heard in the voices at the other end of the line. Through their stories I began to feel the magnitude of the challenge facing us today, as we come to grips with a justice system that has mistakenly landed over 200 people in California in jail for murder, rape, and other serious felonies. That number, by the way, is just since 1990.

You can hear these remarkable men and women speak about their unjust imprisonment and their struggle for freedom at a conference hosted by UCLA, April 7-9th. This conference will facilitate the largest gathering of California’s exonereesever. In addition, new research discussing the causes and prevalence of wrongful conviction in California and demonstrating systemic racial and geographic disparities in the application of the death penalty in this state will be presented. Speakers include Judge Ken Starr, State Senator Gloria Romero, Barry Scheck (co-director of NY’s Innocence Project), and many others. You will be changed by what you hear.

Please visit http://www.stopwrongfulconvictions.org/ for more information or to register.

Say hello to....

Say hello to the Asia Death Penalty blog. ADP provides information information on Asia - and the world - about the ending days of the death penalty. It is focused on countries in the Asian region, but it also reports on issues of interest in the continuingcampaign for a world without executions. This blog draws on the work of Asian media and international human rights community.

Say hello to....

Say hello to, Death Penalty Thailand. DPT looks at the death penalty in,of all places, Thailand & East Asia.

Of men and memories

The death penalty is only allowed to survive in our culture because we reduce the condemned person to that one worst thing he (or she) has done in their life.

This way, we comfort ourselves that we don't really execute people. We execute monsters.

But every now and again a reminder surfaces that this is not so. A reminder surfaces that an execution results in a whole new set of victims.

Today this reminder surfaced in my email inbox:

Dorothy Robertson, the mother of Kevin Kincy, who was executed by the
state of Texas last night, would like friends of the family to know that
the arrangements for Kevin are as follows:

Friday, March 31,
2006

Mabry Funeral Home, 5000 Almeda Road near Blodgett, in Third
Ward Houston

Viewing of the body: 1:00-4:00 PM
Funeral
Services: 6:00 PM

The Abolition Movement sends our love and condolences to Dorothy, Kevin's wife Barbara, and all of Kevin's family. We hope all of Dorothy's and Barbara's friends and supporters will be able to attend the services tomorrow (Friday).

And speaking of innocence...

Three possible innocence cases involving death-sentenced inmates are perculating.

In Ohio, a federal judge has ordered that Joe D'Ambrosio be released or granted a new trial. You can read about the case here. (Hat tip to Scott in Ohio for alerting me to this.)

In Texas, lawyers for death row inmate Rodney Reed are seeking a new trial after the emergence of some rather dramatic exculpatory evidence:

Secret of Rodney Reed death row appeal revealed Witness say victim's fiance once explained how to strangle without leaving fingerprints.
by Chuck Lindell
AMERICAN-STATESMAN
STAFF
BASTROP — A once-secret witness testified Thursday that an alternate suspect in the 1996 strangulation of Stacey Stites once said he would choke his girlfriend to death if she cheated on him, leaving no fingerprints because he would use a belt.

That other suspect was Jimmy Fennell Jr., who was a Giddings police officer and Stites' fiancé when she was killed. Investigators eventually ruled him out. Instead, Rodney Reed is on death row for the crime Stites' body was left next to a dirt road north of Bastrop. The belt used to strangle the 19-year-old, ripped from around her waist, was broken in two by the force of the act.

You can read more by going here.

Also in Texas, and in a case that is close to NCADP, new DNA testing has been ordered in the case of Louis Perez, who supporters say was wrongfully convicted of a triple murder that occurred in Austin:

New testing to be ordered in '98 triple murder Louis Perez is on death row for Barton Hills slayings.
By Steven Kreytak
AMERICAN-STATESMAN
STAFF
The family of death row inmate Louis Perez — convicted in 1999 of a triple murder in Austin — got new hope Thursday when Travis County prosecutors announced that they will order new DNA tests in the case.

Authorities will soon ship to the Texas Department of Public Safety crime lab dozens of items gathered from the Barton Hills house where Michelle Fulwiler, roommate Cinda Barz and Barz's 9-year-old daughter, Staci Mitchell, were found dead in a grisly scene Sept. 9, 1998.

That evidence — including pantyhose and a cast-iron skillet that prosecutors said Perez used to strangle and bludgeon his victims — will be retested to see if improved technology yields DNA that hadn't previously been detected. Those samples, along with DNA that was found in 1998 but was never matched to a person, will be compared with state and national databases of known offenders, said Assistant District Attorneys Buddy Meyer and Claire Dawson-Brown, who tried the case.

Those databases include the DNA of serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz, who Perez's family say may have confessed to the murders from death row in 2002.

The family told Dawson-Brown and Meyer about the alleged confession last year and asked for new testing.

"It's the right thing to do," Meyer said. "We are confident in the verdict, but this man faces the death penalty, and we want to make absolutely sure."

Perez's father said the new testing, which was approved by Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, is "what we've been praying for."

"Knowing Louis isn't capable of doing something like this . . . we feel that (the conviction) is a complete error," Ernest Perez Sr. said.

Dawson-Brown said the new testing has been endorsed by the victims' families.

Resendiz, 45, a Mexican drifter known as the "Railroad Killer" for a string of brutal murders near railroad tracks in several states, is scheduled for execution in May for killing a Houston-area doctor in her home.

Perez's sister, Delia Perez Meyer, no relation to Buddy Meyer, said Resendiz told an investigator working for Perez's lawyer in 2002 that he killed two women in Austin during his crime spree, but he was not more specific. He has been charged or suspected in at least 14 killings, but none in Austin. FBI timelines do not account for his whereabouts during the Austin slayings.

Conference on innocence

This just popped up in my email box:

Dear Mr. Elliot,

I thought the readers of your Blog might be interested in attending our conference on Wrongful Convictions and the Death Penalty in California. The conference will be held at the UCLA Law School from April 7-9. If I can provide you with any additional information or if you are planning on posting the conference, please contact me at kraven@aclunc.org or call 415-621-2493 ext. 308.

Thanks so much, Kate Raven
Policy Intern- American Civil Liberties Union

We're glad to spread the word. Go here for more info.

75th anniversary of the Scottsboro Boys

Saturday marks the 75th anniversary of one of the most embarrassing, one of the most disgusting, one of the most sordid experiences in American history. Read all about it, and at the end of the post, I'll supply the link if you want more information:

No crime in American history-- let alone a crime that never occurred-- produced as many trials, convictions, reversals, and retrials as did an alleged gang rape of two white girls by nine black teenagers on a Southern Railroad freight run on March 25, 1931. Over the course of the two decades that followed, the struggle for justice of the "Scottsboro Boys," as the black teens were called, made celebrities out of anonymities, launched and ended careers, wasted lives, produced heroes, opened southern juries to blacks, exacerbated sectional strife, and divided America's political left.

Hoboeing was a common pastime in the Depression year of 1931. For some, riding freights was an appealing adventure compared to the drudgery and dreariness of their daily lives. Others hopped rail cars to move from one fruitless job search to the next. Two dozen or so mainly male--and mainly young--whites and blacks rode the Southern Railroad's Chattanooga to Memphis freight on March 25, 1931. Among them were four black Chattanooga teenagers hoping to investigate a rumor of government jobs in Memphis hauling logs on the river and five other black teens from various parts of Georgia. Four young whites, two males and two females dressed in overalls, also rode the train, returning to Huntsville from unsuccessful job searches in the cotton mills of Chattanooga.

Soon after the train crossed the Alabama border, a white youth walked across the top of a tank car. He stepped on the hand of a black youth named Haywood Patterson, who was hanging on to its side. Patterson had friends aboard the train. A stone-throwing fight erupted between white youths and a larger group of black youths. Eventually, the blacks succeeded in forcing all but one of the members of the white gang off the train. Patterson pulled the one remaining white youth, Orville Gilley, back onto the train after it had accelerated to a life-endangering speed. Some of the whites forced off the train went to the stationmaster in Stevenson to report what they described as an assault by a gang of blacks. The stationmaster wired ahead. A posse in Paint Rock, Alabama stopped the train. Dozens of men with guns rushed at the train as it ground to a halt. The armed men rounded up every black youth they could find. Nine captured blacks, soon to be called "The Scottsboro Boys," were tied together with plow line, loaded on a flatback truck, and taken to a jail in Scottsboro.

Most of the Scottsboro Boys eventually were sentenced to death. What followed was a series of reversals, retrials, recanted witnesses, new judges, and on and on and on. Even after death sentences were thrown out, it took years, and in some cases decades, for all of the Scottsboro Boys to gain their freedom; many went on to broken lives -- and eventually, death -- due to their experiences.

What lessons can we draw from this? Consider:

The story of the Scottsboro Boys is one of the most shameful examples of injustice in our nation's history. It makes clear that in the Deep South of the 1930's, jurors were not willing to accord a black charged with raping a white woman the usual presumption of innocence. In fact, one may argue that the presumption seemed reversed: a black was presumed guilty unless he could establish his innocence beyond a reasonable doubt. The cases show that to jurors, black lives didn't count for much. The jurors that in April, 1933 had just voted to sentence Haywood Patterson to death were seen laughing as they emerged from the juryroom. Hannah Arendt wrote of "the banality of evil." Evil rarely comes in the form of monsters, but rather in the form of relatively normal people who, for reasons of careers, ideology, or a desire for society's approval, are indifferent to the human consequences of their actions. Because of indifferent jurors and career-motivated prosecutors, the self-serving and groundless accusations of a single woman were allowed to change forever the lives of nine black teenagers who found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Interested in reading more? Go here.

A call for a special prosecutor

Last November, the Houston Chronicled published an investigative series that, in our view, was good enough to be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. The series strongly suggested that the state of Texas executed an innocent person -- in this case, Ruben Cantu, who was put to death in 1993. Today, the conservative Dallas Morning News asks why the investigation into Cantu's death seems to be dragging:

Clear Answers Needed: Death case calls for outside
inquiry

The Bexar County district attorney's office has taken on the job of finding
out if it mistakenly sent alleged teen killer Ruben Cantu to the death chamber
in 1993 solely on the basis of eyewitness identification.

With due respect to otherwise competent legal professionals, it's a job the
district attorney's office isn't likely to complete in convincing fashion.
Consider:

Since beginning its inquiry nearly four months ago, the office has been
unable to secure full interviews from two crucial witnesses, according to The Houston Chronicle, whose reporting on the case spurred the
investigation.

One of the 2, the sole eyewitness who now recants his testimony, has
clammed up after the district attorney threatened a "murder by
perjury"charge.

The district attorney herself, Susan Reed, is a former judge who denied an
appeal in the Cantu case and set his execution date.

At issue is justice for a slain construction worker, Pedro Gomez, who was
shot to death by a robber while sleeping overnight at a building site. A second
worker was badly wounded in the attack but survived to become the trial's star
witness. Then an illegal alien, the survivor now says he was under police
pressure to finger Mr. Cantu, a neighborhood tough.

A "murder by perjury" charge may technically be an option, but citing the
possibility has created a witness-intimidation appearance that clouds theoutcome
of the investigation.

The Cantu case joins a growing list of eyewitness-only convictions brought
into question nationwide, mostly because DNA evidence has contradicted the
eye-witness acounts. The governor's own Criminal Justice Advisory Council
recommended in January that the state take advantage of growing research into
witness misidentification.

That won't help the cause of justice in the Cantu case, which could turn
out to be the state's first officially acknowledged death penalty error.

What could help the cause of justice here is a decision by the district
attorney to call in an outside special prosecutor with no past connection with
the case. The public deserves clean, clear answers to questions over imposing
the ultimate penalty.

Needed: A new set of wheels

Our Tennessee affiliate, Tennessee Coalition Against State Killing, needs a new car so that its two-person staff can traverse the state and make all the speaking engagements they've been invited to.

So...if you're looking to donate a used car...and no, you don't have to be in Tennessee...we have volunteers all over the place and can arrange to pick it up...

Go here for more info.

whassup judge brinkema???

this judge's courtroom must be run on the yo-yo principle...

first the judge admonished carla martin for coaching the aviator witnesses in the moussaoui trial ... looks like prosecutors screwed up again in their (over) zealous pursuit of flexing of state power ... looks like there's no way in h-e-double ell that the prosecution can get moussaoui sentenced to death ....

what, like a waste of how many million $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ - thank god the u.s government has record surpluses and the debt's under control ... we can afford these types of mistaken decisions ...

NO WAIT - the u.s. government is running RECORD DEFICITS and the debt limit just got raised to what - 9,0000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000 $$$$$$$$$

but i digress - back to the yo-yo ...

so after the exclusion by brinkema of the aviation witnesses, she backtracks ... you can present witnesses, just not the ones who were coached by martin ...

death penalty back on???

not so fast, doesn't look like there are available witnesses who wouldn't appear manufactured at the last minute ... so - death sentence off ...

what buffoonery - can anyone follow the bouncing yo-yo???

More on Alternative Spring Break

We apologize for the hiatus. The blog simply needed a break. But we're back now, and there's lots of catching up to do.

First off, an update on Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break, going on in Texas.

Texas Moratorium Network notes:

In 1964, students came down to the South during Freedom Summer to fight for
civil and human rights and to build a more just nation. Now, their grandchildren
are coming back to finish the job.

As part of their activities students held vigil outside the Walls Unit in Huntsville, Texas, during an execution. Go here to read an account.

Death penalty for gays and lesbians?

Scott over at Ohio Death Penalty Information alerted me to this...a candidate for U.S. Senate (a Democrat, even!) is calling for the death penalty for gay and lesbian people. Luckily, he's not a serious candidate. Courtesy of Scott, two funny links can be found here and here.

And standing in this corner...

One of the good things about so many anti-death penalty blogs popping up these days is that we get to "borrow" each other's stuff when we can't find anything good to blog on.

And so today recap an interesting event that happened in Tennessee last night. (We appropriate this with a sense of guilty please from our favorite anti-dp blog out there.)

Tennessee dude writes about his debate with a pro-death penalty district attorney:

it was kind of a cat and mouse dance between me and ol’ mike taylor … he is about to try a capital murder case and not his first … like many a d.a. he likes to obfuscate the absolute discretion they hold in deciding to pursue death by laying out the limitations placed upon them (aggravating factors etc…) – so I counterpunched with a re-frame explaining not only the discretion but why it results in geographic disparities and cases that look alike resulting in wide varying sentencing outcomes … and so it went between us – parry, parry, jab, hook, parry, duck, jab, feign, parry, sidestep, jab … juan melendez says I won the match on points … I felt nimble … I thought taylor was gonna take the match to the world wrestling federation level when I called him on his assertion that the defense has access to far greater resources than the prosecution in a capital case … d.a. taylor hunts down meth labs with the best of em’ but I thought for sure he might be dipping into confiscated stashes of the scurrilous white powder when he made that comment … we both let it go there…

You can read the whole thing by going here.

More new blogs...and a donate thingy to the left

Two new anti-death penalty blogs to report!

Ohio Death Penalty Information is a newsy blog that reports on death penalty current events, both inside Ohio and across the country. You can visit it here.

And Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty weighs in with their innovative new blog, entitled, Not One More -- The VADP Weblog. You can visit it here.

If you look to the left and scroll down, you can see all of the anti-death penalty blogs and their links. Including this one, we've got about 18 anti-death penalty blogs that update regularly or semi-regularly. And all of that has happened in under two years!

Also a shout-out and thank you to our friend Karl, who added a donate button to the left. Not sure why we didn't think of this before -- donations go to NCADP and to our efforts to "grow" our state affiliates and help them organize.

Opposition research...on us.

I guess perhaps it's a sign that we've "made it."

David Horowitz and DiscoverTheNetWorks.org: A Guide to the Political Left have done opposition research on NCADP, on our executive director and, well, on me.

Me?

Yeah. Funny. Their info is hit and miss. On the section on NCADP, they get tons of board members wrong and their list of funders is wayyyy old. On the section on our executive director, they get a couple of historical employment notes wrong, and don't seem to understand that since Diann is here, she can't logically still be running the ACLU's Capital Punishment Project.

On all three, they cut and paste some cookie-cutter paragraphs attempting to refute our assertion that the death penalty is racially discriminatory. (If you want to read the most authoritative stuff about race and the death penalty, go here.)

Here are their three sections:

Go here to see the one on NCADP.

Go here to see the one on our executive director.

And go here to see the one on me. (Man, I gotta do something about that picture!)

Cory Maye

Previous visitors to this web site probably are familiar with the Cory Maye story. He is the guy on Mississippi's death row who was convicted and death-sentenced after shooting a police officer. The police officer had mistakenly raided the side of a duplex where Cory lived and Cory, suddenly awakened and, thinking his 18-month-old daughter was in danger, fired his pistol.

The Cory Maye story has been circulating around the blogosphere for several months now, uniting liberals, conservatives and libertarians who are concerned over the right of government to conduct paramilitary-style police raids on private homes. Hundreds and hundreds (more than 400, last I checked) of blogs have commented on this case. Go here for a list, conveniently divided between conservative, libertarian and progressive.

What's strange is that despite this story penetrating the blogsphere in a way that death penalty stories seldom do, so far the MSM ("mainstream media") has been completely AWOL.

Until now.

This Sunday, the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Mississippi's lead newspaper, published a lengthy, front-page story on Cory Maye's case. You can read it here.

One interesting note. The Clarion-Ledger mentioned the story's presence in the blogosphere and quoted from several blogs:

"The MSM (mainstream media) hasn't paid any attention to this story, but it should. And I hope the Mississippi Supreme Court will be paying lots of attention, too." - The Volokh Conspiracy

"This case is an interesting test of the power of the blogosphere. Though the apparent injustice is two years old, it seems to have attracted exactly zero attention in the mainstream media, at least according to a Google News search for 'Cory Maye.'" — Mark Kleiman at Huffington Post

"I've witnessed a couple police raids, and they're noisy as all-get-out .... It's kinda hard to believe that Maye would have been asleep through all the racket, even before his door was kicked in." — flick100785 on Public Eye at CBSNews.com

"Maye's case is an outrage. Prentiss, Mississippi, clearly violated Maye's civil rights the moment its cops needlessly and recklessly stormed his home in the middle of the night. The state of Mississippi is about to add a perverse twist to that violation by executing Maye for daring to defend himself." — Radley Balko on theagitator.com

Radley Balko, who works for the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, is the one who first broke the Cory Maye story. He deserves all the credit in the world for bringing this injustice to light. You can follow the story by visiting his blog.

The death penalty in Japan

Many people on America's death rows grow increasingly insane as the years pass by. The isolation, the lack of human touch, the constant screaming and tiny cells are contribute to an environment that literally drives people mad.

It is difficult to imagine, but conditions actually are worse in Japan. Here's the first part of a story that was published in today's Los Angeles Times:

Awaiting Death's Footsteps
On Japan's death row, prisoners never know when the hangman will come. Harsh conditions aim to calm, but critics call them inhuman.
By Bruce Wallace
Times Staff Writer
March 2, 2006
NAGOYA, Japan — Like all prisoners on Japan's death row, Masao Akahori knew that his execution would come without warning. The fear made him stiffen at the sound of the guards' approaching footsteps, wondering if the clack of boots was a countdown to death or would pass by, fading into the silence of another reprieve.

One morning in the early 1970s, the march stopped outside Akahori's cell and a key turned the lock."We have come to fetch you," the guards told him.

Akahori remembers his legs collapsing under him, that five guards had to drag him from his cell. He remembers the nervous whispering when the guards suddenly realized they had come to hang the wrong man.

It was Yamamoto they wanted. In the next cell."They put me back, no apology, and went for Yamamoto," Akahori recalls. He is 75 now, with watery eyes, a ghost of the 24-year-old who was living under bridges in 1954 when he says police beat a false confession out of him that he had raped and murdered a schoolgirl. "They closed the small window in my cell so I couldn't see what was going on with Yamamoto. "But I could hear them," he says, in a voice that still trembles with the telling.

Akahori says he was so traumatized by his near-death experience that, for several years, he could not speak. But he did eventually win a retrial, and in 1989, after 31 years on death row, he was declared not guilty and released. Yet his story remains precious. Not simply because he survived to tell it, but because it offers a rare peek into the mists of Japan's death row, where prisoners live in conditions designed to induce submission and where executions, all by hanging, are carried out in secret.

This qualifies as a "must read." Go here for the whole thing.

Happy International Abolition Day!

Today is International Death Penalty Abolition Day.

On March 1, 1847, Michigan became the first state in the U.S. (and the first political jurisdiction in the western world) to abolish the death penalty.

I'm gonna go eat cake.

it's the local volunteer leaders, stupid...

if you're wondering what grassroots organizing is about and why it's the key to future legislative victories, then check this out...

in tennessee we are conducting our 4th annual march 1st legislative letter writing lobby day and this year we have 2 new, smallish communities joining in like gangbusters ...

one of those cities, jackson tn, has some very savvy organizer-activists that we have hooked up with through faith communities...

this is their first year doing a write-a-thon but they scored a pre-event media hit that was outstanding...

without them tcask would never have gotten this coverage and this amazing article...so if you are wondering if an elitist strategy is going to drive the movement i suggest you think again...

peace out - <3

And then there were 123

Yesterday the Death Penalty Information Center announced that John Ballard has become the nation's 123rd wrongly convicted person freed from death row in what we call the "modern" era (since executions were allowed to resume in 1976).

Here's the first two graphs of the DPIC press release:

WASHINGTON, DC – After three years on Florida’s death row, John Ballard has become the nation’s 123rd person freed from death row according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). The Florida Supreme Court unanimously overturned Ballard’s conviction and acquitted him of all charges on Thursday, February 23, concluding that the state did not present enough evidence to convict Ballard and that the trial judge should have dismissed the case immediately. Shortly after the Florida Supreme Court’s decision was announced, the State Attorney General’s office said that it would not challenge the ruling. Ballard was released from Union Correctional Facility on Saturday, February 25.

“This case demonstrates that innocent people still face a significant risk of execution in this country,” said Richard Dieter, Executive Director of DPIC, “For every eight people executed, we find one person on death row who should never have been even convicted.”

If you want to read more about the death penalty and the innocent people who have been convicted and sentenced to die, go here. Meanwhile, as my friend Karl noted last week, Ballard needs financial support, because the state of Florida only gives wrongly convicted people something like $100 upon release. If you scroll down, you can find out how to help.

New blog

Here's what we believe is a first: There's a new blog out there dedicated to abolishing capital punishment throughout Asia. It's called the Asia Death Penalty Blog and its description is as follows:

The death penalty is a cruel, futile and dangerous punishment, and the Asian region is home to some of the world's leading executioners. This blog provides information about the death penalty across Asia, supporting the campaign to end executions in the region.

You can visit the blog here. We'll link to it as soon as we come up for air around here!

Hitchhiking and organizing for abolition

Every now and again, when perusing the handful of anti-death penalty blogs that are out there, one stumbles across something that is truly unique.

And so was the case when we noticed this blog entry posted by Alex, a young person who works for the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing. Seems that Alex, for some reason we aren't even going to speculate over, decided he wanted to hitchhike from Nashville to Mobile, Alabama. Along the way, he envisioned the many similarities between hitchhiking and organizing to abolish the death penalty:

To begin with, in a lot of ways, the goals are similar. In both cases we
are trying to build a relationship of trust with people, either to get them to
share their time and stories with us, or to get them to trust me enough to let
me into their car. And we're doing it for a purpose, a strategic goal (get to
Mobile, abolish the death penalty, etc.)

To read the whole thing -- and this is a fun read, believe us -- go here.

Quote of the day

comes from former special prosecutor Kenneth Starr:

"Society is not equipped to handle death penalty cases because of resources. Large law firms are not willing at this stage to take these cases on, at a cost of many thousands of dollars, in order to make sure that if the public wants the death penalty, it is not administered with arbitrariness and caprice."

We're seeing more of this too

Florida death row prisoner John Robert Ballard was acquitted today by a unanimous decision of the Florida Supreme Court, which ordered his conviction overturned due to a lack of evidence connecting him to the crime. After serving more than 3 years on death row for a crime he did not commit, Ballard is expected to be released as the Florida State AG's office this afternoon filed notice that they will NOT seek a re-hearing in the case.

The State of Florida will give Mr. Ballard a paltry $100 in cash when they free him after more than 3 years of incarceration. In order to assist Mr. Ballard and others like him, an "Exonerated Prisoner Relief Fund" has been established for Florida's exonerated inmates. Details are available at http://www.fadp.org/relief_fund.html or by calling 800-973-6548.

We're going to see more of this

There's a fascinating profile in Mother Jones of Dianne Clement, head of the Houston-based group called Justice For All, which lobbies aggressively for executions to be carried out. I'd recommend it to everyone, whether you're pro-dp or anti. You can access it here.

Here's one paragraph I found interesting:

As for all the people freed from death row, Clements couldn’t agree more that it proves capital defendants need good legal representation. "I think they’re kind of the Antichrist," she says of death penalty defense lawyers. "But you do want the very best representation, because…you want their convictions not to be overturned." Even if it were ever proved that an innocent person had been executed, she says, she’d still support the death penalty.

That's what Clements says now. But that's not what she told the Houston Chronicle in 2003:

"If I believed we executed an innocent inmate, I couldn't support the death penalty."

Normally I would just say "gotcha" and move on. But the fact is, we're going to see more of this duplicity as the number of innocent people freed from death row continues to climb. Death penalty proponents are going to be forced by circumstances to acknowledge not just wrongful convictions but also executions of innocent people. Some of them will change their minds on the issue. Others, however, will dig in and make the argument that if we are going to have the death penalty then of course we will mistakenly execute innocent from time to time.

Just watch.

Molly Ivins and AEDPA

Today columnist Molly Ivins takes on the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). For those who may not have heard of this wretched and patently un-American law, AEDPA severely restricts the ability of any person convicted of a felony crime to present evidence of innocence or wrongful conviction in federal court.

Some of Molly's choice morsels:

The notorious inability of prosecutors to admit that they are ever wrong is a fact of life. What is far more horrifying is the refusal of judges and courts to look at evidence that proves innocence. Can you imagine how that must feel - to be in prison for a crime you didn't commit and to finally be able to prove it, only to have a court refuse to consider the evidence?

Most of this is a consequence of a noxious law that Congress rushed through after the Oklahoma City bombing. Called the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, the law was aimed at the ability of federal judges to second-guess state courts and at the ability of prisoners to file endless habeas corpus claims challenging the constitutionality of their convictions. (Habeas corpus is a Latin phrase meaning "you have the body" and goes back hundreds of years in common law as well as being in the Constitution. It means that if you can show you were unfairly tried, you have a remedy through the courts.)

True, the right has been abused for nitpicking purposes by some lawyers, but to effectively abolish the right is a dreadful abrogation of freedom. Where in the world are the militia folks now that we need them? Where are all those right-wingers who claim freedom as their most cherished possession?

The trouble with the 1996 law is that it was poorly written and has been subject to conflicting interpretations by the lower courts. The law says that a federal judge can reverse a state court conviction only if it was contrary to federal law or if it applied federal law in an "unreasonable" way.

The Fourth Circuit, one of the most conservative courts in the country, has ruled that this means state courts have applied the law in ways that "all reasonable jurists would agree is unreasonable." As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg pointed out, reasonable jurists always disagree on constitutional issues.

The film "The Hurricane," with Denzel Washington, is about a case in point. Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a contender for the middleweight boxing title, was wrongfully convicted of a 1966 triple murder. He spent 19 years in prison before he was finally released.

The movie depicts the conviction as a frame-up by one racist cop, but as Selwyn Rabb, who originally covered the story for The New York Times, wrote: "The actual story is more harrowing because it exposes an underlying frailty in a criminal justice system that convicted Mr. Carter not once but twice. The convictions were obtained not by a lone, malevolent investigator but by a network of detectives, prosecutors and judges who countenanced the suppression and tainting of evidence and the injection of racial bias into the courtroom."

Under current interpretations of the 1996 law, Hurricane Carter would not be free today.

The most thoughtful comment in the PBS documentary came from a law professor concerned about the criminal justice system's refusal to consider its own errors. He pointed out that in most other systems, when something goes horribly wrong - a plane falls from the sky, a type of car begins bursting into flames, a hospital patient dies from gross malpractice - there is a system in place to deal with the error. There are investigations, reports and ultimately corrections made to prevent recurrence.

In the criminal justice system, there are only denials and strenuous efforts to prevent the exculpatory evidence from being presented in court. The ease with which our criminal justice system can nail the wrong person has been painfully demonstrated time and again.

(Henry Lee Lucas, the serial liar, provided one of the most bizarre examples. He claimed to have committed more than 600 murders. Police in 26 states closed the books on 229 murders, and he was convicted of 11 of them before it occurred to anyone to wonder if he was telling the truth. Physical evidence against him was found in two cases. The state of Texas managed to convict him for a murder committed while he was quite demonstrably in another state and had to let him off Death Row.)

Ivins concludes by noting that in most instances, when an innocent person is released from death row, the case is not reopened -- meaning that for every such case, a murderer walks among us.

state death penalty org calls for ...

the truth -- just the truth ...

is that so hard a request from district attorneys and former attorney generals???

apparently so.........

but the tennessee affiliate of the ncadp is on guard duty ... here's our blog close from thursday on this issue -

"So never fear, seekers of truth and justice, the TCASK blog is here. We will not allow these sorts of comments to go unchallenged. Someone looking for information on Al Schmutzer has already found this out, and I hope that a search for John Ashcroft and Vanderbilt will yield us a result as well."

check out the entire post at... www.tcask.blogspot.com/2006/02/government-officials-beware-tcask-blog.html

peace out - <3

The death penalty reconsidered

Do some people -- people who commit the most gruesome of crimes, the most egregious of murders -- deserve to die? Perhaps a better question is, do we deserve to kill them?

Today we're posting, in its entirety, a really interesting op-ed by an English professor out of Corpus Christi, Texas:

The death penalty reconsidered
By JOHN M. CRISP
Scripps Howard News Service 15-FEB-06
The recent execution of Crips co-founder and murderer Stanley "Tookie" Williams reminded me of a drizzly Friday night last winter in Corpus Christi, Texas, when Sister Helen Prejean addressed a modest crowd at a local church about her opposition to the death penalty.

For two hours, Prejean described her path from a protected childhood to a quiet life of prayer to her role as one of the country's most active opponents of capital punishment. Eventually she wrote "Dead Man Walking," the book that inspired the movie.

We assumed that she would be preaching to the choir, and for the most part, she was. It wasn't hard to sense sympathy for her story among the sort of people who would show up at a church on an inclement winter evening to hear a lecture on capital punishment.

But as soon as she finished speaking and invited questions, a young woman sitting in the row directly behind us stood up and faced the audience. She displayed a framed photograph of another young woman, her sister, she said, who had been one of at least five victims of a serial killer in Baton Rouge.

She described the murder in extensive and gruesome detail, a slow death that included torture and inexplicable brutality. The killer is still on death row, but he continues to threaten and intimidate the victims' families, she said, and she will never feel safe until he is dead. When she finished, her hands were shaking, but her voice was steady.

Her stunning testimony was an uncomfortable jolt to the convictions against the death penalty that many in the audience had undoubtedly been developing or reinforcing over the past two hours.

Of course, Prejean's arguments are good ones: the death penalty doesn't deter crime, we've never found a way to administer it without regard to race or social class, and it's inevitable that we'll occasionally execute innocent people. But in the face of the story told by the victim's sister even the most avid opponent of capital punishment must sometimes wonder: Don't some people just deserve to die? Probably. Occasionally my students will write about the death penalty, and many of them aren't shy about invoking the Old Testament's "an eye for an eye." They argue that those who rape, torture, and murder deserve not only to die, but also to suffer the same sort of brutal tortures that they committed against their victims.

They have a point. Fortunately, one of the great triumphs of our Constitution is that it outlaws the cruel punishments that were common in the 18th century. We take the enlightened view that extreme punishments like drawing and quartering or burning at the stake, however well deserved they may be, have dehumanizing effects that violate our sense of what a civilized society should be. Therefore, we remain frustrated in our attempt to set things truly right again after brutal murders like the one we heard described. But it's the price we pay to be who we are.
So if we take the emotion and Old Testament justice out of the picture, Prejean's arguments are reasonably convincing. But if we don't execute someone like Williams, what do we do with him? To oppose the death penalty isn't necessarily to be soft on crime. Many prisoners in our penal system should never be released, either because they are still dangerous or because they haven't been punished sufficiently. Williams was a bad man, and he probably deserved never to be free again.

On the other hand, buried somewhere in our penology is the notion of rehabilitation. Ordinarily we're more successful with punishment, but rehabilitation is still a reasonable secondary goal. If we were better at rehabilitation, prisoners _ even the lifers like Williams _ would be easier to control and could serve as excellent examples for other prisoners of the idea that lives can be turned from crime to productivity, whether on the inside or outside. And successfully rehabilitated prisoners might serve as role models who help prevent youngsters from pursuing a life of crime.

Now that I think of it, Williams was probably an excellent example of a rare successful rehabilitation, someone who appears to have worked hard to dissuade teenagers from following his misguided path. In fact, we could probably point to Williams with considerable pride as a fine example of what successful penal rehabilitation could look like.

But now, of course, he's dead.

(John M. Crisp is a professor in the English Department at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas.)

MTV to cover Alternative Spring Break?

Last week we wrote about "Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break," which is scheduled for March 13 to 17 in my previous home town of Austin. Basically, it's an opportunity for high school and college students to come together and organize against the death penalty.

Now Hooman Hedayati, who's with Texas Students Against the Death Penalty, informs us that MTVU, which is MTV's university station, may cover Alternative Spring Break. A producer writes:


"When people think of Spring Break the vision of beaches, night clubs and drinking until you drop usually comes to mind. MTVU wants to put a new spin on the typical Spring Break stereotypes by showcasing college students from around the country with alternative plans. The new Spring Break trend has students using their time away from school for more meaningful purposes -- whether volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, helping restore properties affected by Hurricane Katrina or protesting a cause they believe in. We want to showcase these unique Spring Breaks by following students on their adventures. We’ll not only shoot the events they’re partaking in but also get the back stories for why these students chose their plans, how they feel throughout the trip and what they come away from the trip with. It's time to put the spotlight on students who are getting more than a great tan out of their Spring Break!"

It sounds great. To learn more about Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break, go here and scroll down a bit.

All we're sayin' is, this guy's a reformer

We're not, of course, going to comment on the accident over the weekend involving Vice President Cheney and the quail hunt. This is a strictly nonpartisan blog -- there are Republicans who oppose the death penalty and Democrats who favor it and we want to build a big tent that includes everyone who opposes it -- libertarians, religious conservatives, religious progressives, secular folks, everyone.

That said, my friend in Austin, Steve Hall, reports that Harry Whittington, the guy Cheney accidentally shot, has been a longtime proponent of reform of Texas' criminal justice system.

For example, he once testified against executing people who have severe mental retardation. Excerpts from his testimony follow:

"I am appearing here today as someone who has had years of experience in dealing with mental retardation and Texas government. First, as a parent of a 45-year-old mentally retarded daughter; second, as a solo-practitioner lawyer who has gone to court for disadvantaged and uninformed clients; and third as a veteran of almost a quarter of a century of service to our state as a member of the Prison Board, Public Finance Authority and Funeral Commission.

"For the past 24 years, I have been an advocate for the proposition that Texas has been woefully deficient and backward in the way it fails to recognize and properly treat its mentally retarded citizens, especially in its criminal justice system.

"During this time, I have been sadly disappointed over the number of state leaders and judges who confuse the irreversible condition of mental retardation with the disease of mental illness.
This began when I started visiting prisons and seeing first-hand how callused and unfair our prisons were by expecting mentally retarded inmates to have the same comprehension and ability as the typical street-wise and smarter offenders. It became obvious to me that our state's criminal justice system had simply not been designed to provide them with equal treatment under the law.

....

"Two years ago, the Texas Legislature continued with forward progress by joining 16 of the 38 states who have death penalties in setting public policy against the execution of inmates who have childlike minds; unfortunately, the legislation was vetoed by Gov. Rick Perry. This policy was confirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2002, making it the law of the land.

....

"Those of us who are on the same side of this issue before you today are the same ones who argued in past sessions that the state should set a higher moral standard for justice because the execution of adults with the minds of children was cruel punishment beneath the dignity of the State of Texas. Those on the other side are the same ones who have appeared every year and opposed any reform legislation which could possibly be interpreted as being soft on crime.

"Our side has never argued that the mentally retarded should not be punished. We have only said that they should not be executed because they are incapable of understanding the seriousness of their crimes. We continue to believe that since the death penalty is the ultimate punishment imposed on those criminals who are the most accountable for their actions, all possible doubts about due process should be removed from the trial procedure as offenders with metal deficiencies make their way through the criminal justice system.

"My experience and my knowledge of the law and constitution convinces me that it would be grossly unfair to an offender with the mind of a child to have his retardation determined by the same jury that has heard and seen how violently and brutally his adult body has wrongfully acted. In your deliberations, please keep in mind that the mentally retarded have the same physical desires, weaknesses and temptations as the rest of us.

"If our state truly opposes the execution of mentally retarded offenders, we should remove all doubts about protecting them from a jury that has become biased because of the evidence they have heard in a courtroom. This is the humane and compassionate position that a large majority of Texans support."

50,000 and counting!

Friends:

Sometime during the wee hours of this morning -- about the time that the Eastern Seabord was getting pummelled by a major snowstorm -- this little blog received its 50,000th visitor.

Whether you favor the death penalty, oppose it, or you stumble in here because you're just curious about the issue, we welcome you. And we'll endeavor to keep making this blog interesting and worthy of your continued visits!

Shout out to Radley Balko

Radley Balko, who runs The Agitator and who broke the Cory Maye story about a person wrongfully convicted and death-sentenced in Mississippi, was in our office today. He was talking with my colleagues about how to advance the Cory Maye story among grassroots activists. The Cory Maye story has the ability to bring progressives, libertarians and conservatives together because it involves both misappropriation of police power (they served a warrant on the wrong house) and evidence of wrongdoing by police and possibly others.

So, shout out to Radley. And keep up your good work!

Oh, and you can sign the petition to free Cory Maye here. 645 signatures as of this posting.

Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break

If you're a young person and you're in Texas (or maybe you're not in Texas but you want to visit) here's an interesting idea. A coalition of groups including the Texas Moratorium Network, Texas Death Penalty Education and Resource Center, Campaign to End the Death Penalty - Austin Chapter and Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty are sponsoring the 2006 Anti-Death Penalty Alternative Spring Break in Austin from March 13-17. (Man, I miss the South. Technically, winter isn't over until March 20, but they're already starting to think about spring down there.)

Anyway, this is the third year in a row that this event has been held. Its purpose is to bring high school and college students to Austin for five days of anti-death penalty activism and education.

Hooman Hedayati, head of Texas Students Against the Death Penalty, explains it this way:

"We will provide participants with workshops that will teach them skills they can use to go back home and set up new anti-death penalty student organizations or improve ones that may already exist. Participants can apply what they learn to organize against the death penalty or in their activities involving other issues.

Activities include various workshops, a bus trip to Huntsville to protest an execution on March 15, and a Lobby Day in Austin.

More information and a registration form is available on the TSADP website

Also -- and how cool is this -- they've started their own blog. As soon as I have time and come up for air, we will link.

Quote of the Day

Quote of the Day:

"Capital Punishment in America is withering towards its death – slowly, gradually, incrementally, but surely nonetheless." -- J. Richard Broughton, Assistant United States Attorney, Capital Case Unit, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.

Core Maye petition

The blog "What is Liberalism" has a petition going to free Cory Maye, the wrongfully convicted person on death row in Mississippi. You can sign it by going here.

Murder victims' family members

People often assume that family members of murder victims invariably support the death penalty for the person who killed their loved one.

This perception could not be further from the truth. Witness, for example, the people who are on my organization's Board of Directors. We have Bill Pelke, the chairman of our board, who lost his grandmother to murder. He opposes the death penalty. We have Renny Cushing, the vice chair of our board, who lost his father to murder. He opposes the death penalty. We have board member Bud Welch, whose daughter, Julie, died in the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. He opposes the death penalty.

Now comes Toni Boscoe, who lost her son and daughter-in-law to murder. She recently submitted the following testimony to Congress:

United States Senate
Committee on the Judiciary
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Property Rights

Hearing on “An Examination of the Death Penalty in the United
States” February 1, 2006

Testimony of Antoinette Bosco

I am the mother of murder victims, opposed to the death penalty.

In August 1993, I got the word that my son John and his wife Nancy had been murdered in their Montana home. It turned out that the killer was 18-year-old Joseph “Shadow” Clark, the son of the people from whom they had just bought their home. After confessing to this horrible crime, he faced the death penalty.

The day I got the news of the brutal murders, I learned a new definition of torment. My beloved son and his beautiful wife were dead at the hand of someone I could only believe to be, at that moment, an agent of Satan.

I found myself screaming, sometimes aloud, sometimes with silent cries
tearing at my insides. I tormented myself, wanting to know who was
the faceless monster that had brought such permanent, unrelenting pain into my family. I wanted to kill him with my own hands. I wanted him dead.

But that feeling also tormented me, for I had always been opposed to the death penalty. I felt now I was being tested on whether my values were
permanent, or primarily based on human feelings and expediency.

It was when I went to Montana and stood in that room of death with two of my sons that I was overpowered with a sense of the evil I felt there. In that room, I was able to grasp truth again, that unnatural death at the hands of another is always wrong, except in a clear case of self-defense. The state is no more justified in taking a life than is an individual. Killing can’t be “sanitized” by calling it “official” and “legal.”

I and my family were relieved when Shadow Clark took a plea bargain, and thus avoided the death penalty. He is now serving a life sentence.
He has written to me from his prison cell, asking forgiveness. His latest
letter arrived on January 25, 2006, and he writes: “Not a day goes by that is free from the pain of what I did. I was a very foolish kid and I truly regret my actions.”

I’ve heard all the arguments for the death penalty and I don’t dismiss
these lightly. You can't arrive at opposition to this form of punishment with blinders on.

When it hits you personally, the anger and pain of your loss makes you want to tear apart that person who stole your loved one and your happiness. But does this do any good in the long run? And should we be in the business of killing people? We have the right, and the responsibility, to punish, and I believe murderers should be given life, confined away from society, without parole. But executions? Never. It is only a delusion to believe that one’s pain is ended by making someone else feel pain.

I have long reflected on what Supreme Court Justice Harry A.Blackmun wrote in the mid-90’s, that nearly "twenty years have passed since this Court declared that the death penalty must be imposed fairly, and with reasonable consistency, or not at all, and despite the effort of the states and courts to devise legal formulas and procedural rules to meet this daunting challenge, the death penalty remains fraught with arbitrariness, discriminations, caprice and mistake."

That well expresses why I urge our nation to abolish the death penalty.
Thank you.
Antoinette Bosco is author of “Choosing Mercy, A Mother
of Murder Victims Pleads to End the Death Penalty” (Orbis Books)

Suddenly, race-based attacks

Folks:

It began as a trickle but now it has become a river: We have received a bunch of comments to this blog during the past day or two invoking racial epithets, often using the "n" word and often using profanity.

Let me be clear here and state the obvious. Most people who favor the death penalty would not use this language. But the death penalty proponents who are visiting this blog are using it. I guess the only thing I am thankful for is that 95 percent of the people who visit this blog do not read the comments.

High school students working on term papers, and sometimes even junior high school students, visit this blog. Should we therefore delete the hateful comments?

I quite honestly do not believe we should.

I believe we need to show the face of hate and of racism. Being a white guy, I don't really know what it means to be a victim of racism. But these email messages and comments do help drive it home. So, the comments will not be deleted.

A strange and sad note: If you scroll down, you wll see a letter from Vernon Evans' lawyer explaining the problem with his conviction. Not a single person has written in to refute this lawyer's reasoning. Instead, it is "n word" this and "n word" that.

Death penalty proponents: Please. You are not putting your best face forward here. I know this is not the best you have to offer. Is it?

Vernon Evans: Too much doubt for execution

We've received a handful of email messages (I think three in all) that basically say, "Fry Vernon Evans."

Leaving aside the fact that hardly anyone electrocutes people anymore, I'd like to call people's attention to the following letter to the editor, which was published in yesterday's Washington Post.

As you read it, keep in mind that Maryland has what's known as a "triggerman" law. Unlike Texas, in Maryland in order to receive the death penalty, you can't merely be an accomplice to the shooting. You have to have caused another person's death yourself. (By contrast, Texas, which has a "law of parties," allows a person to be executed if they accompanied the triggerman, assuming that it can be proved that they were engaged in behavior that knowingly could lead to another person's death, i.e., armed robbery.)

Here's the letter:

Too Much Doubt for Execution

Maryland is poised to execute Vernon Lee Evans Jr., who was convicted of two murders in Baltimore County in 1983. A judge has signed a warrant for the execution during the week of Feb. 6. As Mr. Evans's lawyer, I have brought a number of challenges to the constitutionality of his conviction and sentence, so far to no avail.

But a death sentence should be intolerable in this case -- even if, as the courts have thus far ruled, the mistakes that infect the sentence do not make its imposition unconstitutional. Although a jury convicted Mr. Evans and sentenced him to death, the only eyewitness in the case has sworn, under oath and in open court, that the man she saw shoot the victims was a lot taller than Mr. Evans, who at 5-foot-2 is nicknamed "Shorty." The witness also said that the killer was dressed differently than Mr. Evans was on the day of the crime. But the jury never heard from that eyewitness, whose testimony is corroborated in important detail by two others.

Why?

According to the lawyers who were defending Mr. Evans then, she "fell between the cracks" and was never even interviewed.

No one, certainly not the state, has ever argued seriously that the process that has led to a scheduled execution for Vernon Evans was anywhere near mistake-free. That is hardly unusual in cases involving death sentences. Because clearly guilty defendants typically plead out to sentences less than death, it is only the closer cases -- cases with hard issues and contested evidence -- that generally go to trial and result in sentences of death. It is in precisely those cases that mistakes are most likely -- and most deadly.

The possibility that this imperfect process may result in the government-sponsored taking of a life should be acceptable to no one -- conservative, moderate or liberal.

A. STEPHEN HUT JR.
Chevy Chase

The writer is an attorney for Vernon Evans .

Quote of the day

"Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

--John Donne, English poet