[Deathpenalty]death penalty news---N.C., PENN.

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 24



NORTH CAROLINA:

URGENT ACTION APPEAL


24 November 2004

UA 322/04----Death penalty / Legal concern


USA (North Carolina) - Charles Anthony Walker (m), black, aged 39


Charles Walker is scheduled to be executed in North Carolina on 3 December
2004. He was convicted in 1995 of the first degree murder of Tito Davidson
in 1992. Charles Walker, who has a history of mental illness, was
convicted on the basis of testimony of accomplices, none of whom was
subjected to a capital trial. The jury which sentenced him to death did so
despite finding that he had not actually killed Tito Davidson, whose body
was never found. Several of the jurors now support clemency.

Tito Davidson went missing on 11 August 1992, and is believed to have been
murdered the next day at Pamela Haizlip's apartment in the town of
Greensboro. On 13 August, police received an anonymous tip that there was
a body in a rubbish bin at the apartment block, but none was found. A
month's search through 10,000 tons of landfill refuse that included the
contents of such bins collected between 11 and 17 August 1992 also
revealed no dead body. After Antonio Wrenn, a suspect in an unrelated
case, told police about some firearms that he claimed had been used in an
unsolved murder in which the body had been thrown into a rubbish bin, the
police began building a case based on statements of the alleged
participants in Tito Davidson's suspected murder. Rahshar Darden, Pamela
Haizlip, Jesse Thompson, Charles Walker and Antonio Wrenn were arrested
and charged with first degree murder.

Rahshar Darden pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was released in
2001 after serving six years in prison. Jesse Thompson accepted a
second-degree murder plea and is now eligible for parole. Antonio Wrenn
pleaded guilty to being an accessory to murder and served seven years in
prison. Pamela Haizlip made a similar plea and was sentenced to time
already served (two years). The state offered Charles Walker a second-
degree murder plea, but he refused it, maintaining his innocence and
firing his lawyer who had urged him to accept the plea. The lawyer has
said that he puts this reaction down to Charles Walker's mental problems.
After Walker rejected the plea bargain, the case then automatically
proceeded as a capital case, which would not have happened under today's
state law.

The state presented no physical evidence of any kind that linked Charles
Walker to the murder: no fingerprints, no blood evidence, no autopsy, no
DNA evidence, and no ballistics evidence. Indeed, there was no physical
evidence of a murder, and no confession from the defendant. All the
evidence against Walker came from the inconsistent testimony of witnesses
who were themselves implicated in some way in the crime. Rahshar Darden,
the only person who claimed to have seen Tito Davidson killed, testified
that he and Jesse Thompson had repeatedly shot Davidson and slashed his
throat. He claimed that Davidson was still alive when Charles Walker came
in and killed him with a single shot. However, other testimony, provided
by Antonio Wrenn's girlfriend, indicated that Darden and Thompson had said
after the murder that Darden had shot Davidson four times in the chest and
once between the eyes, and that Thompson had fired the last, fatal shot
into Davidson's chest. Pamela Haizlip also testified that Thompson had
admitted to her that he and Darden had killed Davidson.

The jurors clearly found it difficult to reach a verdict, taking two days
to find Walker guilty. At the sentencing, the jury was not provided with a
full picture of the man they were being urged to pass a death sentence
against. The jury heard some evidence that he suffered from mental
illness, bipolar disorder with paranoid features. This was consistent with
the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia that he had received as a child, a
mental illness which after his initial hospitalizations had remained
untreated from the age of 12 when he lived on the streets of New York. The
jurors were not presented with the records documenting this childhood
mental illness, however. In 1982, aged 17, living in an abandoned
building, he shot a man who he thought was following him with malicious
intent. He was sent to prison with a recommendation of psychiatric
treatment. He was released after six years without receiving the
treatment. Eighteen months later his parole was revoked and he was sent
back to prison for another year, before being paroled again in August
1991. He has spent all but about two years of his adult life in prison. He
has been prescribed anti-psychotic and other medication on death row.

The jury did not hear substantial available evidence of Charles Walker's
early childhood abuse at the hands of his parents or their history of
mental illness. His cousin has since recalled the physical abuse to which
Charles was subjected as a young boy by his mother, including being
whipped in the face with a belt, whippings with electrical cords, and
being burned with a steam iron. His mother was addicted to cocaine, and he
was exposed to her drug usage from an early age. At the age of five, he
witnessed her being stabbed almost to death by one of her boyfriends in
their home.

The jury deliberated for four days before recommending a death sentence.
On their sentencing form, the jurors answered "no" to the question of
whether Charles Walker had fired the fatal shot. Instead they found that
he had intended to kill the victim while acting with others. Several of
the jurors have recently said that they believe that the death sentence
should be commuted to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole,
an option that was not available to them at the time of the trial.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases. The death
penalty is an affront to human dignity and a symptom of a culture of
violence. In addition, the capital justice system in the USA is marked by
arbitrariness, discrimination and error. Since 1973, 117 people have been
released from US death rows after evidence of their innocence emerged.
Others have gone to their deaths despite serious doubts about their guilt.
There have been 944 executions in the USA since it resumed judicial
killing in 1977, 34 of them in North Carolina.

The United Nations Safeguards Guaranteeing Protection of the Rights of
Those Facing the Death Penalty prohibits the execution of anyone whose
conviction is not based upon "clear and convincing evidence leaving no
room for an alternative explanation of the facts". In repeated resolutions
in recent years, the UN Commission on Human Rights has called on all
states that still have the death penalty not to use it against anyone
suffering from a mental disorder.

RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible,
in your own words:

- expressing sympathy for the family and friends of Tito Davidson;

- opposing the execution of Charles Walker, and expressing concern about
the reliability of his conviction, noting that the case against him was
based on the inconsistent testimony of witnesses implicated in the case, a
notoriously unreliable form of evidence;

- noting Charles Walker's history of untreated mental illness and his
background of childhood abuse, substantial details of which the jurors did
not hear;

- noting that several jurors have now said that they support commutation
of the death sentence;

- calling on Governor Easley to commute Charles Walker's death sentence.

APPEALS TO:

Governor Michael F. Easley
Office of the Governor
20301 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699
Fax: 1 919 715 3175/+1 919 733 2120
Email via website: http://www.governor.state.nc.us/email.asp?to=1

Salutation: Dear Governor

PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY. All appeals must arrive by 3 December
2004.

Amnesty International is a worldwide grassroots movement that promotes and
defends human rights.

This Urgent Action may be reposted if kept intact, including contact
information and stop action date (if applicable). Thank you for your help
with this appeal.

Urgent Action Network
Amnesty International USA
PO Box 1270
Nederland CO 80466-1270
Email: uan at aiusa.org
http://www.amnestyusa.org/urgent/
Phone: 303 258 1170
Fax: 303 258 7881

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END OF URGENT ACTION APPEAL

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PENNSYLVANIA:

URGENT ACTION APPEAL

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24 November 2004

UA 320/04 Death penalty / Legal concern


USA (Pennsylvania)----George Banks (m), black, aged 62


George Banks is scheduled to be executed in Pennsylvania on 2 December
2004. He was sentenced to death in 1983 for the murder of 12 people in
1982, and received a life prison sentence for a 13th murder. His lawyers
are challenging his execution as unconstitutional on the grounds that he
is legally insane. George Banks's mental condition, a prominent factor in
the case since the time of the crime, is reported to have deteriorated
during his 20 years on death row.

Six adults and seven children were shot dead in Wilkes-Barre,
Pennsylvania, on 25 September 1982. Five of the victims were George
Banks's own children - Kismayu, Moutanzima, Maritanya, Foraroude and
Bowendy Banks - aged six and under. The other victims were four women with
whom Banks had had relationships, and their relatives: Susan Yuhas, aged
23; Regina Clemens, 29; Dorothy Lyons, 29, and her 11-year-old daughter
Nancy Lyons; Sharon Mazillo, 24, her mother Alice Mazillo and nephew Scott
Mazillo, aged six. A passer-by, Raymond Hall, was also shot dead.

After the shootings, police found George Banks barricaded in a friend's
house. Although apparently having only a limited recall of events, he told
the police that he had killed his children to spare them from the racism
he had experienced as a child. George Banks was born in 1942 to a white
mother and African American father. Growing up, he was reportedly
subjected to racial prejudice by both communities. He joined the army at
17, but left 19 months later, saying that he had been racially abused by a
white officer. From 1976, he became convinced that a race war was looming
and began stockpiling supplies in remote mountain locations and purchased
a military assault rifle, the weapon later used in the shootings. In 1980,
George Banks took a job as a prison guard. On 6 September 1982, he told
fellow workers that he wanted to kill himself and was relieved of duty. He
was assessed as depressed and suicidal and given medication. The shootings
took place not long afterwards.

In the course of pre-trial proceedings, George Banks was examined by
psychiatrists. They raised evidence that he was incompetent to stand
trial, namely that he was unable to assist in his defence because of his
fixed delusional beliefs. At the trial, psychiatrists for the defence and
prosecution agreed that he suffered from mental illness, but disagreed
whether, as a result of this psychotic disorder, he had been able to
distinguish between right and wrong at the time of the shootings. George
Banks consistently refused to cooperate with his trial lawyer in the
preparation of an insanity defence because he insisted on presenting a
claim of innocence or partial innocence. In court, he alleged that there
was a conspiracy, which included the prosecutor, the judge, the coroner
and police, to frame him for some of the murders. He claimed that some of
the victims were killed by police, and he insisted on using gruesome
autopsy photographs to prove his conspiracy theory. A state psychiatrist
testified that George Banks was psychotic and delusional when he insisted
on cross-examining witnesses, over the objection of his lawyer.

Since being sent to death row, George Banks has made numerous suicide
attempts and threats of suicide. He has been diagnosed as suffering from
various mental illnesses, including paranoid schizophrenia, depression,
schizoaffective disorder, as well as personality disorders. He has been
prescribed anti- psychotic medications. A psychiatrist, Dr Richard Dudley,
who has reviewed his case, has reported that ''Mr Banks has an extensive
history of psychiatric hospitalizations, commitments and treatment during
the course of his incarceration. The records of those hospitalizations
provide insight into the chronic nature of his mental illness."

George Banks's lawyers are challenging his execution on the grounds that
it would violate US law. A 1986 US Supreme Court decision, Ford v
Wainwright, prohibits the execution of a prisoner who is insane - i.e. is
unable to comprehend the reason for or reality of his or her punishment.
Dr Dudley has concluded that George Banks is incompetent to be executed
and has stated in an affidavit: ''Specific efforts to determine Mr Banks's
competency to be executed under Ford v Wainwright revealed that he
believes that his convictions and sentences have been vacated by God. As a
result, he believes that his continued incarceration and potential
execution are the results of a wide- ranging conspiracy among corrections
officers, prosecutors and other government officials. He does not believe
that he will actually be executed, but rather that the threat of execution
is an attempt by the conspirators to put pressure on him to help them in
their conspiracy''. Another mental health expert has agreed that there are
substantial doubts about Banks's competency and supports a stay of
execution.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases. Every death
sentence is an affront to human dignity, every execution a symptom of a
culture of violence rather than a solution to it. There have been 944
executions in the USA since judicial killing resumed there in 1977.
Pennsylvania accounts for three of these executions, all of which have
been of prisoners who dropped their appeals. The last execution was in
July 1999.

Today, 118 countries are abolitionist in law or practice, and there are
strict international safeguards applying to those countries which have not
yet abolished the death penalty. For example, the United Nations
Safeguards Guaranteeing Protection of the Rights of Those Facing the Death
Penalty prohibit the execution of ''persons who have become insane''. In
repeated resolutions in recent years, the UN Commission on Human Rights
has called on those countries which still retain the death penalty not to
use it against anyone suffering from a mental disorder.

RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible,
in your own words:

- expressing sympathy for the family and friends of those shot in
Wilkes-Barre on 25 September 1982, explaining that you are not seeking to
downplay the seriousness of this crime or the suffering caused;

- noting that George Banks has exhibited signs of mental illness for much
of his life, including at the time of the crime and the trial, as well as
during his time on death row, and noting calls at the United Nations for
an end to the execution of people suffering from mental disorders;

- noting evidence that his mental illness may rise to the level of
insanity, which would render his execution unconstitutional as well as a
violation of international standards;

- noting that Pennsylvania has not carried out an execution for five
years, a period which has seen national concern about the US death penalty
grow, and the global trend towards abolition continue;

- calling on Governor Rendell to stop the execution of George Banks and
commute his death sentence.

APPEALS TO:

Governor Edward G. Rendell
225 Main Capitol Building
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17120
Fax: 1 717 772 8284
Email (via website):
http://sites.state.pa.us/PA_Exec/Governor/govmail.html

Salutation: Dear Governor

PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY.

Amnesty International is a worldwide grassroots movement that promotes and
defends human rights.

This Urgent Action may be reposted if kept intact, including contact
information and stop action date (if applicable). Thank you for your help
with this appeal.

Urgent Action Network

Amnesty International USA
PO Box 1270
Nederland CO 80466-1270
Email: uan at aiusa.org
http://www.amnestyusa.org/urgent/
Phone: 303 258 1170
Fax: 303 258 7881

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END OF URGENT ACTION APPEAL

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