[Deathpenalty]death penalty news-----USA, FLA., TENN.

Sat Nov 27 18:05:35 CST 2004

Nov. 26

USA:

Photographer captures images of youths on death row in U.S.

The subjects of photographer Toshi Kazama -- all young boys and girls --
stare straight into the lens of his camera, some smiling shyly, others
looking serious.

Toshi Kazama stands in front of a photograph he took of a juvenile
death-row inmate at a U.S. prison.

Though they have varying backgrounds and hail from all over the United
States, they have one thing in common: They are all juvenile offenders on
death row.

Kazama will feature Saturday in a seminar against the death penalty at
Tokyo's Kanda Christian Church, where he will talk about his experiences
in meeting with these youths, their families, and relatives of the victims
of their crimes.

Also on display at "Together for Life" will be 42 photographs, including
images of the young death-row inmates, their crime scenes and execution
chambers.

New-York based Kazama, 46, has been visiting prisons in the United States,
photographing juvenile death row inmates since 1996. What led him to start
this project, he said, was the contradictions inherent in the way society
appears to value life.

"Life is cheap," Kazama said, recalling a time in his teens when he went
to see a movie at a theater.

"There is the good and the bad, and in the end, justice always wins by
killing the bad. And people in the theater were happy. They were
celebrating the death of a human being. And this contradiction continued
to build as time passed."

With this as his driving force, Kazama began to consider various social
issues, including gun control and drugs, as his main project themes. But
in the end, he chose capital punishment.

"I thought that capital punishment represented all aspects of our ill
society," Kazama said. "It includes guns, drugs, racism and prejudice, but
most important of all, life. As a society, our solution to a crime is
simply killing, or executing, the offender."

Entering maximum-security prisons and obtaining permission to take
photographs was no easy task, he said.

He initially tried speaking to wardens directly over the phone, only to be
yelled at. Kazama was not discouraged, however, and he responded by having
people around him, including lawyers, support groups and even victims'
kin, write letter after letter to seek approval. 8 months later, Kazama
was finally allowed to enter a prison in Alabama.

"To tell you the truth, I had expected these young people to be monsters,"
Kazama said. "But they were so normal, just like children I would see at
my children's school."

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, there were 72 juvenile
offenders on death row in the United States as of September. Kazama has
met with 20 of them.

Although Kazama has vivid recollections of each boy and girl, there is one
inmate who lingers especially deeply in his heart -- the boy who was the
first of the 20 to be executed.

He had sent Kazama a letter, asking him to witness his execution. After
giving it deep thought, Kazama declined.

"I knew if I saw his execution, I wouldn't be able to go on (with the
project)," he said.

Instead, on that cold night in February 1999, Kazama stayed at home and
waited, quietly watching the clock strike 1 a.m., the time of the 1st
lethal injection, then 1:05 a.m., the second, then 1:10 a.m., the last
one.

"We humans can go on living because we don't know when we are going to
die," Kazama said. "Whether we are in a car accident or fall ill, we don't
know. But (when you are on death row), you know that you are definitely
going to die at that moment."

3 of the inmates he met have been executed, and the emotional strain does
not get any lighter for Kazama. After the first execution, Kazama suffered
severe depression for 3 months.

"It was extremely difficult to return to my project, but I had to," Kazama
said. "Even now, I cannot sleep the night before a visit to the prison."

(source: The Japan Times)

*****************************

On the death penalty

The United States appears to be on a long, slow march away from the death
penalty. And while it may take years or even decades before the journey is
complete, a case pending in the U.S. Supreme Court could move the nation
another step away from a practice that is incompatible with a society
committed to justice.

The question the nine justices are considering is whether the execution of
convicts who were 16 or 17 years old when they committed their crimes
violates the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual
punishments.

The court has already invalidated laws that allowed capital punishment for
anyone under 16, and more recently, those that allow the execution of
mentally retarded people.

The United States is the only democracy in the world that allows such
executions, and while the practice of other nations is not binding on this
one, our isolation on this subject surely suggests that such executions
might be considered "unusual."

Furthermore, as Justice Stephen Breyer observed during oral arguments, any
parent understands the truth of the theory that minors are not fully
formed human beings. Given the availability of other appropriate
punishments for terrible crimes, it seems plausible that those who have
not gained their maturity should not be subject to a punishment that
should, by definition, be used only in the worst cases.

Beyond that is the indisputable fact that innocent people have been
sentenced to death in this country. Nearly 100 of them were turned up on
Illinois' death row just a few years ago, prompting then-Gov. George Ryan
to commute the sentence of every one of the state's condemned prisoners.

The problems are multiple and insurmountable, because they grow out of the
unavoidable influence of human nature.

The court needs to keep moving the country away from a practice that, by
unintentionally condemning the innocent.

(sources: The Buffalo News/Associated Press)

*****************************

Sizing Up Man Who Would Be Atty. Gen.

In November 2000, the Texas Supreme Court, fast shedding its long-standing
reputation as a friend to injured workers and other plaintiffs, did
something unexpected.

Taking the lead was Alberto R. Gonzales, the court's newest member, who
had been appointed by George W. Bush, the governor at the time.

While the presidential election ballots were still being counted in
Florida, the staunchly pro-business court in Texas revived a lawsuit that
had been filed by the family of a deceased metal pourer. The laborer had
died of a lung disease caused by years of exposure to asbestos fibers at
the aluminum plant where he had worked for 25 years.

Lower courts had dismissed the suit because the man had brought a previous
case over another asbestos-related condition he suffered, and state law
barred plaintiffs from filing multiple suits for the same toxic exposure.
But the state's high court, in an opinion written by Gonzales, overturned
that ruling.

"Permitting limitations to run on terminal injuries before the plaintiff
knows of them is unjust," Gonzales wrote. He added that the interests of
the asbestos companies "must be balanced against the plaintiff's need of
an opportunity to seek redress for the gravest injuries, those culminating
in wrongful death."

The opinion by Gonzales, President Bush's nominee to become the next
attorney general, suggests he might be less doctrinaire than his work as
White House counsel indicates.

As counsel to Bush during the last 4 years, Gonzales solicited a memo that
purportedly allowed U.S. operatives to torture suspected terrorists picked
up in Afghanistan. He helped craft rules on the legal status of prisoners
at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that were rejected by the
courts. He has called portions of the Geneva Convention protecting
prisoners of war "obsolete" and "quaint."

But friends and former associates, and even some adversaries, say Gonzales
also has shown a balance that has been obscured in his service to Bush
over the years.

Now, with his presumed ascent to the top of the Justice Department, people
are starting to wonder which Gonzales will show up for work: the relative
moderate who emphasizes a low-key, fact-based approach to the law, or the
ardent advocate who follows the marching orders of his president and
friend and his expansive view of presidential power.

"You have not seen him in the role where he would be making decisions in a
completely independent way. As attorney general you are independently
enforcing the law. As White House counsel, you are advocating the
interests of a client. It is a big difference," said Roland Garcia, a
Houston lawyer, friend and politically active Democrat who considers
himself one of Gonzales' biggest supporters. "You cannot really pigeonhole
Al as conservative or moderate or any of those labels."

James Thompson, a partner at the Houston law firm Vinson & Elkins, where
Gonzales worked a dozen years as a corporate lawyer starting in the early
1980s, said: "There is no question that Al is loyal. But he is also an
attorney, and he is loyal, when at work, to his clients."

"When he is confirmed as attorney general," Thompson said, "his client
will be the United States and the people of the United States, and I would
expect that Al would bring the same sense of loyalty to that job."

But Gonzales illustrates how Bush is turning to friends, cronies and
associates in stocking his second-term Cabinet, and the relationship with
Gonzales may be the closest of them all. Gonzales has been a Bush
confidant for a decade, and the president often cites Gonzales' personal
journey - a migrant workers' son who became a graduate of Harvard Law
School - as personifying his view of the American dream.

"They have the closest, deepest relationship of trust and confidence you
can imagine," Garcia said. "They have connected at a very deep level. They
are soul mates."

The men were introduced in the mid-1990s by another Texan, Harriet Miers,
whom Bush on Nov. 17 named to succeed Gonzales as White House counsel.
That connection seems likely to ensure an extraordinary degree of
cooperation between the Justice Department and the White House  although
some career officials fear it also may compromise or erode the
department's independence.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, which can confirm or reject Gonzales'
nomination, has not set a date for hearings. But it is expected to closely
scrutinize his ties to the president, among other issues.

Democrats are expected to examine Gonzales' role in setting policy in the
war on terrorism. Of particular interest is a legal opinion he solicited
from the Justice Department in August 2002. The memo discussed the
liability of CIA agents for their treatment of suspected Al Qaeda and
Taliban detainees in Afghanistan, and posited a theory that the agents
were exempt from anti-torture laws.

Language in the memo later showed up in a March 2003 report by Pentagon
lawyers assessing interrogation rules governing the Defense Depart- ment's
detention center at Guantanamo Bay. Some suspect the opinion may have
helped set the stage for the mistreatment of prisoners there and at the
Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and plan to ask Gonzales about his level of
involvement.

Democrats have predicted that Gonzales will be easily confirmed, but tests
of his allegiance to the president are likely to come early and often.

They include a year-old special prosecutor's investigation into whether
the White House illegally disclosed the name of a CIA operative to
reporters to embarrass an administration critic, a probe in which Gonzales
has given testimony before a federal grand jury. The FBI is also
investigating Halliburton Co., the energy services company formerly run by
Vice President Dick Cheney.

Gonzales declined to be interviewed for this article. A White House
spokeswoman said he was declining all interview requests until after his
confirmation hearing.

Before Bush, Gonzales' clients were mostly real estate developers and
corporations.

At Vinson & Elkins, he represented a large energy company, Texas Eastern
Transmission Co., which developed a prime downtown office complex known as
the Houston Center. According to the firm's managing partner, Joseph Dilg,
Gonzales also got involved in deal making, helping manufacturing companies
buy and sell assets around the world.

In the early 1990s, Gonzales also did what a Vinson & Elkins spokesman
said was "a small amount of work" for Enron Corp., which was one of the
firm's biggest clients. Enron's former chairman, Kenneth L. Lay, an old
Bush family friend before the firm's spectacular collapse, is among former
Enron executives being prosecuted by the department Gonzales is expected
to soon head.

Vinson & Elkins has done work for Halliburton for years, although Gonzales
did not bill any time to the account, the spokesman said.

In retrospect, the task-oriented work Gonzales performed at Vinson &
Elkins may have been good training for what was to come. Deal lawyers have
clearly defined missions, and their value lies in figuring out ways to
achieve them quickly and efficiently.

As a lawyer, Gonzales' strength became "you tell him what you want, and he
will figure out how to get it," said Mark Lanier, a Houston lawyer who has
observed Gonzales' rise over the years. "He became a coach's dream - you
put him in and tell him what to do, and he will do it."

After hiring Gonzales to serve as general counsel during his 1st term as
Texas governor in 1995, Bush quickly came to rely on him for such delicate
tasks as summarizing clemency petitions Bush received from several dozen
prisoners on the state's jam-packed death row. The work has drawn
criticism from anti-death-penalty groups for allegedly giving short shrift
to the prisoners' arguments - but kudos from Bush in his 1999
autobiography.

Gonzales' famous behind-the-scenes wrangling to help Bush avoid a jury
duty stint in 1996 - and what would have meant the politically awkward
disclosure of an old drunk-driving arrest - remains, to many, the
counselor's savviest move to date. He persuaded a judge that a governor
shouldn't be on a jury in case a pardon ever came up.

The following year, Bush appointed Gonzales secretary of state in Texas,
where Gonzales helped conduct the state's dealings with Mexico and served
as the chief election official. In 1999, Bush appointed him to the Texas
Supreme Court.

On the highly conservative court, Gonzales "was always perceived to be a
moderate," said Craig McDonald, head of Texans for Public Justice, an
Austin nonprofit group that tracks money in Texas politics. According to
McDonald, Gonzales was among a group of Bush nominees to the bench who
were largely "corporate Republicans" rather than "social right-wingers."

Gonzales wrote an opinion that prevented injury victims from filing large
class-action lawsuits, and he ruled against a Fort Worth city
marshal-turned-whistle-blower who alleged that he had been demoted after
exposing municipal corruption.

Gonzales, along with others on the Texas court, took campaign
contributions when he successfully sought election to the court in 2000.
Contributions came from Enron and Halliburton, as well as auto dealers,
medical groups and an antilawsuit group calling itself Texans for Lawsuit
Reform, according to data compiled by McDonald's watchdog group.

But Gonzales did not always side against plaintiffs. For example, he wrote
an opinion allowing an innocent spouse to recover losses from an insurance
company after her estranged husband had burned their house to the ground.
In another case, he ruled that the family of a person killed in a car
crash could sue the state transportation agency, rejecting its claim of
immunity.

Brent Rosenthal, a Dallas lawyer who represented the family in the case of
the metal pourer exposed to asbestos, said he knew he had a strong case
but was still thrilled with the result.

"The Texas Supreme Court, even at that time, had the reputation of being
overwhelmingly pro-business and hostile to anything that might help
injured plaintiffs," he said.

Gonzales joined the majority in a case that interpreted the state's tough
antiabortion law to allow a minor to have an abortion without telling her
parents. The law included a provision granting pregnant girls the right to
petition a court to allow them to have abortions under certain
circumstances without telling their parents.

The case involved a high school senior, 17, who qualified under an
exception for girls who were deemed "mature and sufficiently
well-informed" to make the decision to have an abortion.

Gonzales wrote in a concurring opinion that he was simply interpreting the
intent of the legislation, saying that "while the ramifications - may be
personally troubling to me as a parent - it is my obligation as a judge to
impartially apply the laws of this state without imposing my moral view on
the decisions of the Legislature."

The case nonetheless touched off a political furor and cast Gonzales as a
permanent enemy of religious conservatives.

As White House counsel since January 2001, Gonzales has returned to
assiduously defending his most famous client.

He has moved to shield the White House from outside scrutiny, successfully
fighting efforts by public interest groups to obtain details of meetings
Cheney held with industry while formulating the administration's energy
policy. Gonzales has helped transform the process of selecting federal
judges by personally messaging the American Bar Assn. that Bush was ending
the group's 50-year involvement in screening nominees.

He gave fresh fodder to his conservative critics by helping forge an
administration position in a major affirmative action case last year
before the U.S. Supreme Court that said race could be a consideration in
university admissions.

Whether this track record carries over remains to be seen. His views on
the role of attorney general probably won't be publicly known until his
confirmation hearings. But he has a clear idea of his current role.

"You have to remember, in my current job, I am an advocate for a client
who has an agenda," Gonzales said in an interview with a Texas newspaper
last year. "And my job is to make sure the president has the tools he
needs to pursue that agenda. So there may be some things the president
wants that I personally disagree with. I will confess I think those
instances are rare."

(source: Los Angeles Times)

*********************

Ending the death penalty

I recently heard from Kevin Cronin of California, a long-time reader of
this column who has become a friend via e-mail. He sent me information
about a new booklet titled "Catholics and the Death Penalty, Six Things
You Can Do to End Capital Punishment," written by Robert Hopcke and
published by St. Anthony Messenger.

I immediately picked up the phone and had an encouraging conversation with
Hopcke. He knew I had written a book against the death penalty, asking
Americans to "Choose Mercy." What he didn't know was that I desperately
needed to talk to a "brother" seeking encouragement in our Catholic
efforts to end the death penalty.

In my state of Connecticut, we will soon have our first execution in
nearly 50 years. On Jan. 26, 2005, Michael Ross is to be put to death by
lethal injection. My hope would be that every Catholic parish in
Connecticut would petition Gov. Jodi Rell to grant clemency for Ross, but
for that to happen, it probably would take a miracle.

Few Catholics I have talked to would really want to save Ross, a notorious
serial rapist/killer of 8 young women, by his own count. In 1987 he
received the death sentence for his horrible crimes. Since then, according
to many documented reports, it was learned he had a psychiatric disorder
that turned him into the monster who raped and killed. Medicine he
received in prison has eliminated the uncontrollable urges that drove him
to commit the crimes.

I can hear the taunting responses, and as a mother of a murdered son and
daughter-in-law, I can empathize with them. Yet, in the 17 years since his
conviction I have met with many who got to know Ross --- the "healed"
Ross. One was a Catholic priest who visited him for a long time and said
he had found in Ross "an articulate, very real human being, now being
helped by drugs that control the mental illness that triggered his
horrible actions."

Many who worked with Ross told me that he was "seeking redemption." Yet
Ross would say he also wanted to die so that families of his victims could
perhaps "be relieved of their pain."

Instead, he received a new defense and was assigned a lawyer I am proud to
call a friend, Karen Goodrow. She works to try to end the death sentences
because she sees it "as an honor to try to save their life." And she
acknowledges, "Defending a Michael Ross is a test of your conviction."

With an execution pending in my state, I needed to feel the comfort of
talking to a fellow Catholic as concerned about this issue as I am.
Hopcke's booklet should be in the hands of Catholics, especially those who
may not have read the document written by the Catholic bishops of
Washington state:

"We bishops, as shepherds of the Catholic community, are especially
concerned about the willingness of so many faithful Catholics to accept
capital punishment as a response to violence. Sadly, there appears to be a
chasm between what the church teaches on this issue and what some
Catholics are able to accept. We must bridge this chasm."

(source: "Catholics and the Death Penalty " is available from St. Anthony
Messenger: cgholmes at americancatholic.org----Antoinette Bosco is a
columnist with Catholic News Service; The Tidings)

**********************

In his opinion piece urging California to kill more prisoners faster
["Death penalty is toothless," OpEd, Nov. 22], Lance T. Izumi cites a
state Justice Department official as saying that "no one in California
history who has ever received the death penalty has been later cleared of
his alleged crime." But at least 6 men since 1977 have had their death
sentences overturned and have been released from custody: Oscar Lee
Morris, Lee Perry Farmer, Jerry Bigelow, Troy Lee Jones, Patrick Croy and
Ernest "Shujaa" Graham.

All of these men spent many years in prison before the mistakes that
landed them there were discovered. Hastening the speed of executions only
increases the chance that an innocent person will be executed.

California's death-penalty system has the highest rate of reversals by
federal courts of any state. It is riddled with so many problems that the
state Senate voted to establish the California Commission on the Fair
Administration of Justice, which will study the extent to which the
state's system has failed.

Rather than speeding up, the state should stop killing altogether until
this bipartisan commission can finish its investigation into why so many
mistakes are made. Justice denied has nothing to do with speed, but
accuracy.

Lance G. Lindsey, Executive director

Death Penalty Focus, San Francisco

(source: San Francisco Examiner)

**********************

Why have prisons anyway?

Most people realize that the court and penal systems in North America are
seriously broken and must be fixed, yet contemplating doing away with
penitentiaries sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?

Barely 200 years ago, an experiment began which has cost us untold
billions of dollars. Just last year, this experiment resulted in 1.4
million adults incarcerated in federal and state penitentiaries (a figure
which has quadrupled since 1980) at a cost of nearly $40,000 each.

As Alan Elsner pointed out in a recent Washington Post article, 2.2
million people are engaged in catching criminals and putting and keeping
them behind bars, and "corrections" has become one of the largest sectors
of the U.S. economy, employing more people than the combined work forces
of General Motors, Ford and Wal-Mart, the three biggest corporate
employers in the country. In many "prison town" counties, the No. 1
employer is the Department of Corrections.

This is a staggering expense of more than $50 billion, an amount that
increases by additional billions for each year of the past 25 years of
explosive prison growth.

As the prison population ages, the taxpayer is paying for medical
procedures inmates can't afford, and the victims of these criminals
receive no compensation at all.

Few realize that the 1st penitentiary in the world was founded in
Philadelphia in 1792. Jails had always existed for the purpose of holding
the accused until trial, after which the guilty would pay a fine, make
restitution to the victim, be banished, be executed, etc. However, the
concept of warehousing criminals to cause them to repent was entirely new.

Imagine a criminal justice system where penitentiaries didn't even exist,
but where a person paid for his crimes rather than having society pay to
keep him incarcerated.

One such nation existed. If you stole someone's property, say a sheep, and
were caught with the animal in your possession, you repaid the victim with
two sheep, but you didn't go to a penitentiary. The victim also got a
financial settlement, satisfying the desire for victim restitution in our
time.

If you sold the stolen sheep, thereby being more involved in the crime,
you paid the victim 4 sheep.

If you committed a capital crime, (murder, rape, kidnapping, etc.) you
paid with your life, but you didn't go to a penitentiary. Such facilities
didn't exist in this nation. They were not needed.

Such a system would completely do away with our newest growth industry,
penitentiaries, and restore the victim of crime financially.

I'm not going to tell you where I got the idea for this system, but it's
from a reliable source. Of course, it will never happen here because a
powerful lobby has grown up around the prison system that will fight hard
to protect the status quo. Correction officers have formed powerful labor
unions, and their financial contributions to our politicians will easily
outweigh the will of the people.

I know, I know. I'm such a young man to be so cynical.

(source: Guest Column; Samuel G. Dawson recently returned to Amarillo
after retiring from the aerospace and software industries--in The Amarillo
Globe-News)

FLORIDA:

Death sentences plummet while life terms climb

The number of criminals sentenced to die in Florida has dropped
dramatically after peaking in the late 1980s and early 1990s, while life
sentences without parole have increased.

Of the 365 inmates on Florida's death row, 72 were convicted and sentenced
in central Florida. Among them is David Sylvester Frances, who will learn
within the next two months whether he is condemned to die for strangling
an Orlando woman and her teenage niece 4 years ago.

If he is, the decision will buck a surprising trend: Death sentences
during the past decade have dropped by 53 percent in Florida, and by 50
percent nationally.

Frances would become the 10th person in Florida to receive a death
sentence this year. A decade ago, 39 people were sentenced to die in
Florida. And 20 years ago, 38 received death sentences.

That's a major shift for Florida, which is known for some of the nation's
most infamous executions - including those of serial killers Ted Bundy and
Aileen Wuornos. Florida has a death row that's 3rd in population behind
California and Texas.

There is no single explanation for the trend.

It could reflect the simple fact that more violent criminals are in jail
rather than on the street committing crimes. More likely, some experts
say, it could represent juror ambivalence about capital punishment in
light of a growing number of wrongful convictions.

There was no ambivalence Nov. 2, when jurors overwhelmingly recommended
death for Frances, leaving the final decision to Circuit Judge John H.
Adams.

But such decisions are increasingly rare. Since 1999, only three other
convicted murderers in Orange and Osceola counties have received the death
penalty. One of them was the retrial and resentencing of an earlier case.

"There are concerns about the fairness of the death penalty being voiced
in lots of different places and in lots of different ways," said Michael
Radelet, a former University of Florida professor who has studied
Florida's death-penalty system for years. "I think the trend is away from
the death penalty."

Prosecutors say stricter penalties for repeat offenders have removed many
potential killers from society. They say that helps explain the statewide
increase in life sentences and the drop in death sentences. And they say
the death penalty continues to be reserved for killers considered the
"worst of the worst."

Death-row peak in '80s

In the late 1980s, 50 people were added to the state's death row during
one 12-month period. And through the mid-1990s, it wasn't unusual to see
30 or 40 convicted criminals sentenced to death in a year.

But during the past two fiscal years, the number of people sentenced to
death statewide fell to 9 and 10 per year, respectively.

Florida's trend mirrors national statistics released in September by the
Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center which reported a
50 % drop in death sentences nationwide from the 1990s to the 2000s. In
Florida, the group found a 53 % drop during that period.

"The first reason is the public's awareness of the mistakes the
death-penalty system has made," said Richard C. Dieter, the organization's
executive director. "That has caused a skepticism."

Beyond an increased awareness that some innocent people have ended up on
death row and a possible shift in public sentiment about capital
punishment, Dieter said, the costs of prosecuting death cases and later
defending death sentences figure into the trend as well.

"Prosecutors are seeing death-penalty cases are going to cost an enormous
amount of time and money," he said.

The expanded use of DNA testing to prove someone's guilt or innocence also
has played a significant role in the decrease, according to the group's
study.

Nationwide, since 1973, 117 people have been freed from death row after
new evidence surfaced about those sentenced or other legal challenges
succeeded, according to DPIC. Florida leads the nation in the number of
people sentenced to death row and later exonerated or released: at least
21.

Though most Americans continue to support the death penalty, a growing
number also appear willing to consider life in prison without parole as an
option, the DPIC study concludes.

Judges still have the final say in determining a death sentence, but a
U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2002 gave juries more power in the
decision-making process. Judges should go along with a jury's "advisory
sentence" and may not override a jury's life recommendation with a death
sentence. Before the ruling, they could.

Radelet, the former UF professor now teaching at the University of
Colorado, said a combination of Florida's life-without-parole law, the
high costs involved with prosecuting death cases and news of the
exonerations have all contributed to the drop.

"The trend is toward restriction, if not abolition," he said.

Various reasons for drop

Prosecuting attorneys suspect different factors at play. Some say lower
murder rates, appellate-court decisions and tougher laws requiring lengthy
sentences for repeat and violent offenders have had an impact.

Others suggest the length of time inmates languish on death row before
they are executed may be a factor in discouraging some prosecutors from
seeking death sentences. In Florida, inmates stay an average of 11.85
years on death row before execution, according to the state Department of
Corrections.

State Attorney Willie Meggs, president of the Florida Prosecuting
Attorneys Association, said prosecutors and families of victims often
become frustrated by the infrequency with which executions are carried
out. Meggs said he must explain to victims' families in potential
death-penalty cases the reality of capital punishment in Florida: Death
often means life with appeals.

"I tell them, 'If we get the death penalty, this is not over, and it will
probably not be over within your lifetime,' " Meggs said. Sometimes
families of victims looking for "closure" prefer to see a life sentence
rather than a death sentence followed by a decade of appeals, he said.

Abe Bonowitz of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, a
Gainesville-based group that opposes death sentences, said wrongful
convictions and meaningful life sentences have probably swayed many
jurors.

"The jury pool and people in general are becoming more concerned with
evidence of unfairness in the system," Bonowitz said. "And people are more
aware that life without parole means exactly that. That satisfies
society's need to be safe and to punish."

Life sentences on rise

As the state's death sentences have dropped, the number of life sentences
has increased from 388 in 1995-96 to 489 in 2002-03.

Meanwhile, the state's murder count has dropped from more than 1,000 per
year during the mid- and late-1990s to 924 last year, according to Florida
Department of Law Enforcement statistics.

These figures support other theories for the drop in death sentences.

Randy Means, a spokesman for Orange-Osceola State Attorney Lawson Lamar,
said tough-on-crime measures, such as "10-20-life" legislation and minimum
mandatory sentences, have "taken a number of would-be murderers off the
street."

In 1999, Lamar's office sent four people to death row from Orange County.
But in nearly 5 years since then, the office has won just 2 additional
death sentences in Orange and Osceola, according to DOC death-row
statistics.

David Frances likely will become just the 3rd new death-row inmate - since
1999 - to emerge from the 9th Judicial Circuit.

In November 2000, Frances and his younger brother went to the Orlando home
of Helena Mills and her teenage niece Jo Anna Charles. The brothers
strangled the women, whom they both knew, and then made off with jewelry,
a computer-game system and Mills' car.

"It was a double homicide, and it was the egregious manner in which they
were killed: manually with both hands and with a cord," said Assistant
State Attorney Mark Wixtrom, explaining why he sought the death penalty in
the Frances case. "These two innocent ladies in their home were killed by
this man who knew them."

Seminole-Brevard State Attorney Norman Wolfinger said appellate-court
decisions defining the kinds of cases that warrant death sentences and
tougher laws punishing repeat offenders have played a role in the decrease
as have other factors.

The combination means many of Florida's "worst monsters" are already in
prison before they have the chance to be tried in a death case, Wolfinger
said.

Meanwhile, potential death-sentence cases are scrutinized more now than
10, 15 or 20 years ago, Wolfinger said, because prosecutors and victims'
family members know that life means life and that the courts will reverse
certain cases.

"There's no sense in getting the death penalty if it's going to be
reversed," said Wolfinger, who acknowledged that a death-penalty
recommendation has become more difficult to win over the years.

"It was easier. Now it's not easy at all. The burden should be high," he
said. "We are truly getting to the worst of the worst now," he said.

Despite the decline in death sentences, Wolfinger said he doesn't foresee
a repeal of capital punishment in his lifetime.

"It's a necessary punishment for people who have an absolute disregard for
human life," he said.

(source: Knight Ridder Tribune News)

********************

Gumshoe goes extra mile for accused clients----English major turns private
eye

Monica Jordan, a petite new mom, almost looks like a college kid. You
wouldn't think she just helped spare a guy the death sentence.

Jordan, a private investigator in Tallahassee, played a big part in last
week's acquittal of Andre McKenzie, charged in the 1996 murder of
14-year-old Kenrick Burney. The shooting resulted from a disagreement over
crack cocaine, according to reports.

Lawyers said Jordan found the witness, Tony White, who testified that he
saw the murder - and McKenzie wasn't the shooter. He even named the man he
saw do it.

"Without her, we may not have been able to win the case," said Ethan
Andrew Way, one of McKenzie's attorneys. White "was homeless; he didn't
want to be involved. She found the needle in a haystack. Then she made him
want to talk to us."

In a line of work often populated by burly, retired cops, Jordan's secret
weapons may be her appearance and her manner. She downplays both.

"You sit down and you chit-chat," she said, with a wave of her hand.
"There's really no science to it."

The 5-foot-5 gumshoe has pounded pavements in the toughest neighborhoods
looking for witnesses needed to testify in the criminal cases she's
working on.

She once stripped to her underwear in a Prince Murat Motel room to prove
to a reluctant witness she wasn't wearing a wire.

"Not my shoes, though; I left those on," she said. "I didn't want my feet
touching that carpet."

She also has a 7-month-old daughter, Madeline, with husband Grady Jordan
Jr., a Leon County Sheriff's vice detective.

"It's tough sometimes, but she's been doing this for years," he said. "I
trust her. Of course, I also make her call and check in so I know she's
OK."

Monica Jordan, a petite new mom, almost looks like a college kid. You
wouldn't think she just helped spare a guy the death sentence.

Jordan, a private investigator in Tallahassee, played a big part in last
week's acquittal of Andre McKenzie, charged in the 1996 murder of
14-year-old Kenrick Burney. His shooting resulted from a disagreement over
crack cocaine, according to reports.