[Deathpenalty]death penalty news----GA., FLA., N.C., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Mar. 1


GEORGIA----execution

Final efforts fail; killer Mobley dies


Convicted killer Stephen Anthony Mobley was put to death by lethal
injection Tuesday, despite furious last-minute efforts to spare his life.

Mobley, 39, of Lawrenceville was declared dead at 8 p.m., shortly after
Georgia Department of Corrections officials administered a deadly mix of
three chemicals through his veins at the state prison in Butts County.

Mobley was sentenced to death for the 1991 shooting death of 24-year-old
John Collins of Sandy Springs, a college student working as a night manger
at a Domino's Pizza in Hall County.

Mobley shot Collins in the back of his head during an armed robbery. He
then robbed at gunpoint 6 more restaurants and dry cleaners during a
3-week period, authorities said.

Nina Collins, John Collins' mother, asked the state parole board Friday to
spare Mobley's life. Nina Collins, a Christian, said through her
son-in-law Bill Finch that no measure of satisfaction or closure would
come to the family as a result of Mobley's execution. The parole board
denied Mobley's plea to have his sentence commuted to life in prison
without the possibility of parole.

Unlike most inmates on death row who are indigent, Mobley's family was
able to hire private attorneys to fight his execution. Mobley was
represented by former state Attorney General Mike Bowers and former DeKalb
County District Attorney J. Tom Morgan.

In a recorded statement taken shortly before the execution, Mobley thanked
his family "for their support and prayers through this seemingly unending
struggle," said state prison spokeswoman Peggy Chapman. He also thanked
the Collins family "for their mercy and forgiveness." State prison
officials said Mobley ate most of his requested meal. He appeared nervous
but refused a sedative offered inmates nearing execution, Chapman said.

Mobley's alleged lack of remorse and behavior in jail while awaiting trial
for Collins' killing may have played a role in his execution, his lawyers
said.

Testimony during his trial indicated that Mobley had "Domino" tattooed on
his back, hung a Domino's Pizza box in his cell and twice forcibly
sodomized his cellmate.

Bowers claims he has personally confirmed that Mobley has no tattoo that
reads "Domino." The Department of Corrections confirmed that such a tattoo
does not appear on Mobley's body.

But board Chairman Milton E. "Buddy" Nix Jr. apparently suggested in the
clemency hearing that such tattoos can be covered over.

Bowers claims the pizza box was hung in Mobley's cell only to divert air
from a vent. He also argued that Mobley never was charged with the sexual
assaults against his cellmate.

Mobley becomes the 2nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in
Georgia and the 38th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in
1983.

Mobley becomes the 6th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in
the USA and the 950th overall since America resumed executions on January
17, 1977.

There are 10 more executions scheduled in the USA this month.

(sources: Atlanta Journal-Constitution & Rick Halperin)

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

Death penalty ruling praised by Carter, could save 2 Ga inmates


Former President Jimmy Carter praised Tuesday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling
banning the execution of juvenile killers, a decision that may spare two
of Georgia's convicted killers from their death sentences.

Carter, along with several other Nobel Prize winners, filed a
friend-of-the-court brief in the case last year. He said in a statement
issued Tuesday that the court's decision affirms national and
international sentiment on the issue and is consistent with other laws
that declare 18 the age of responsibility.

"This ruling acknowledges the profound inconsistency in prohibiting those
under 18 years of age from voting, serving in the military, or buying
cigarettes, while allowing them to be sentenced to the ultimate
punishment," Carter said in a statement.

In Georgia, the decision could change the sentences of Larry Jenkins and
Exzavious Gibson, both 17 when they committed murder.

Jenkins, now 29, killed Terry Ralston and her teenage son, Michael, in
southeast Georgia's Wayne County in 1995. The victims were reported
missing when they failed to return from a coin laundry in Jesup. Their
bodies were found the next day, and Jenkins and three other men were later
seen in the Ralstons' van.

Gibson, now 32, killed Douglas Coley in middle Georgia's Dodge County. His
case gained national attention when Gibson - considered borderline
retarded with an I.Q. of less than 80 - represented himself at his 1st
appeal, which was denied.

The Georgia Department of Corrections says they are the state's only
death-row inmates who committed their crimes as juveniles. Neither Gibson
nor Jenkins had an execution date scheduled.

Attorney General's Office spokesman Russ Willard said Tuesday that based
on Tuesday's ruling the death sentences for Gibson and Jenkins are now
invalid. Scheree Lipscomb with the Department of Corrections says her
agency is working with the attorney general's office on how to proceed,
including when to move Gibson and Jenkins off death row.

"Our office is currently reviewing the U.S. Supreme Court's decision and
the application to the two inmates in Georgia," Willard said.

The question, he added, is whether the men will have to be resentenced or
whether their sentences will be automatically commuted to life
imprisonment.

The only juvenile killer that has been executed in Georgia was Christopher
Burger, who was put to death in 1993 at the age of 33. He was 17 when he
killed a Fort Stewart soldier.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Ruling takes 2 in Georgia off death row


The U.S. Supreme Court delivered good news Tuesday to two death row
inmates in Georgia.

Larry Jenkins, convicted of a 1993 double murder in Jesup, and Exzavious
Gibson, convicted of the 1990 killing of a grocer in Eastman, were both 17
at the time they committed their crimes.

When Jenkins learned of the decision, he screamed for joy, his sister
Felicia Green said. "I feel truly blessed. We've been praying and
praying," she said. "It's something that's been hard on us over the
years."

But prosecutors and victims' relatives condemned the decision.

"We're all kind of sick about it," said Stephen Kelley, the district
attorney in Wayne County, where Jenkins committed the murders.

"He [Jenkins] executed a mother and son," Kelley said. "Kidnapped them
from a laundromat, took them out to the railroad tracks and executed them
in cold blood."

On Jan. 8, 1993, Terry Ralston and her 15-year-old son, Michael, drove to
their family-owned laundromat in Jesup, in southeastern Georgia, to
collect the coins and close for the night. The next day, their bodies were
found face down in a ditch. Michael had been shot six times from behind at
close range, and his mother had been shot once at the base of her skull.

On Tuesday, prosecutor Kelley said he objects to the Supreme Court's
creating a "hard, fast rule" that a murderer under 18 can't get the death
penalty. "I'd rather it be left up to the jury," he said.

Alan Ralston, 55, lost his wife and oldest son that night in 1993. On
Tuesday, he said he was stunned and confused by the court's decision.

"The jurors made the decision that he should be executed," said Ralston,
who thought that decision was final. On Tuesday, he said he couldn't sort
out his feelings about Jenkins leaving death row.

"The worry is starting all over again," Ralston said. "I'm getting more
and more tense. Something in my stomach. I don't know quite how to
describe it."

Ralston, a flea market vendor who now lives in Savannah, said he had
opposed the death penalty before his wife and son were slain. "My views
changed quite a lot after that happened," he said.

He was left to raise two younger sons with the help of his wife's parents.
He lost his job as a snack food salesman, he said, "because I was not
altogether there." In 2003, he said, he lost another son to a drug
overdose.

Ralston's youngest, Josh, 22, said the murders "tore our family apart for
a while." He lives on St. Simons Island and is a restaurant cook.

"It just seems outrageous to me that they can turn something like that
around," the younger Ralston said. "He was supposed to die for taking
somebody else's life."

In the central Georgia town of Eastman, news that Douglas Coley's killer
would be taken off death row stirred up disturbing questions for the
victim's father, Norman "Buddy" Coley, 83.

"What are they going to do?" he said. "Turn him out? He'll kill somebody
else."

Russ Willard, spokesman for the Georgia attorney general's office, said
the court's ruling invalidated the death sentences of Gibson and Jenkins.

Scheree Lipscomb, a Department of Corrections spokeswoman, said her agency
is working with the attorney general's office on how to proceed.

The question, Willard said, is whether the men will have to be resentenced
or whether their sentences will be automatically commuted to life
imprisonment.

Buddy Coley described Douglas, his only son, as an honest man who operated
the family-owned grocery store.

He was stabbed to death on Feb. 2, 1990. An autopsy found 39 "stab and
slash and superficial cut wounds" on his body. The knife blade had broken
off in his neck.

On Tuesday, Buddy Coley recalled the hopes that died with his 46-year-old
son. "We were planning the next year that I would turn the business over
to him. We had other plans. And when he killed him, that broke up the
plans we had together."

Coley closed the store.

"I can't understand our government," he said. "They want to do right, and
then they want to do wrong. Make a law, and then change it. I don't know.
I don't know what's going to happen with America."

But one of Gibson's lawyers, Courtland Reichman, called the ruling "great
news" for his client.

"The death penalty, as administered, is intended to be reserved for the
most culpable offenders, that is, the worst offenders," Reichman said. "In
the majority of cases, minors are less culpable."

(source: Associated Press)






FLORIDA:

Palm Beach man, 2 other Floridians on Death Row benefit from court ruling
on juveniles


3 Florida death row inmates who killed as teenagers got a reprieve Tuesday
when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it would be unconstitutional to
execute anyone who murdered before they turned 18.

Two of them, an inmate who killed an auto parts clerk and another who
executed an elderly woman after a rape and robbery, will still spend the
rest of their lives in prison. But the third, who murdered a couple who
were camping, may be eligible for parole in a few years because he was
sentenced under an old state law, a state legislator said.

The nation's high court ruled executing someone for a murder committed as
a juvenile would violate the constitutional ban on cruel punishment. The
5-4 decision stemmed from an appeal in a death case in Missouri, one of 19
states that allowed the execution of juveniles.

In Florida, the state Supreme Court ruled in 1999 that the state
constitution banned the execution of 16-year-olds. But the constitutional
provision was changed in 2002, creating the possibility that murderers
that age could be executed.

For the last several years, state Sen. Victor Crist has sponsored a bill
to ban juvenile executions but the legislation never passed.

Crist, R-Tampa, said he was pleased by the result of the ruling but
thought that the action should have been taken by lawmakers, not judges.

"I'm disappointed that the court had to be the one to act on this," Crist
said. "To me, this is overstepping their authority."

The head of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, a group
opposed to capital punishment, called Tuesday's development a good step
forward.

"Now our state will bring its law into line with international law," Abe
Bonowitz said. "We no longer have Iran as a partner in the juvenile death
penalty."

The 3 death row inmates who will have their sentences reduced to life in
prison are Cleo LeCroy, James Bonifay and Nathan Ramirez.

LeCroy, now 41, was convicted of fatally shooting a newlywed couple from
Miami-Dade who were camping in rural Palm Beach County south of Lake
Okeechobee in January 1981.

The bodies of John and Gail Hardeman were discovered a week after they
failed to return home. Hardeman was killed by shot in the head; Gail
Hardeman had been shot in the head, neck and chest.

Former Gov. Bob Martinez signed a death warrant for LeCroy in May 1990 but
the state Supreme Court granted a stay of execution the following month.

Because the murders were committed in 1981, LeCroy may be eligible for
parole after serving 25 years, Crist said.

Defendants convicted of 1st-degree murder now are sentenced to either
death or life in prison without the possibility of parole. But the options
when LeCroy killed the Hardemans was death or life in prison with parole
eligibility after 25 years.

Crist said he hoped that parole would not be granted to a person who had
killed. "You should not be allowed back in society," he said.

Bonifay, now 31, was condemned for the mistaken identity shooting death of
Billy Wayne Coker in Pensacola in 1991. Bonifay meant to kill Daniel
Wells, a clerk at an auto parts store whom Bonifay's cousin blamed for
getting him fired. But Wells called in sick and was replaced by Billy
Wayne Coker, whom Bonifay shot and killed.

Ramirez, now 27, was condemned for the murder of 71-year-old Mildred
Boroski in March 1995.

Boroski, a widow, was in bed at her Pasco County home hours after her
birthday party when Ramirez, then 17, and an 18-year-old friend broke in,
hoping to steal gifts and money.

They tied her to her bed, killed her dog with a crowbar and looted the
house. Ramirez told detectives the 18-year-old raped Boroski before the
teens put her in her car, drove her to a field, forced her to get out and
walk into the field and lie down.

Ramirez then shot Boroski twice in the head.

Ramirez was sentenced to death in 1996 but the Florida Supreme Court
overturned both the conviction and the sentence. He was tried again in
2003 and convicted and condemned a second time.

(source: Associated Press)






NORTH CAROLINA:

Ruling Will Take 4 N.C. Killers off Death Row


4 men, including a notorious Cumberland County killer, will be taken off
North Carolina's death row after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it is
unconstitutional to execute underaged killers.

OFF DEATH ROW

In addition to Kevin Golphin, Tuesday's ruling will take 3 other N.C.
inmates off death row:

Travis Walters, 24, convicted of the January 1998 murder of Betty Jane
Oxendine of Rowland at the Hardee's restaurant in Lumberton where she
worked.

Thomas Mark Adams, 34, sentenced to death for the Dec. 13, 1987, robbery
and murder of a 70-year-old woman in Iredell County.

Lamorris Chapman, 22, convicted of the July 2000 murder of Seleana
Nesbitt, 16. Nesbitt was killed when a spray of bullets struck her and
another teen from behind as they traveled home from a Zebulon nightclub.

All 4 will be shifted to other custody once the state receives paperwork
detailing the Supreme Court's ruling, corrections spokeswoman Pamela
Walker said Tuesday. Their lawyers must also file motions seeking to have
their death sentences overturned, citing the Supreme Court ruling.

The new terms of custody and their sentences -- including whether they
will be eligible for parole -- will depend on a variety of factors,
including when they were convicted, she said.

The high court's ruling Tuesday in a Missouri case affects about 70 cases
in 19 states that allow the execution of people whose crimes were
committed when they were not yet 18.

Ruling Affects Well-Known Cumberland County Case

Tuesday's ruling will take Kevin Golphin off death row. Golphin and his
brother, Tilmon, killed a Cumberland County deputy and state trooper on
Interstate 95 in September 1997. Kevin Golphin was 17 years old at the
time of the killings.

The widow of one of the slain officers tells Eyewitness News that she is
furious with the justices' decision.

"I'm angry," said Dixie Lowry Davis. "I am reeling from the fact that it's
so disgusting that the Supreme Court could do this. It's just amazing to
me. I don't know what they looked at to come to this decision, but to me,
they came at the decision without trying to talk to victims' families."

Davis believes the justices opened a Pandora's box with their decision.

Cumberland County District Attorney Ed Grannis disagrees with the ruling.
In a statement Tuesday, he told Eyewitness News, "Those two individuals
committed as bad a crime as any 20- or 25-year old. Clearly, the jury took
the defendants' ages into account when they sentenced them to death."

Cumberland County Sheriff Moose Butler, who lost one of his deputies in
the double murder, says local jurors made the right decision in the
Golphin brothers' case.

"I supported that decision from my standpoint as the sheriff," he said.
"I'm very much disappointed in the Supreme Court, but they're the highest
court in the land. So we accept their ruling, and of course, we abide by
it."

The ruling does not affect Tilmon Golphin, who was 19 at the time of the
killings.

Death Penalty Opponents Applaud Ruling

Opponents of the death penalty saw Tuesday's Supreme Court ruling as a
major victory.

"In executing juvenile offenders, the United States was a member of an
exclusive and shrinking club that includes Iran and Saudi Arabia," said
Stephen Dear, executive director of People of Faith Against the Death
Penalty. "It is right and proper that our country, founded on faith,
fairness and freedom, has removed itself from such a club."

It also is further evidence that the "North Carolina needs to suspend
executions and examine how and whom we are sending to death row,"
according to David Neal, spokesman for the N.C. Coalition for a
Moratorium.

(source: ABC 11 News)






USA:

Juveniles will evade death penalty, not harsh justice


When it comes to decisions about applying the death penalty, Christopher
Simmons is not a sympathetic figure. As a 17-year-old high school junior
in suburban St. Louis, he told his friends he wanted to murder someone,
and he did.

He and an accomplice burglarized a neighbor's house, hog-tied the woman
inside and threw her off a railroad bridge to drown. Later, he bragged to
others about what he had done.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court spared Simmons' life. It agreed with
Missouri's Supreme Court that applying the death penalty to crimes
committed by juveniles is cruel and unusual punishment, barred by the
Constitution.

The decision, affecting cases of 71 other juveniles on death row in 12
states, was quickly interpreted by death-penalty advocates as an
invitation to murder. But that is a phony issue. The question isn't
whether to be tough on heinous crimes, but rather how best to be tough.
Tuesday's 5-4 decision is one more swipe by the court at unfairness,
discrimination and appalling errors in the handling of the death penalty.

For 30 years, the court has struggled to decide whether society's maximum
penalty can be applied fairly. In dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia argued
for leaving that judgment to states. But they've tried and they've failed.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, which monitors the
subject closely, since 1973 at least 118 prisoners have been released from
death row because of evidence that they had been wrongly convicted or
wrongly sentenced.

The court has had to deal repeatedly with states' unwillingness to deliver
evenhanded justice. Courts have failed to ensure competent legal defense.
Flawed evidence has been used and exculpatory evidence hidden.

Judges have neglected to give juries proper instruction and have allowed
racial discrimination in jury selection. In one of the uglier areas of
concern, the odds of receiving a death sentence are 3 or 4 times greater
when the victim is white than if the victim is a minority.

In 2002, the high court stopped states from executing the mentally
retarded. Tuesday's ruling brings U.S. law on executing juveniles in line
with the rest of the world. "The age of 18 is the point where society
draws the line for many purposes between childhood and adulthood," Justice
Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority.

The court's action spared the lives of Simmons and other teen killers,
such as Washington-area sniper Lee Malvo. It does not mean, however, that
vicious and remorseless juvenile predators should not be permanently
removed from society.

They should be sentenced to life without chance for parole. The idea of
being locked in a tiny cell for decades is no less a deterrent. But it
leaves room to correct the egregious errors that have come to seem so
common.

(source: USA Today)

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

US Supreme Court Abolishes Juvenile Death Penalty -- End of Execution of
Juvenile Offenders Proves Science Right


John Heffernan, Physicians for Human Rights


Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) applauds todays Supreme Court decision
to abolish the juvenile death penalty. In a 5 to 4 decision the Supreme
Court struck down the constitutionality of the death penalty for youths
under eighteen at the time of the crime. Leading up to the case, Roper v.
Simmons, PHR released a Health Professionals Call to Abolish the Death
Penalty, endorsed by hundreds of leading child and adolescent
psychiatrists and psychologists, neurologists, pediatricians and
behavioral experts based on a widespread scientific consensus that minors
"do not yet possess the maturity and mental capacities required to justify
the imposition of the ultimate adult punishment."

"We are thrilled about the decision," said Leonard Rubenstein, Executive
Director of Physicians for Human Rights. "It provides a legal grounding
for what scientists have shown: that kids are different from adults.
Brains of young people are underdeveloped, particularly in the areas that
dictate reason, impulse control and decision-making. To impose
expectations of adult-level capacities on the thinking and behavior of
minors has always been unreasonable, especially when the most severe adult
punishment is at hand."

Research shows that the part of the brain that controls such behavior, and
which also permits anticipation of consequences, consideration of
alternatives, planning and organization of sequential behavior, does not
fully mature until at least the age of eighteen. There is also significant
evidence indicating that adolescents most likely to be subject to the
death penalty have been subject to abuse.

A recent study conducted by world renowned psychiatrist Dorothy Otnow
Lewis, published in December 2004 in the Journal of the American Academy
of Psychiatry and the Law, examined 18 death row inmates in Texas who were
sentenced for crimes committed at the age of 17. Researchers examined
psychiatric and neurological functions in addition to available medical,
psychological, educational, social and familial data in order to clarify
the ways in which immaturity and trauma of the brain, psychiatric illness
and violent and abusive upbringings heighten the risk of impulsive and
often violent behavior in youth. The study shows that all but one subject
experienced serious head traumas in childhood and adolescence, all
subjects had signs of prefrontal brain dysfunction, fifteen had one or
more severe mental illnesses and all but one came from extremely violent
families and were severely neglected and physically and sexually abused.

The Health Professionals' Call to Abolish also states that childhood
abuse, neglect and mental impairment can further diminish adolescents'
lesser cognitive and emotional capacities. These kinds of disturbances
inhibit natural growth and development and profoundly exacerbate the
existing vulnerabilities of youth.

(source: Physicians for Human Rights (Founded in 1986, Physicians for
Human Rights mobilizes the health professions to advance the health and
dignity of all people. As a founding member of the International Campaign
to Ban Landmines, PHR shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize)

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

Juvenile execution banned for 3 reasons -- Supreme Court decision uses
controversial rationale


The Supreme Court declared the execution of anyone under the age of 18 to
be unconstitutional on Tuesday, effectively ending a practice used in 19
states. NBC's Justice Correspondent, Pete Williams, explains the
implications of the ruling.

What was the rationale for the court's decision?

Pete Williams: The court analyzed the question of whether it is
constitutional to execute offenders who were 16 or 17 when they committed
their crimes, under the Eighth Amendment, which bars cruel and unusual
punishment.

What the court said it had to do is see if there is "an emerging national
consensus" on the question and it concluded there is.

Some of this is mathematical. The court says that of the states that still
had the juvenile death penalty, five of them in the past 15 years have
decided to ban it, through legislation or court decision. In the rest of
the states, the number of juvenile executions has dropped.

The 2nd reason the court cited is the scientific evidence.

The court said there is widespread agreement among mental health experts
that people under the age of 18, in general, are less morally responsible
for their crimes: their minds are less well developed, they're more
susceptible to peer pressure and they're less culpable, morally, for what
they do. The court said there is less evidence that people under 18 are
irretrievably immoral. And the decision says, there's a greater
possibility for these people to improve their characters.

Finally, the court said - and I think this is a very controversial part of
the decision, sure to be widely debated - if you look around at what the
rest of the world is doing, the United States is the only country left
that still executes offenders who were 16 and 17 when they committed
murderers.

It said look at the number of countries who, within the past five to ten
years have moved away from it  Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the Congo.
America is one of the only ones left. And therefore, the Supreme Court
says the international community has moved away from it as well. The court
said that's also a reason the death penalty should be struck down for
juvenile offenders.

It was a close decision. What was the minority point of view? In the 5-4
decision, the dissent was very spirited. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing
for the 4 dissenters - Scalia, Sandra Day O'Conner, Clarence Thomas, and
Chief Justice William Rehnquist - said the court's math is all wrong. The
reason states don't execute as many juveniles now, Scalia said, is that
juries are capable of taking youth into account.

Justice Scalia bitterly denounced the majority's reliance on international
law. He says it is entirely inappropriate for the Supreme Court to look at
what the rest of the world is doing, because the Supreme Court doesn't do
that all the time. The court, he says, just picks and chooses times when
it wants to look at international consensus. It doesn't do it on abortion,
he says.

He thinks that is not the way for the United States Supreme Court to
interpret the U.S. Constitution.

(source: MSNBC)

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

Police Group Criticizes 5-4 Supreme Court Ruling Ending Death Penalty for
Teens; Sharply Divided Court Further Erodes America's Justice System


Contact: Kevin Watson of the Law Enforcement Alliance of America,
571-212-0929

The Law Enforcement Alliance of America (LEAA) called Tuesday's sharply
divided Supreme Court ruling ending the death penalty for 16- and
17-year-old murderers, an "abomination of justice". LEAA spokesman Kevin
H. Watson noted the Court's sharp division on this subject and insisted it
was a sign of the strong need to appoint the right judges. "As the Supreme
Court has shown in this decision, there are some judges who want to weaken
our criminal justice system and some who do not, the public needs to pay
more attention to the views of people appointed to the bench."

The Supreme Court's decision will free an estimated 70 convicted murderers
from death row, solely because they were 16 or 17 at the time they
committed their brutal crimes. "The Court today decided that an arbitrary
age number is worthy of deciding if someone is culpable enough to be held
accountable for their actions - we feel that the trial courts and the jury
should have the right to examine each case individually and decide based
on the facts involved, not just a number," said LEAA's Kevin H. Watson.

The Law Enforcement Alliance of America is one of the nation's leading
advocates for the death penalty. LEAA staff have testified on the subject
in many state legislatures and LEAA spokesmen are frequent advocates for
the death penalty in the national media.

(source: U.S. Newswire (With over 75,000 Members and Supporters
nationwide, the Law Enforcement Alliance of America (LEAA) is the nation's
largest coalition of law enforcement professionals, crime victims, and
concerned citizens dedicated to making America safer. http://www.leaa.org
)

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

A look at some of the inmates affected by the decision


Here are some of the people on death row who were under age 18 when their
crimes were committed:

ARIZONA:

Kenneth Laird was convicted of 1st-degree murder in the 1992 death of a
woman who owned a pickup truck that witnesses said he wanted. Laird was 17
when, according to prosecutors, he broke into Wanda Starnes' Scottsdale
home while she was at work.

When Starnes returned home, he tied, gagged and locked her in a bathroom.
He then slept in her bed. When he awoke, he choked Starnes with a rope and
bashed her skull. He drove her body to the desert to bury her, blood
dripping from the truck. Laird spent the next few days driving her truck
and forging checks from her account, prosecutors said.

FLORIDA:

Nathan Ramirez, was sentenced to death for the murder of 71-year-old
Mildred Boroski in March 1995, when he was 17. Boroski, a widow, was in
bed sleeping hours after her birthday party when Ramirez and an
18-year-old friend broke into her home, hoping to steal gifts and money.

They tied her to her bed, killed her dog with a crowbar and looted the
house. Ramirez told detectives the 18-year-old raped Boroski before the
teens put her in her car, drove her to a field, forced her to get out and
walk into the field and lie down.

Ramirez then shot Boroski twice in the head. He was sentenced to death in
1996 but the Florida Supreme Court overturned both the conviction and the
sentence. He was tried again in 2003 and convicted and condemned a second
time.

LOUISIANA:

Dale Dwayne Craig was convicted of the Sept. 14, 1992 killing of Kipp
Gullet, a student at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, who was
ambushed, abducted and had his van stolen after pulling into a dormitory
parking lot.

According to co-defendants who testified against Craig, who was 17 at the
time of the killing, the victim cried and begged for mercy. Craig fired 3
bullets into his head as the victim lay on the ground in a fetal position.

In 1999, Craig was 1 of 4 death row inmates at the Louisiana State
Penitentiary who escaped for a short time on the prison grounds (the
prison is like a giant plantation) and were recaptured near the
Mississippi River where they apparently intended to float across on a
crude raft.

MISSISSIPPI:

Stephen Virgil McGilberry, was sentenced to die for killing four members
of his family in 1994 with a baseball bat when he was 16. He claimed he
didn't know what he was saying when he confessed to police.

He was convicted on four capital murder charges in the deaths of his
stepfather, Kenneth Purifoy; mother, Patricia Purifoy; stepsister,
Kimberly Self; and step-nephew, Kristopher Self, in the family's St.
Martin home in Jackson County.

NORTH CAROLINA:

Kevin Golphin was 17 in September 1997, when prosecutors said he and his
brother Tilmon, 19, robbed a finance company worker in Kingstree, S.C.,
then stole a car and drove north on Interstate 95. They were stopped by a
North Carolina Highway Patrol trooper, and a Cumberland County Sheriff's
deputy arrived to provide backup.

Tilmon Golphin opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle and, as the officers
lay bleeding, Kevin Golphin shot both men fatally at point-blank range.

A jury sentenced them to death in May 1998, a sentence that the N.C.
Supreme Court upheld in 2000. Tilmon Golphin, now 26, remains on death row
at Raleigh's Central Prison.

PENNSYLVANIA:

Kevin Hughes was a week short of his 17th birthday when he murdered a
9-year-old girl in a vacant house in March 1979. Hughes, now 42, abducted
Rochelle Graham from a school playground, then sexually assaulted and
strangled her before setting her body on fire.

The crime went unsolved for 10 months, until another girl, 13, identified
Hughes' photograph to police after she also was attacked and sexually
assaulted. Hughes was sentenced to death for the murder.

SOUTH CAROLINA:

Eric Morgan was sent to death last March for killing a clerk at a
Spartanburg County convenience store during a robbery in 2000, when he was
17. Prosecutors said Morgan waited for 57-year-old Jerry Smith to close
the store, then shot him once in the head with a .22 caliber rifle from a
parked car and took more than $7,000 cash.

Investigators also found a pipe bomb that Morgan planned to use to blow up
the store, according to court testimony. At his trial, Morgan's attorney
Roger Poole told jurors the teen had a low IQ and grew up in poverty. His
childhood had been rocked by deaths in his family and he had been shuttled
between relatives as a child, Poole said.

TEXAS:

Efrain Perez and Raul Villarreal were both 17 in 1993 when they joined 3
other teenagers in the gang rape and killings of Jennifer Ertman, 14, and
Elizabeth Pena, 16. The girls were taking a shortcut home from a party and
came upon Perez, Villarreal and their friends, who were drinking and
fighting along a Houston rail line. The girls were repeatedly raped before
being strangled and stomped to death.

The girls' rotting bodies were found 4 days later. Ertman's teeth were
kicked in and she was strangled with a belt and Pena's jaw was broken
before she was strangled by her shoelaces. The outspoken grief of Ertman's
father, Randy, led to a law allowing families of murder victims to watch
the execution of their loved one's killer.

VIRGINIA:

Shermaine A. Johnson was convicted in 1998 of raping and stabbing Hope
Denise Hall in 1994, when he was 16, after DNA evidence linked him to the
slaying. Johnson already was serving prison sentences totaling 100 years
for the rapes of two Franklin, Va., women when his DNA was matched with
evidence found in Hall's apartment.

His defense lawyers have argued that Johnson's IQ of 75 could mean he his
mentally retarded. But Virginia Supreme Court concluded that Johnson's
"claim of mental retardation is frivolous."

(source: Associated Press)

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

Supreme Court rulings on death penalty


Major Supreme Court rulings on the death penalty:

-1972, Furman v. Georgia. The court rules the death penalty does not
violate the Constitution, but the manner of its application in many states
does. The court noted capital punishment was likely to be imposed in a
discriminatory way and that blacks were far more likely to be executed
than whites. The decision essentially ends the practice of executions.

-1976, Gregg vs. Georgia. A Georgia death penalty statute is held
constitutional, a ruling that sets the stage for resumption of executions.

-1987, McCleskey vs. Georgia. Justices rule state death penalty laws are
constitutional even when statistics indicate they have been applied in
racially biased ways.

-1988, Thompson vs. Oklahoma. The court decides people younger than 16
when they committed a crime may not be executed.

-1989, Stanford v. Kentucky. Justices uphold the constitutionality of
executions for juveniles older than 15.

-2002, Atkins v. Virginia. Justices rule that executing mentally retarded
criminals violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens cites a "national
consensus" against executing a killer who may lack the intelligence to
fully understand his crime.

-2005, Roper v. Simmons. The court rules the Constitution forbids the
execution of killers who were under 18 when they committed their crimes,
ending a practice used in 19 states. Justice Anthony Kennedy cites a
"national consensus" against the practice.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Death penalty state by state


The state breakdown of the 72 people on death rows who were juveniles when
they committed their crimes, according to the Death Penalty Information
Center:

Texas: 29

Alabama: 14

Mississippi: 5

Arizona, Louisiana, North Carolina: 4 each

Florida, South Carolina: 3 each

Georgia, Pennsylvania: 2 each

Nevada, Virginia: 1

Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Utah
allow the execution of juveniles but do not have any on their death rows.

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

Supreme Court says no more executing young murderers


A closely divided Supreme Court ruled today that it's unconstitutional to
execute juvenile killers, ending a practice in 19 states -- including
Texas -- that has been roundly condemned by many of America's closest
allies.

The 5-4 decision throws out the death sentences of 72 murderers who were
under 18 when they committed their crimes and bars states from seeking to
execute minors for future crimes. In Texas, 29 people on death row were
juveniles when they committed their crimes, according to the Death Penalty
Information Center.

The executions, the court said, violate the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel
and unusual punishment.

"The age of 18 is the point where society draws the line for many purposes
between childhood and adulthood. It is, we conclude, the age at which the
line for death eligibility ought to rest," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote.

The ruling continues the court's practice of narrowing the scope of the
death penalty, which justices reinstated in 1976. Executions for those 15
and younger when they committed their crimes were outlawed in 1988. 3
years ago justices banned death sentences for the mentally handicapped.

Today's ruling prevents states from making 16- and 17-year-olds eligible
for execution.

As a result, officials in Prince William County, Va., said today they will
not prosecute a murder case there against teen sniper Lee Boyd Malvo, who
is already serving life in prison in two of the 10 sniper killings that
terrorized the Washington area in 1992. Prince William County
Commonwealth's Attorney Paul Ebert had hoped to get the death penalty for
Malvo, who was 17 at the time of the killings, but said another trial
would now be an unnecessary expense.

Juvenile offenders have been put to death in recent years in only a few
other countries, including Iran, Pakistan, China and Saudi Arabia. Kennedy
cited international opposition to the practice.

"It is proper that we acknowledge the overwhelming weight of international
opinion against the juvenile death penalty, resting in large part on the
understanding that the instability and emotional imbalance of young people
may often be a factor in the crime," he wrote.

Kennedy noted most states don't allow the execution of juvenile killers
and those that do use the penalty infrequently. The trend, he said, is to
abolish the practice because "our society views juveniles ... as
categorically less culpable than the average criminal."

In a dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia disputed that there is a trend and
chastised his colleagues for taking power from the states.

"The court says in so many words that what our people's laws say about the
issue does not, in the last analysis, matter: 'In the end our own judgment
will be brought to bear on the question of the acceptability of the death
penalty,'" he wrote.

"The court thus proclaims itself sole arbiter of our nation's moral
standards," Scalia wrote.

Death penalty opponents quickly cheered the ruling.

"Today, the court repudiated the misguided idea that the United States can
pledge to leave no child behind while simultaneously exiling children to
the death chamber," said William F. Schulz, executive director of Amnesty
International USA.

"Now the U.S. can proudly remove its name from the embarrassing list of
human rights violators that includes China, Iran, and Pakistan that still
execute juvenile offenders," he said.

Dianne Clements, president of the Houston-based Justice for All victims'
advocacy group, criticized the decision and said she hopes that when there
is a Supreme Court vacancy a strong death penalty supporter is nominated.

"The Supreme Court has opened the door for more innocent people to suffer
by 16- and 17-year-olds," she said. "I can't wait for the Supreme Court to
have judges more concerned with American values, American statutes and
American law than what the Europeans think."

The Supreme Court has permitted states to impose capital punishment since
1976. 22 of the people put to death since then were juveniles when they
committed their crimes. Texas executed the most, 13, and also has the most
on death row now.

More than 3,400 inmates await execution in the 38 states that allow death
sentences.

Justices were called on to draw an age line for executions after
Missouri's highest court overturned the death sentence given to
Christopher Simmons, who was 17 when he kidnapped a neighbor, hog-tied her
and threw her off a bridge in 1993. Prosecutors say he planned the
burglary and killing of Shirley Crook and bragged that he could get away
with it because of his age.

The 19 states that allow executions for people under age 18 are Alabama,
Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana,
Mississippi, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma,
Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah, Texas and Virginia.

The federal government does not execute juveniles.

The case is Roper v. Simmons, 03-633.

(source for both: Associated Press)

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

Responses to Court's Ban of Death Penalty in Juvenile Cases


"The aggressive pursuit of capital punishment is part of an overall policy
that demonstrates this administration's horrible record on human rights
and our national complicity in it," Robert Meeropol.

Bryan Stevenson, Executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative of
Alabama, a nonprofit organization that provides legal representation to
indigent defendants and prisoners who have been denied fair and just
treatment in the legal system, Stevenson said today: "About 8 percent of
the death penalty cases here in Alabama are juvenile cases, so for us
here, today's Supreme Court decision is a huge victory. It's important for
the U.S. to signal at least some respect for international norms; this was
so extreme -- even places where the death penalty is still practiced like
China and the Mideast, children are not executed. It is incredible to
watch a juvenile case develop as the child matures. The person facing the
death penalty in many ways is not the person who committed the crime.
Redemption is possible for all, but particularly for these cases."

www.eji.org

Marc Mauer, Assistant director of The Sentencing Project and author of the
book "Race to Incarcerate," Mauer said today: "The Supreme Court's
decision continues the national momentum towards reconsideration of the
death penalty in the United States. In recent years, we have witnessed the
Court striking down the use of the death penalty for mentally retarded
persons, the commutation of all death sentences by Governor Ryan in
Illinois, and a slowing imposition of death sentences nationally. Notably,
writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy describes evolving international
norms opposing juvenile executions as a factor in the Court's decision."

www.sentencingproject.org

Robert Meeropol, Robert Meeropol and his brother Michael Meeropol are the
only people in the U.S. to have both their parents (Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg) executed. Robert Meeropol is now the executive director of the
Rosenberg Fund for Children. He said today: "Any limiting of the death
penalty is a step in the right direction. But this case, as others,
demonstrates once again the arbitrary nature of the death penalty. So now
it's unconstitutional to execute someone who is convicted of having
murdered one second short of their 18th birthday; but it is not
necessarily unconstitutional to execute someone who is convicted of having
murdered one second after his 18th birthday. People will say you have to
draw the line somewhere; I say you draw the line by not having the death
penalty."

Meeropol continued: "Many of us in the U.S. have been debating the death
penalty as a strategic question -- hoping that by pointing out that
innocent people might suffer the death penalty we might convince others to
oppose it. The reality, I'm increasingly convinced, is that we need to see
capital punishment as a human rights abuse, and I think it's the most
basic human rights abuse, the pre-meditated destroying of a living,
breathing human being.

"Until we see that, there will be politically expedient circumstances,
perhaps following a horrific event, when calls for capital punishment will
triumph. It's noteworthy in the wake of 9/11 there were no calls in Europe
for reconstituting the death penalty. They view the death penalty as a
human rights violation and human rights abuses are never acceptable.

"We need to understand our own hypocrisy -- passing judgement on the human
rights records of countries all over the world while we pretend that we
don't have a policy that backs torture; while pretending we don't have a
policy of rendition -- moving people to countries where they will be
tortured; while pretending that the conditions at Guantanamo are humane.
The hypocrisy is there for all to see, we fool no one but ourselves.

"The aggressive pursuit of capital punishment is part of an overall policy
that demonstrates this administration's horrible record on human rights
and our national complicity in it."

www.rfc.org

(source: Kansas City Infozine)