[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MISS., CALIF., N.C., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 3



MISSISSIPPI:

Prentiss man re-sentenced to life without parole in officer's death

Circuit Judge Prentiss Harrell has re-sentenced inmate Cory Maye to life
in prison without early release or parole in the killing a Prentiss police
officer.

District Attorney Hal Kittrell announced the re-sentencing in a statement
Friday in connection with the killing of Prentiss police officer Ron Jones
in a 2001 drug raid.

In 2004, a jury in Marion County, where Maye's trial was moved because of
pretrial news coverage, convicted Maye of capital murder and sentenced him
to die by lethal injection.

In 2006, Circuit Judge Michael Eubanks threw out Maye's death sentence on
grounds his attorney should have done a better job during the penalty
phase of Maye's 2003 trial.

Kittrell had said in July that he would not seek the death penalty during
Maye's new sentencing hearing in keeping with the wishes of officer
Jones's family.

(source: Associated Press)

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

CRUEL AND UNUSUAL?


Earl Wesley Berry was sentenced to die for kidnapping and beating to death
56-year old Mary Bounds as she left choir practice at the First Baptist
Church of Houston Mississippi 20 years ago this month. In his drunken rage
he bashed her head into a tree and stomped her head hard enough to leave a
tennis shoe print, all for no reason. At last report he had yet to express
remorse for his actions.

The Supreme Court of the United States granted a stay in his execution
this week just minutes before he was to be put to death by lethal
injection. The stay was predicated on an appeal against the state of
Kentucky currently before the Supreme Court that contends that death by
lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment which is
forbidden by the Constitution.

Now regardless of one's stand on capital punishment itselfeven though I'm
not a doctorcommon sense would seem to indicate that giving someone a shot
and letting them go to sleep is about as humane a way to end their life as
possible. I've had more than a few surgeries in which general anesthetic
was administered and there was nothing cruel or unpleasant about it. I
assume it is a similar process. Compare that to hanging, electrocuting, or
shootingall forms of execution at one time or another in this countryand I
can't possibly see how there can be any doubt as to the relative
discomfort inflicted. One thing is sure: it will be a much easier and
pain-free death than Mary Bounds suffered while he was beating her to
death.

Capital punishment is the law in this and many other states. To delay it
on such flimsy grounds while the victim's family continues to suffer is
just another example of the squeamishness that has infected this country
and that will further allow the predators, who have no such qualms, to win
another victory.

I'm Jim Cameron. We appreciate your comments pro and con. Write and let us
know what you think.

(source: opinion, WDAM-TV News)






CALIFORNIA:

Killer of Pittsburg officer said death penalty is no problem


The killer of a Pittsburg police officer said in court Friday that he was
fine with being sentenced to death but had no interest in hearing from the
slain man's family, telling a judge, "Let me get on my way."

"I'm not asking for sympathy," Alexander Hamilton, 20, said in a Martinez
courtroom before formally being sentenced to die for killing Officer Larry
Lasater after robbing a bank in 2005. "I got the death penalty. I ain't
got no problem with that."

But he told Judge Laurel Brady of Contra Costa County Superior Court that
he didn't see any point for testimony by the slain officer's family. "Let
me get on my way, plain and simple," he said.

Lasater's widow, Jo Ann Lasater, blasted Hamilton for showing no remorse,
adding that she would never be able to forgive him for killing her husband
and the father of her young son, Cody, who was born two months after the
officer was killed.

"My son has to grow up in a world where there are people out there like
you," she said in addressing the court. "Cody now has to grow up without
his father to guide him. You are simply an evil man not worthy to be in
society."

Larry Lasater's mother, Phyllis Loya, said she thinks constantly about the
sacrifices made by her son and Pittsburg police Inspector Ray Giacomelli,
who was gunned down in 2003 while investigating a homicide.

When her son and Giacomelli pinned on their badges to go to work, "that's
an act of courage," Loya said. "It's an act of courage because of people
like Alexander Hamilton, who feels a sense of entitlement that leads him
to go into a bank, wave a gun and threaten a teller and take money instead
of earning it."

Loya said Hamilton "assassinated, executed and ambushed my son."

Hamilton did not look at Loya or Lasater as they spoke in a hearing
attended by several Pittsburg police officers, including Chief Aaron
Baker.

A jury convicted Hamilton of 1st-degree murder and robbery Aug. 13.
Hamilton's attorneys, Robin Lipetzky and Kim Kupferer, argued
unsuccessfully Friday for him to be sentenced to life in prison without
the possibility of parole.

In sentencing Hamilton to die by lethal injection, Brady said Hamilton
committed a "cold, calculated act." Rejecting claims by the defense that
Hamilton's age should spare him the death penalty, the judge said his
actions "belied his chronological age."

Lasater had been with the Pittsburg Police Department 3 years when he was
shot to death April 23, 2005, as he chased Hamilton and Andrew Moffett.
The men had just robbed a Wells Fargo branch in a Raley's supermarket in
Pittsburg.

The 2 crashed a stolen getaway car and hid along the Delta de Anza
Regional Trail. Lasater came across Moffett in a field but didn't see
Hamilton lying in the brush and armed with a 9mm Glock semiautomatic
pistol.

Hamilton fired 4 shots, with the first hitting the officer in the neck.

Moffett, 20, was convicted of murder and other crimes but is not eligible
for the death penalty because he was 17 at the time. He faces life in
prison.

(source: San Francisco Chronicle)






NORTH CAROLINA:

Ex-inmates: End death penalty


18 former death row inmates from across the nation who have now been freed
came to North Carolina on Friday hoping to end the state's death penalty
once and for all.

National and state controversy has the death penalty on hold, but some
want more than a temporary fix. Thats why former death row inmates who
have now been freed came to North Carolina hoping to prompt a change.

"I spent 61/2 years on death row for a crime I did not commit, said Jay
Smith. One by one, people like Jay Smith came forward with their own
stories:

"My name is Ron Keine. I spent two years on death row in New Mexico for a
crime I did not commit."

In all, 18 former death row inmates from across the country who have now
been exonerated gathered in front of the General Assembly on Friday to ask
for a moratorium on the death penalty.

"If we are about fairness, if we are about justice, we can't afford to
have a system run by human beings that makes mistakes, that has a
punishment that can't be undone, explained Ray Krone.

Former death row inmates who have now been freed came to North Carolina
hoping to prompt a change. North Carolina has not executed an inmate since
August of last year because of a dispute over what role a doctor should
play in executions. Several lawsuits remain unresolved and there's no end
in sight for the de facto moratorium.

"We've got to bring this death penalty to an end," said Darby Tillis. "It
serves no purpose at all. Its racist, biased and prejudiced."

Some North Carolina lawmakers agree.

"We want the innocent out of jail and the criminals in jail and we have a
mixture right now, said state Rep. Pricey Harrison.

But so far, those attempts have been futile. A bill that called for a
moratorium stalled last session, and many legislators think that will be
the case again.

"I see the trend going our way," Harrison said. "We're a few votes short
and I don't see us passing it."

But the 18 free men who were once death row inmates say they'll keep
fighting.

"What happened to me 27 years ago is still happening to young men today,"
Darby said.

The Witness to Innocence Group sponsored Friday's rally. According to the
group, North Carolina has had 5 death row inmates exonerated.

(source: News 14.com)

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

Ex-death row inmates seek pause in executions----Wrongly convicted men
tell their stories, urge state legislators to take action


Former death row inmates who were wrongly convicted and imprisoned called
on state legislators Friday to pass a moratorium on executions in North
Carolina.

One by one, 18 exonerated men walked up to a microphone in front of the
Legislative Building and shared their stories. They told a group of
onlookers how they were almost executed for crimes the didn't commit.

Though the details of their stories vary, they share the same belief that
the death penalty should be halted and studied by legislators.

2 North Carolina legislators, Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Guilford County
Democrat, and Sen. Eleanor Kinnaird, an Orange County Democrat, were in
attendance and spoke in favor of a moratorium. Harrison said after her
remarks that she doubts legislators will pass one in the coming session.

Former inmates such as Shujaa Graham, who spent years on California's
death row, emphatically declared a moratorium is needed.

Graham and the other former death row inmates are part of a
Philadelphia-based group called Witness to Innocence. It supports an end
to the death penalty across the country.

The group was invited to Raleigh by People of Faith Against the Death
Penalty, a nonprofit group in Carrboro that seeks to abolish the death
penalty.

Graham is no stranger to advocacy or North Carolina.

In December 2005, Graham was arrested in Raleigh at a protest of the
execution of Kenneth Boyd. Boyd was the 1,000th person executed in the
U.S. since 1977, the end of a 10-year unofficial moratorium on executions
that coincided with challenges to the constitutionality of the death
penalty.

Graham, who recalled the protest in detail, said the experience was
"beautiful." He said he was outside Central Prison with Alan Gell, a
former death row inmate exonerated in North Carolina, and the families of
victims who opposed the death penalty.

"We told the police, 'We heard it's going to be a murder here tonight,' "
Graham said. "They told us to get back, but we kept moving forward, hand
in hand. And then they arrested us."

He said he was released the next day and went to South Carolina to protest
another execution.

It was in a California state prison where Graham said his fiery spirit was
cultivated, and his life could have ended.

While in prison for robbery, Graham was accused of killing a correction
officer in 1973. His first trial on the murder charge ended in a mistrial.
He was sentenced to death in his second trial three years later.

Graham, who is black, won a new trial because the California Supreme Court
ruled that potential jurors who were black were improperly excluded from
the jury. In 1981, a new jury found him innocent.

Graham said he was framed.>{? After his release from prison, Graham said,
he devoted his life to activism.

When he talks, he often quotes civil rights leaders and labels himself a
"revolutionary survivor" instead of a victim of an imperfect justice
system.

Despite Graham's defiant tone, tears welled in his eyes when he recalled
the years he spent on death row as an innocent man.

It's a painful memory that all of the former death row inmates can't
escape and are trying to cope with each day, he said.

"I've been out more than 20 years, and I still suffer today," Graham said.
"I saw a lot of my friends executed. As I regained my humanity ... I
learned to start forgiving."

Graham and the former death row inmates will speak at 6 p.m. today at St.
Raphael the Archangel Catholic Church in Raleigh.

(source: The News & Observer)






USA:

Death penalty doomed? ---- Slowdown in executions offers nationwide chance
to test public attitudes


Stop executions for a while and perhaps they can be stopped forever. That
calculation has been part of the strategy of capital punishment opponents
for decades.

The Supreme Court-inspired slowdown in executions offers the 1st
nationwide opportunity in 20-plus years to test whether the absence of
regularly scheduled executions will lead some states to abandon the death
penalty and change public attitudes about capital punishment.

Recent decisions by judges and elected officials have made clear that most
executions will not proceed until the Supreme Court rules in a challenge
by two death row inmates to the lethal injection procedures used in
Kentucky. The inmates say Kentucky's method creates the risk of pain
severe enough to be cruel and unusual punishment, banned by the Eighth
Amendment.

Similar procedures are used in Texas, the far-and-away leader in lehtal
injections, and the 16 other states that have executed prisoners in the
past 2 years.

It is clear the high court will not go so far as to outlaw the use of
lethal injections. That issue is not even before the court in the Kentucky
case.

Rather, the justices could decide whether Kentucky's procedures violate
the Constitution and what standard the courts should use to evaluate the
risk a prisoner will feel pain as he or she is put to death.

No matter how the court rules, it appears there will be few, if any
prisoners executed before the court rules, probably by late June. Just
this week, the Supreme Court halted an execution in Mississippi less than
an hour before a convicted killer was scheduled to be put to death by
lethal injection. He had asked for a delay at least until the court
decides the Kentucky case.

"We're probably looking at delaying executions, not preventing them," said
Ronald Tabak, a New York-based lawyer with the Skadden Arps firm who has
represented death row inmates.

Tabak said states with the death penalty now have a chance to review
capital punishment procedures. The American Bar Association has for the
past 10 years called for such a freeze and review.

"The ABA's position is unless you have fair practices, exceutions should
not resume," said Tabak, who has worked with the lawyers' organization on
this issue.

But Douglas Berman, a sentencing expert at the Ohio State University law
school, said the possibility exists for more dramatic action.

"The abolitionists will say if we have no executions for six months to a
year, and the universe is not imploding and murder rates are not going
through the roof, ... it becomes easier to say, "Why do we even need the
death penalty, let's just get rid of it," Berman said.

"Texas and other high-execution states aren't going to get there anytime
soon, but the argument against capital punishment gets even more force in
those states squeamish about the death penalty in the first instance,"
Berman said.

Questions about the administration of lethal injections are only part of
the equation.

Death-penalty opponents also have pointed to doubts about the competence
of some court-appointed defense lawyers and the rise in the number of
exonerations through DNA evidence of people already convicted of crimes.

Polling has shown that the public increasingly believes that life in
prison without parole will keep the worst offenders off the streets. A
recent Associated Press-Ipsos poll that asked what method of punishment
people prefer for murderers found only a slight preference for the death
penalty over life in prison - 52 % to 46 %.

"There is a deeper societal appreciation for life without the possibility
of parole. Ten to 15 years ago, no one thought they meant it," Berman
said.

At the same time, there have been several studies, challenged by the
anti-death penalty camp, that have shown a deterrent effect in the use of
capital punishment. Also, public support for executions remains high. More
than two-thirds of those polled favor the death penalty for murderers when
the question does not include other possible punishments.

Then there is the example of the last time the country went without
executions for an indefinite period. There were no executions from June
1967 to January 1977.

The Supreme Court in 1972 struck down 40 state death penalty laws, but did
not ban capital punishment as cruel and unusual.

Some justices at the time thought their decision in Furman v. Georgia
would bring an end to the death penalty.

By 1976, though, in the midst of a "law and order" backlashto the court's
decision in favor of the rights of criminal defendants, elected officials
in 35 states had adopted laws to comply with the death penalty ruling. A
more conservative court upheld some of those laws, and a half-year later
executions resumed.

Nearly 1,100 people have been put to death since 1977 and more than 3,000
others are on death row.

Earlier this week, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that a judge can hold
hearings on whether Ohio's lethal injection procedures are constitutional.

The court ruled 5-2 that Judge James Burge of Lorain County Common Pleas
Court has the authority to hold the hearings and to order the state to
turn over documents related to the execution process. The court rejected
the state's argument that Burge, as the presiding judge of a criminal
trial, does not have the authority to decide the constitutionality of
death penalty law.

Burge has ordered the state to produce detailed explanations of the
equipment and procedures used during executions, including an "exhaustive
and detailed" list of the qualifications and training of the state's
execution team.

Burge has ordered the hearings in the case of Ruben Rivera, charged in the
2004 shooting death of Manuel Garcia. Rivera asked Burge to drop the death
penalty aspects of his case on the grounds that the state's lethal
injection process amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.

Since then, two other Lorain County defendants facing death penalty
charges have made similar requests of other judges.

**

ABA CITES PROBLEMS IN STATE DEATH PENALTY SYSTEMS


Serious problems in state death penalty systems compromise fairness and
accuracy in capital punishment cases and justify a nationwide freeze on
executions, the American Bar Association says.

Problems cited in a report released in Washington Sunday by the lawyers'
organization include:

Spotty collection and preservation of DNA evidence, which has been used to
exonerate more than 200 inmates.

Misidentification by eyewitnesses.

False confessions from defendants.

Persistent racial disparities that make death sentences more likely when
victims are white.

The report is a compilation of separate reviews done over the past 3 years
of how the death penalty operates in 8 states: Alabama, Arizona, Georgia,
Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

Teams that studied the systems in Arizona, Florida and Pennsylvania did
not call for a halt to executions in those states. But the ABA said every
state with the death penalty should review its execution procedures before
putting anyone else to death.

In September, the ABA sent a nearly 500-page report to Ohio Gov. Ted
Strickland, asking him to halt executions to allow for a review of the
state's death penalty system. The ABA's report followed a 30-month
examination in which the ABA said Ohio met only four of the ABA's 93
recommendations to ensure a fair death penalty system.

"After carefully studying the way states across the spectrum handle
executions, it has become crystal clear that the process is deeply
flawed," said Stephen F. Hanlon, chairman of the ABA Death Penalty
Moratorium Implementation Project. "The death penalty system is rife with
irregularity."

The ABA, which takes no position on capital punishment, did not study
lethal injection procedures that are under challenge across the nation.
The procedures will be reviewed by the Supreme Court early next year in a
case from Kentucky.

State and federal courts have effectively stopped most executions pending
a high court decision.

Prosecutors and death penalty supporters have said the eight state studies
were flawed because the ABA teams were made up mainly of death penalty
opponents.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Circuits Wary of Plan for Policing Federal Bench


When it comes to proposed new rules for disciplining wayward federal
judges, circuit chiefs from around the country haven't exactly been
falling over themselves to publicly air their thoughts.

Indeed, the national committee in charge of fashioning those rules has
decided to withhold the chiefs' critiques -- including those from a 9th
Circuit committee convened by Chief Judge Mary Schroeder to weigh in.

And while Schroeder said Tuesday that she will abide by that edict and not
disclose her committee's specific comments, she did highlight a concern
that she said the 9th Circuit shares with others across the country.

"We have always been concerned in the 9th Circuit about maintaining the
ability of our circuit to handle the issues relating to the West, and to
try to avoid undue centralization in Washington," Schroeder said. "That is
kind of a theme -- a tension between the role of circuit councils and the
administrative office."

The raft of proposed rules comes from a committee headed by 2nd Circuit
Judge Ralph Winter. The rules, issued in June as a draft, follow a report
last year from a group led by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer,
which found that the circuit councils' handling of 5 of 17 "high
visibility" misconduct cases had been "problematic."

The proposals would remove some of the discretion each circuit now has
over whether and when to initiate formal proceedings against a judge
accused of misconduct.

One of the biggest disciplinary cases in the 9th Circuit involved Los
Angeles federal judge Manuel Real. Interestingly, the proposed new rules
bear a distinct mark of the Real proceedings, says Arthur Hellman, a
professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and 9th Circuit
watcher.

Attorney Stephen Yagman accused Real of improperly interfering in a
bankruptcy case to protect a probationer he supervised. In 2004 Schroeder
dismissed the complaint without appointing a special committee to
investigate. A divided 9th Circuit council confirmed her decision.

In the spring of 2006, the national conduct committee decided by a 3-2
vote that it didn't have the authority to review the 9th Circuit's Real
finding because Schroeder never formed a special committee. Winter wrote
the dissent. With Congress weighing impeachment proceedings, Schroeder
appointed a committee to investigate; the committee's recommendation that
Real be censured is pending before the national Judicial Conference.

Under the proposed rules, a national conduct panel would have new
authority to review cases like these, in which chief circuit judges
decline to appoint a special committee to investigate a complaint. Thus it
appears Winter may have the last laugh.

"You can directly trace the exercise of [national] authority in the
proposed rules to the dissenting opinion in the Real case," Hellman said.

Schroeder declined to comment on how the new rules would have affected the
Real proceeding.

The new rules will also rob circuit chiefs of some discretion for
appointing special committees to investigate complaints. Under the
proposal, the chief judge must not "make findings of fact about any matter
that is reasonably in dispute." Some judges fear that this language could
lead to an overly formal process for complaints that have little or no
merit. And since these special committees require outside counsel, the
costs could add up.

But Hellman supports the concept behind this new rule. In testimony to
Winter's committee, the professor noted that a "recurring theme" in
problematic high-visibility cases examined by Breyer was the failure of
circuit chiefs to convene special committees when there were clear factual
disputes.

Yet another possible source of contention is a requirement for the
circuits to forward every complaint -- and every document gathered in the
investigation of a complaint -- to the conduct committee in Washington.

On top of any policy concerns, Schroeder said the proposed rules just
aren't well drafted. She hopes Winter's committee will issue a new draft
for feedback before making its recommendation to the national judicial
conference.

The 9th Circuit chief said the original time frame would have called for a
finished draft to be ready for a conference meeting in March. But given
the comments from across the country, Schroeder said she now doubts
whether that date can be met.

(source: The Recorder)

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

Death Penalty Under Scrutiny


The American Bar Association (ABA) issued a severe critique Oct 30 of the
way states are handling death penalty cases. A three year study found
significant racial disparities in imposing the death penalty, mistakes or
fraud in the crime laboratories, lack of preservation of DNA evidence,
substandard practices in police interrogations and identifications,
electoral pressures influencing judges, wholly inadequate representation
for indigent defendants, and mishandling of mentally impaired persons
throughout the legal process.

At the news conference held at the National Press Club, the ABA released
to the public the detailed analysis of how the death penalty is being
implemented in 8 sample states, which are Alabama, Indiana, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Arizona, Florida and Georgia.

None of these states, and by extension probably none of the rest of the 38
states that permit the use of the death penalty, is providing the
essentials to make the system "fair" and "accurate," according to the ABA.
The ABA does not take a position either for or against capital punishment,
but the investigations strongly support reform in the way it is
implemented in the 38 states. Since 1997, the ABA has called for a
nationwide moratorium on executions.

"After carefully studying the way states across the spectrum handle
executions, it has become crystal clear that the process is deeply
flawed," said Stephen F. Hanlon, chairman of the ABA Death Penalty
Moratorium Implementation Project and host of the conference.

Each of the states had a local team of legal experts assess aspects
pertaining to due process and fairness related to the death penalty.

Serious Problems Found by the ABA State Analysis Teams

Below is a summary of a few of the highlights in the reports or spoken at
the news conference which featured seven specialists on the subject in
addition to the host. Sometimes the wording is taken verbatim from the
"key findings" in the overall summary report.

--Before the entire legal process has run its course, states are generally
discarding or destroying evidence (physical or biological) that could
prove innocence. Florida and Georgia were the only two states of the eight
that are pretty good about preserving evidence. --One state in the study,
Alabama, does not have a policy to provide access to DNA testing for the
defendant. Access to DNA testing was not allowed for Darryl Grayson,
though it could have probably proved his guilt or innocence, said Seth
Miller, executive director of the Florida Innocence Project. Grayson was
executed last July.

--Most states are not requiring the police to videotape or audiotape the
entirety of interrogations in murder cases. The practice is sporadic in
the 8 states studied. States are not requiring crime labs and medical
examiner offices be accredited. Most states have had at least one serious
incident of crime lab error or fraud, and many crime labs are seriously
underfunded.

--The courts have found "serious misconduct" by prosecutors in capital
cases in most states, yet the prosecutors are not disciplined. Defense
attorneys handling death penalty cases are not required to meet minimum
standards in training and experience in many states. The compensation paid
to appointed capital defense attorneys is often woefully inadequate.

--Some states are failing to provide counsel during the appeal process,
and all states fail to provide counsel in clemency proceedings.

Much discussion is taken up in the reports with issues of discrimination
and undue influence in capital cases. After a death sentences has been
imposed, a review of similarly situated defendants should take place to
ensure justice is "proportionate" and that discrimination did not occur.
These reviews, if conducted at all, tend to be done in a cursory fashion.
In Arizona, there is no review conducted by the state supreme court "to
ensure the death penalty is reserved for the worst crimes and the worst
criminals," said Hanlon.

Judges are frequently influenced by the electoral pressures. Judge Morris
Overstreet said, "You don't tend to get elected if you say you are going
to be soft on crime." Some judges have even used cases they tried, or
recently tried, in campaign brochures, said the former judge of the Texas
Court of Criminal Appeals. When judges discuss and advertise their views
of the death penalty, it can bias their judicial independence, said Judge
Overstreet.

All 8 states that were investigated showed significant racial disparities
in their handling of capital cases. In states that acknowledged the
problem, little, if anything, has been done to rectify the problem. In
Ohio, you are almost four times more likely to receive the death sentence
if you kill a white person than if you kill a black, said Hanlon. In a
study of 4 of the states (IN, TN, GA, and OH) between 1981-2000, the
likelihood of receiving the death penalty is usually highest for whites
killing whites, and substantially lower for blacks killing blacks, said
Ray Paternoster, professor of criminology, University of Maryland.

Mental Illness and Retardation

The Supreme Court has said that it is unconstitutional to execute
offenders with mental retardation (Atkins v. Virginia). Between 2 and 5%
charged with a capital crime suffer from serious mental illness such as
schizophrenia or psychosis, or mental retardation, said Professor Chris
Slobogin, University of Florida School of Law. Even though mentally ill
persons are often very suggestive and vulnerable, police tend to treat
them no differently in their interrogations than other offenders, which
can lead to false confessions.

Most states fail to properly instruct jurors of the difference between the
defense of insanity and a mental impairment as a mitigating factor at
sentencing. In Pennsylvania, nearly all capital case jurors (98.6%) failed
to understand some of the juror instructions, said Hanlon. Juries often
erroneously equate mental retardation with dangerousness, and then
perceive the mental condition as an aggravating factor rather than as a
mitigating factor, said Professor Slobogin.

Status of the Death Penalty

The topic of the death penalty has received a lot of news coverage lately.
Last Tuesday evening, the Supreme Court granted a stay in execution just
19 minutes before the inmate was to be executed by lethal injection which
all states use except one (Nebraska). The reason has to do with the
Constitutionality of the "cocktail" employed to carry out the execution.
It appears certain that the high court intends to block further executions
until it decides a Kentucky case next spring.

State courts have also been active in staying executions. No fewer than 18
scheduled executions were halted in 5 states during the first quarter of
2007, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Many political
leaders are making public their reservations about using the death
penalty, including Maryland's governor, Martin O'Malley, Governor Ted
Strickland of Ohio, Phil Bredesen of Tennessee, and former Governor George
Ryan of Illinois. The latter two called a moratorium on further
executions.

The Supreme Court reinstated the legality of the death penalty in 1976.
Over 3,000 persons are on death row. Most are in California (660), Florida
(397), Texas (393), Pennsylvania (226), Alabama (195), Ohio (191), North
Carolina (185), Arizona (124), Georgia (107) and Tennessee (107),
according to the Death Penalty Information Center in August.

Majority of Americans still support capital punishment, despite the fact
that 89 countries legally abolished the death penalty for all crimes and
40 more countries may retain it for special crimes, but in practice no
executions are being carried out in these countries either. In the U.S.,
by contrast, the total number of executions since 1976 was 1,090. The
total number last year (2006) was 53.

The majority of executions are being carried in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia,
Pakistan, Yemen, Vietnam, and the United States. Nearly all of these
countries are considered rogue states.

Even many supporters of capital punishment want to see it carried out more
equitably. What may have shaken up the confidence of the public in the
death penalty are the 120 individuals--possibly more now--on death row who
have been exonerated, according to Andrew Cohen, chief legal analyst of
CBS News. Many of those formerly in favor of capital punishment find "life
imprisonment without possibility of parole," which is increasing being
made available to jurors, as an acceptable alternative to the death
penalty.

(source: The Epoch Times)

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

Death-penalty debate deserves air time


The Supreme Court issued a stay of execution this week for a confessed
murderer moments before he was scheduled to die. The case is a tortured
one and illustrates how much is wrong with our death penalty system.

20 years ago, Earl Berry kidnapped and killed a woman who was returning
from a church service in Mississippi. He was convicted and sentenced to
death within a year.

19 years and many appeals later, Berry is still alive. This isn't unusual.
The average death sentence takes 12 years to carry out.

In 2004, Alabama executed J.B. Hubbard for a murder he committed 27 years
earlier. At the time of his death, Hubbard was 74, suffered from colon and
prostate cancer and had dementia so bad he likely didn't know who he was
or what was happening to him when he died.

Public sentiment against keeping prisoners on death row for decades has
begun to grow.

Some say that, even if the prisoner's own appeal efforts are causing them,
such delays still amount to cruel and unusual punishment. Death-penalty
convicts are housed separately from the rest of the prison population and
spend up to 23 hours a day alone.

Public sentiment in the U.S. has wavered on the death penalty over the
years as has the Supreme Court's rulings.

In the late 1960s, the court held that executions as performed by the
states at that time were unconstitutional. By 1972, many states had
changed their policies enough so that the Supreme Court allowed the
practice to resume.

Since 1976, there have been 1,099 executions performed in the 37 states
that allow them. Texas leads the way with nearly 400. Missouri has
executed 66.

There are currently more than 3,300 felons languishing on death row in the
U.S.

The Supreme Court is scheduled next January to review the preferred system
of execution used in 36 of the states: lethal injection. (Nebraska uses
electrocution solely.)

There's some medical evidence that the injection is a painful and
needlessly lengthy death. (No one knows for sure, since those who've
undergone the process aren't able to tell us how it felt.)

There are other concerns about state executions.

For instance, there's conclusive evidence that we're not very good at
convicting the right person. Since executions resumed in the 1970s, some
124 people in 25 states have been released from death row after evidence
turned up that reversed their convictions. The governor of Illinois banned
the practice after concluding that his state had likely killed innocent
people.

The court systems also seem to decide who should be sentenced to death and
who should be sentenced to life in prison in a very arbitrary manner.

Berry, for instance, committed a brutal and cold-blooded murder for which
he has been sentenced to die.

But how does that stack up with Charles Cullen, a New Jersey nurse who was
convicted of killing 13 patients (he ultimately confessed to 45 murders)
or Gary Ridgway, who was convicted of killing 48 prostitutes and teenage
runaways? Both of these serial killers are serving life in prison for
their crimes.

Those who favor the death penalty frequently say that it's a deterrent or
that they don't see why the state should bear the cost of keeping a murder
in jail for the rest of his life.

But studies don't show that the death penalty is a deterrent. The 13
states that don't have the death penalty actually enjoy a 46 percent lower
homicide rate than the 37 states that allow executions.

It also turns out that executing a murderer is far more expensive than
keeping him (99 percent of all executions are of men) locked up for life.

This is because the trials in death sentence cases are always undertaken
with more care; the appeals process is arduous and expensive; and the cost
of housing an inmate in a death row is much higher than housing him with
the general population.

On balance, the death penalty is arbitrary, expensive and inhumane. Maybe
that's why 133 nations - including nearly all of Europe and South America
- have banned the practice.

(source: Lake Sun Leader)