[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----VA., MD., N.H., USA, CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

Dec. 18



VIRGINIA:

Judge rules on motions in Zhang slaying case----2nd murder to be added
charge added in Zhang case


Jermaine Lamonte Montgomery will now be tried on 2 counts of capital
murder instead of 1 in the slaying of a Chinese restaurant delivery
driver.

Yong Hui Zhang, 24, was stabbed to death in July.

In a 3-hour hearing yesterday in Spotsylvania County Circuit Court,
Commonwealth's Attorney Bill Neely said he planned to indict Montgomery on
two new counts of capital murder and drop the old one because of
complaints by defense attorney Joe Flood regarding the way the original
indictment was written.

Currently, the capital murder indictment reads that the murder occurred
"during the commission of robbery or attempted robbery and/or in the
commission of an abduction."

Flood argued during yesterday's hearing that the wording would allow
jurors to convict his client of capital murder if they agreed that it was
in commission of robbery or abduction and that it doesn't necessarily
require a unanimous agreement.

Neely said he didn't think there was actually a problem with the 1st
indictment, but added he would remedy Flood's concern by indicting
Montgomery on 2 counts: 1 in commission of robbery and another in
commission of abduction.

"It strikes me as curious that the defendant would want 2 counts of
murder," Neely said.

In addition to the murder, Montgomery is also charged with the abduction
and robbery of Zhang last July.

According to authorities, Zhang was abducted from an abandoned apartment
one night in July and his body was found brutally beaten and stabbed in
Sussex County days later.

Montgomery was subsequently charged with capital murder and his
girlfriend, Marcey White, has already pleaded guilty to related charges in
Fredericksburg.

At yesterday's hearing, Montgomery, who is being represented by Flood and
Matthew Engle of the capital defender's office as well as private attorney
Mark Gardner, was also given access to an investigator.

All expenses in his case will be paid by the state because he was ruled an
indigent defendant.

Judge David H. Beck heard 13 motions by the defense attorneys and granted
most of them, at least in part. Many of the motions were routine in
preparation for a capital murder case.

Beck, over objections by the defense attorneys, did rule that Montgomery's
prior criminal history, including a Prince William robbery in 2006, could
be presented to a jury at sentencing if Montgomery is convicted.

Beck said he expects to have a motions hearing about once a month leading
up to Montgomery's 2-week jury trial scheduled to start Aug. 31.

(source: Fredericksburg Free Lance Star)






MARYLAND:

Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment majority report comes as no
surprise


For those of you interested, you can read the Maryland Commission on
Capital Punishment (death penalty) majority report at
http://www.goccp.org/capital-punishment/documents/death-penalty-commission-final-report.pdf.
>From the outset, the result was pre-determined by the appointment of more
anti-death penalty members than pro-death penalty members. There was also
a minority report issued, but it has not been posted on the Internet yet.
When it is, I will post it here.

Now, the issue of whether to repeal the death penalty goes to the Maryland
General Assembly in January (again), and we will see if the legislature
has the votes to repeal the death penalty in Maryland. As Delegate Frank
points out below, all eyes will be focused on the Senate Judicial
Proceedings Committee and Senate President Mike Miller. Nothing passes the
State Senate without Mike Miller's approval. To date, Miller has been
opposed to repealing the death penalty.

I received the following insight from Delegate Bill Frank (R-District 42),
who was one of the Commission members:

"While I have long held ambivalent views on capital punishment, I also
believe that repealing Maryland's death penalty statute is a step that is
too drastic and would not be in the best interest of public safety in our
State.

The membership composition of the Maryland Commission on Capital
Punishment virtually pre-ordained that a report to repeal capital
punishment would be recommended, which, of course, is exactly what
happened. The deck was stacked for repeal, although I strongly believe the
Commission's work was conducted in a free, fair and open manner by our
Chairman. Indeed, we heard over 35 hours of public testimony.

I encourage every Maryland citizen to read the Minority Report, which was
largely written by Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott Shellenberger,
and co-signed by 6 other Commissioners, including myself. The Minority
Report calls for maintaining capital punishment in our State.

Several points are worth noting. First, Maryland has a carefully
constructed and rigid set of guidelines that must be in place before a
convicted murderer is eligible for the death penalty. For example, at
least 11 criteria must be met, including a direct automatic appeal to our
highest court; no death penalty for those under 18; no death penalty for
the mentally retarded; post conviction DNA testing; the requirement that
aggravating circumstances accompany the murder; and execution only for the
crime of murder, among others. Maryland has established a very high bar
for one to be eligible for the death penalty.

Second, Maryland does not over-use the death penalty. We are not Texas. In
fact, since 1978, only 5 executions have occurred in Maryland. There has
never been a shred of evidence that any of these 5 were not guilty of the
crimes for which they were convicted. Similarly, the 5 men currently on
death row are clearly "the worst of the worst" and it have never been
posited that they have been wrongly convicted.

Third, it is important to note that our citizens, through their duly
elected State's Attorneys, determine whether a death penalty is pursued.
This is the way it should be. In Baltimore County, we have historically
elected State's Attorneys who pursue the death penalty when the law allows
for it, or when the SA determines he or she can get a conviction. The fact
that other jurisdictions, through their elected State's Attorneys, have
not pursued capital punishment, is also appropriate and reflects the will
of the citizens of those jurisdictions. While some may argue that this
produces jurisdictional and racial disparities in the application of the
statute, I think a closer look at the facts clearly proves otherwise.

The issue nows goes to the General Assembly once again, where the outlook
for repeal appears to be uncertain. Most of the attention will focus on
the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, which has killed repeal efforts
in the past."

Delegate William J. Frank (R) ---- District 42 - Baltimore County

(source: Dilip Paliath, Baltimore Law and Politics Examiner)






NEW HAMPSHIRE:

Cop killer gets 1st NH death sentence in 49 years


A jury on Thursday issued New Hampshire's 1st death sentence in a half
century to Michael Addison, who fatally shot a Manchester police officer 2
years ago.

Addison, 28, had no reaction as the Hillsborough County Superior Court
jury announced its verdict after about 13 hours of deliberation.

The judge must formally impose the sentence, but cannot change it.

New Hampshire hasn't executed anyone since 1939. The last time a New
Hampshire court imposed the death penalty was in 1959, but the lives of
the 2 convicted men were spared by a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

In 2004, a federal judge in Massachusetts, which has no death penalty,
ordered convicted killer Gary Sampson executed in New Hampshire, but
Sampson is appealing and is being held in Indiana.

Jurors unanimously agreed that Addison deserves to die by lethal injection
for purposely shooting Officer Michael Briggs to avoid being arrested.

Addison's lawyers argued that his abusive childhood and possible brain
damage from his mother's heavy drinking while she was pregnant warranted a
sentence of life in prison without parole.

Addison had been on a crime spree the week before the shooting and had
said he would "pop a cop" if necessary to avoid arrest.

Briggs, 35, and his bicycle patrol partner came across Addison and friend
Antoine Bell-Rogers walking in an alley early on Oct. 16, 2006. Briggs
recognized the men as a suspects in a recent shooting and two armed
robberies and ordered them to stop. Addison turned and shot Briggs in the
head at close range, testimony showed.

The defense admitted on the 1st day of the trial that Addison killed
Briggs, but said the act was reckless, not intentional.

"It was fast and it was totally unplanned," defense attorney David
Rothstein said in his opening statement. "It was a reckless act that ended
in a terrible tragedy."

Prosecutors called the shooting cold-blooded and premeditated, pointing to
Addison's threat to "pop a cop."

"That fatal shot was no accident. It was no reckless misjudgment or
panic-driven mistake," Attorney General Kelly Ayotte said in her opening
statement. "That shot was another choice in a series of choices made by
the defendant. It was a conscious and deadly choice to pull the trigger
and end Officer Briggs' life."

The trial was in 3 phases: the jury 1st convicted Addison of capital
murder and then concluded he was eligible for the death penalty. In that
verdict, the jury ruled that Addison purposely inflicted the injury that
killed Briggs, but rejected the state's claim that he purposely killed
Briggs.

The defense cited that conclusion during the trial's final, sentencing
phase as grounds for sparing Addison's life.

The defense also pointed to Addison's absentee parents and rocky childhood
as grounds for mercy. His mother, Cheryl Kiser, drank heavily, used drugs,
and was known for violent outbursts, while his father, Michael Wilson,
smoked crack throughout Addison's childhood and was rarely there for his
son.

"None of this information is offered as an excuse or as a justification
for anything that Michael did," said defense attorney Richard Guerriero.
"He is responsible for the choices he made as an adult, but you also have
to recognize he could not control the choices that were made for him as a
child."

The prosecution emphasized the emotional toll Briggs' murder took on his
wife, 2 young sons and other family members and friends, and pointed to
Addison's long criminal record.

That record included pointing a loaded revolver at another student's head
in high school and pulling the trigger twice. The gun didn't fire.

Ayotte said Addison faces decades in prison for other convictions, so
sentencing him to life would amount to a free pass for Briggs' murder.

"The flaws in his childhood simply cannot replace the pain and suffering
that he has inflicted on innocent victims throughout adult life," she
argued. "There are millions (and) millions of people in this country who
unfortunately come from far, far worse backgrounds than the defendant and
they don't go out and harm and murder people. That was his choice. ...
It's shameful the defendant is using his deceased mother as an excuse for
the repeated devastation that he has caused and his own choices he made as
an adult."

The state Supreme Court will automatically review the conviction and
sentence. If the court upholds both, an appeal by the defense is virtually
certain, likely raising constitutional claims rejected by Judge Kathleen
McGuire. Among them is that Addison couldn't get a fair trial in
Manchester, and that requiring judges to impose a death sentence decided
by a jury is unconstitutional.

Legal experts note that New Hampshire's death penalty law, unlike laws in
states such as Texas, has not been tested extensively in court. Law
professor Albert Scherr said that process could take several years, and
federal challenges could follow if state courts uphold the law and
conviction.

In October, a jury in Brentwood handed down the state's 1st capital murder
conviction since 1959 in the murder-for-hire case of millionaire John
Brooks. But the jury gave Brooks life without parole, the only alternative
to the death penalty in the capital murder statute.

(source: Boston Globe)

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

Death penalty rare in NH, last execution was 1939


Thursday's death sentence for Michael Addison makes him the 1st person on
death row in New Hampshire in decades.

New Hampshire hasn't executed anyone since 1939. The last time a New
Hampshire court imposed the death penalty was in 1959, but the lives of
the 2 convicted men were spared by a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

In 2004, a federal judge in Massachusetts, which has no death penalty,
ordered convicted killer Gary Sampson executed in New Hampshire, but
Sampson is appealing and is being held in Indiana.

New Hampshire's narrow capital murder law applies to a half dozen crimes,
including killing a police officer, murder for hire and killing during a
kidnapping. Prisoners who kill another while serving a life sentence,
murder during a rape and certain drug crimes also qualify.

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

Key dates in NH death penalty case


Oct. 16, 2006: Michael Addison shoots Manchester Police Officer Michael
Briggs in an alley around 2:45 a.m., then flees to Dorchester, Mass.,
where he arrested later that day.

Oct. 17, 2006: Briggs dies at Elliot Hospital.

Oct. 21, 2006: Mourners line the streets as several thousand police
officers march through downtown Manchester to honor Briggs.

Dec. 19, 2007: Addison is convicted of robbing a Hudson convenience store
days before Briggs' shooting.

Feb. 20, 2007: Addison is indicted on a charge of capital murder.

May 7, 2007: New Hampshire Attorney General Kelly Ayotte files the state's
intention to seek the death penalty.

Feb. 27, 2008: Addison is convicted of robbing a Manchester restaurant in
the days before Briggs' shooting.

Sept. 22, 2008: Jury selection begins in Addison's capital murder trial.

Oct. 20, 2008: Attorneys deliver opening statements.

Nov. 13, 2008: After 12 1/2 hours of deliberation, the jury convicts
Addison of capital murder.

Dec. 18, 2008: -After 13 hours of deliberation, the jury orders a death
sentence for Addison.

(source for both: Associated Press)






USA:

The Incredible Shrinking Death Penalty


The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) has released its 2008 report.
Executions and death sentences are down, which is no surprise given the
moratorium on lethal injections that lasted until the Supreme Court's
April ruling in Baze v. Rees, but 2 salient facts stand out.

First, the death penalty is growing less popular. In 1994, Gallup
estimated that 80% of Americans supported capital punishment; the figure
has dropped steadily until this year, where support has dropped to 64%.
The hard work of anti-death penalty activists such as Sister Helen Prejean
has not been in vain.

Second, the death penalty is becoming an almost uniquely Southern
institution, supported in states with notably rural demographics. In 2008,
fully 95% of executions took place South of the Mason-Dixon line--and the
other 5% took place in the Appalachian states of Kentucky and Ohio.

We're a long way from death penalty abolition, but the way Americans look
at the death penalty has visibly changed--and much of this change took
place under a president who had previously presided over more executions
as governor of Texas than any other governor in U.S. history. Could a
President Barack Obama, who has expressed grave concerns about the failure
rate of capital punishment and nominated an anti-death penalty attorney
general, bring us even closer to the goal of living in a country that
doesn't execute prisoners?

(source: Tom Head, CivilLiberty.about.com)

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

Execution isn't path to a peaceful society


As Christians, church leaders and bishops in the Episcopal Church, we urge
the General Assembly to act to abolish the death penalty ("Report fuels
death debate," Dec. 13).

As Christians, we are guided by the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the
Mount. Here he specifically rejects retribution by stating that even the
teaching in the Old Testament of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth" is to be rejected in favor of the teaching that calls for
reconciliation (Matthew, 6:38).

Responding to killing with more killing will not make society less
violent. Retaliating for death with death is not simply punishment but a
further justification of violence as a way of life. We simply cannot kill
our way out of the violence.

The uneven application of the death penalty also points to its fundamental
unfairness. And the reality is that, as a result of prosecutorial
discretion, the death penalty is most often used against people of color
and poorer people.

As Christians, we affirm the sanctity of every human life. We believe this
principle applies to people of many faiths, and join with our sisters and
brothers from other faiths in calling for society to affirm the sanctity
of all human life.

We further question whether humans have enough expertise and knowledge
that we can be certain about the evidence used to put someone on death
row.

As we learn that innocent people have been convicted and sentenced to
death, we have to ask: Can we ever say with certainty that we cannot or
will not execute innocent people?

We must all work for a less violent society. We need to ask ourselves if
having the death penalty makes us a less violent society.

We believe that it does precisely the opposite.

The United States stands with oppressive governments in its insistence on
using the death penalty. Yet we see no major reduction in violence in our
society.

Our intent should be to build a society that is less violent, one where
people are not subject to violence of any kind.

This will happen only as we address the matters that drive people to
violence.

The Rev. John L. Rabb, Baltimore

The Rev. James J. Shand, Easton

The writers are, respectively, the bishop suffragan of the Episcopal
Diocese of Maryland and the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Easton.

(source: Letter to the Editor, Baltimore Sun)






CALIFORNIA:

Condemning a new 'Cadillac' Death Row


The expansion of Death Row at San Quentin State Prison is a bottomless
money pit that must be stopped.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is moving
forward with building a $395.5 million Condemned Inmate Complex at San
Quentin - a Cadillac death row designed to house 768 inmates.
Groundbreaking is scheduled for as early as spring 2009, and its capital
and operational costs over 20 years will be at least $1.2 billion. If the
state eliminates this project as part of its mid-year spending cuts, it
could save $18.6 million per year if it delayed construction for 5 years
because the new operating costs are higher than the costs of delaying
construction.

These are hard times for California. As our nation reels from the worst
economic collapse since the Great Depression, our state government is
facing its worst-ever fiscal crisis: a looming $40 billion deficit and the
actual prospect that our state - for the 1st time in history - could run
out of money by February. Extraordinary and draconian measures are being
debated right now in Sacramento, including billions of dollars in cuts to
schools that will affect the number of teachers, size of classrooms and
quality of education for millions of Californians. Virtually every part of
state government is bracing for painful cuts.

Since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took office, the Corrections budget has
ballooned more than 70 %. And that's before the recent multibillion-dollar
investment in prison health care, as ordered by a U.S. District Court
judge. Corrections is telling the judge that it can't afford to comply
with those orders, but that is a hard sell when prison bureaucrats
continue spending on other projects.

Built in 1852 by stagecoach and railroad robbers who were sentenced to
reside there, San Quentin is the oldest prison in California, and the most
expensive maximum security prisons to operate. The Legislature agreed in
2003 to build a new death row to address overcrowding at the old facility.
There are currently 635 men awaiting execution.

In 2007, the highly respected Legislative Analyst Office criticized the
death row expansion project for its high cost, even after Corrections
downsized the project from 1,024 cells to 768 cells. With a construction
cost of more than $520,000 for each 6-by-10-foot cell, the expanded death
row would arguably be a Taj Majal maximum security prison - and still not
meet Corrections' standards for housing maximum security inmates.

The LAO said the project should be scrapped: "We recommend canceling the
condemned housing project at San Quentin and using the remaining funding
authorized for this expensive project to build additional prison capacity
for condemned and maximum-security inmates at a lower cost per bed
elsewhere."

Another independent study, by the state auditor found the project to be
even more expensive than the LAO had estimated, and would likely exceed
capacity just three years after its completion.

We may have only a few weeks to stop Corrections from irreversibly
committing the state to this $1.2 billion blunder. That's why we are
introducing bipartisan legislation this week to de-authorize the funding
appropriated for this ill-conceived project.

California faces hard choices in bridging a $40 billion deficit. We think
Democrats and Republicans alike should agree that this is no time to give
prison bureaucrats a shiny new Cadillac.

(source: Republican Jeff Denham represents Merced, San Benito and portions
of Madera, Monterey and Stanislaus counties in the state Senate. Democrat
Jared Huffman represents Marin and portions of Sonoma counties in the
Assembly----San Francisco Chronicle)