[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, OKLA.

[Rick Halperin]

May 23






TEXAS:

A severe, appropriate sentence


It is always surprising to see that some people describe a life sentence
in a Texas prison without possibility of parole as "getting away with
murder." This severe sentence given to Juan Leonardo Quintero is an
appropriate punishment for taking the life of Officer Rodney Johnson, a
dedicated public servant and family man.

The trend away from the death penalty nationwide and even in Texas is a
reflection of increased awareness that limited resources can be better
used to achieve public safety, as well as concern about the
ever-increasing number of wrongful convictions in our state and elsewhere.
Many of the recent exonerees have spent years in prison, some on death
row.

As a result, prosecutors are seeking the death penalty less. In some
jurisdictions, the death penalty is being taken off the table in exchange
for guilty pleas, saving a mountain of money for the taxpayers and sparing
both families of victims and perpetrators a lot of pain.

NANCY BAILEY ---- Stafford

(source: Letter to the Editor, Houston Chronicle)







OKLAHOMA:

URGENT ACTION APPEAL - From Amnesty International USA

23 May 2008

UA 135/08 Death penalty

USA (Oklahoma) Terry Lyn Short (m), white, aged 48

Terry Short is scheduled to be executed in Oklahoma on 17 June. He was
sentenced to death in 1997 for the murder of Ken Yamamoto in January 1995.

Ken Yamamoto, a Japanese student, was living in an apartment in Oklahoma
City that was located directly above the apartment where Brenda Gardner,
her sister Tammy Gardner and the latter's two young children lived. Terry
Short was Brenda Gardner's boyfriend until they broke up in late December
1994. In the early hours of 8 January 2005, a fire broke out in the
Gardners' apartment. Brenda and Tammy Gardner escaped with the children,
but the fire spread to the apartment above where Ken Yamamoto was
sleeping. He was taken to hospital with burns to 95 per cent of his body.
He died a few hours later.

Terry Short was charged with throwing a firebomb through the patio door of
the Gardners' apartment, causing the fire that killed Ken Yamamoto. He was
also charged with five counts of attempted murder - of the two Gardner
sisters, the children and Robert Hines, who was visiting their apartment
at the time. At the trial, the state presented eyewitness testimony from
Brenda Gardner and Robert Hines. Gardner testified that she had seen Terry
Short outside the apartment just before the fire, although she had not
seen him throw the alleged firebomb. Hines said that he had seen Short
outside the apartment, but admitted that he had only assumed it was Short
because the Gardners had said that he had been outside the apartment
earlier.

The state presented an expert who said that a "Molotov Cocktail" had been
thrown into the apartment. Another expert testified for the defense that
in her opinion the fire scene was not consistent with a firebomb having
started the fire. The state also presented the testimony of Jay Brown, a
jailhouse informant, who said that Terry Short had admitted to him in jail
that he had started the fire after finding Hines and Brenda Gardner having
sex, and that Short had scrawled derogatory comments about Gardner on the
wall of the jail cell. Brown's testimony was given in return for leniency
on charges he was facing. The defense lawyers sought to present the
testimony of another inmate, Mark Bayless, who had also shared the jail
cell, and who they said would refute every single word that Jay Brown
testified to. However, the trial judge refused to allow Bayless to testify
because the defense had revealed too late to the prosecution their
intention to present him.

In its ruling on the case in 2006, the US Court of Appeals for the 10th
Circuit said that Brown's testimony was "relevant to the prosecution
because it served as the only testimony from an unrelated party directly
connecting Mr Short to the crime." It found that the testimony of Mark
Bayless, if true and credible, would have been similarly relevant and
could have served to impeach Brown's credibility. It further stated that
"the exclusion of relevant, probative, and otherwise admissible evidence
is an extreme sanction that should be used only when justified by some
overriding policy consideration". The 10th Circuit noted that there was no
evidence that the defense had acted in bad faith in failing to disclose
their intention to present Bayless. Indeed, the defense had suggested to
the trial judge that the remedy for their tardy disclosure would be to
grant the prosecution time to interview Bayless or to grant a recess in
proceedings. In addition, the 10th Circuit said that Short's interest in
having the Bayless testimony presented was significantly heightened by the
fact that he was facing the death penalty. However, noting that "the
Constitution entitles a criminal defendant to a fair trial, not a perfect
one" the 10th Circuit court concluded that although the exclusion of the
Bayless testimony "deprived the jury of relevant evidence", federal
judicial review was required to be "deferential" to state court decisions,
and it upheld the conviction. Brown's testimony was exploited at the
sentencing by the prosecutor, who told the jury that "in jail [Short]
bragged about how he'd thrown a fire bomb". In addition, highly emotional
"victim impact" testimony was presented by Ken Yamamoto's mother at the
sentencing. Indeed, the state Court of Criminal Appeals found in 1999 that
this testimony had come very close to weighting the scales too far on the
side of the prosecution by so intensely focusing on the emotional impact
of the victim's loss". One of the judges in that decision wrote a separate
opinion referring to this "especially troubling" aspect of the case.
However the court upheld the death sentence, as did the federal 10th
Circuit despite acknowledging that the mother's testimony was "troubling",
"contained irrelevant information" and that much of it was "highly
emotional." The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals chastised the
prosecutor for arguing that the jury should vote for execution rather than
a prison sentence because it was "not justice to allow the defendant three
meals a day, a clean place to sleep, and visits by his friends while the
victim's mother daily grieves for her only son". The then Oklahoma County
District Attorney, Robert Macy, who prosecuted Terry Short, was repeatedly
condemned for such misconduct by the appeal courts (see Old habits die
hard: the death penalty in Oklahoma, April 2001,
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/055/2001/en).

Terry Short's jury was presented with testimony at the sentencing of his
dysfunctional upbringing. According to this evidence, his mother was
frequently in jail, would use intravenous drugs in front of the children
and, working as a prostitute, would bring men home in front of them. The
jury also heard evidence that the mother and Terry Short were physically
abused by his father, and that Short may have been sexually abused by the
father and stepfather. A psychiatric expert testified about the impact of
Short's traumatic background on him, and that he could function well in a
structured environment. In similar vein, two guards from the county jail
testified that Terry Short was a cooperative and obedient inmate.

There have been 1,101 executions since judicial killing resumed in 1977,
86 of them in Oklahoma. In late 2007, the UN General Assembly passed a
landmark resolution calling for a worldwide moratorium on executions.
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases,
unconditionally. There is no such thing as a humane, fair, reliable or
useful death penalty system (see "The pointless and needless extinction of
life": USA should now look beyond lethal injection issue to wider death
penalty questions,
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/031/2008/en).

RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible:

- expressing sympathy for any family of Ken Yamamoto, and explaining that
you are not seeking to downplay the suffering that will have been caused
by his death;

- opposing the execution of Terry Lyn Short, and the death penalty in
general;

- expressing concern at the use of jailhouse informant testimony,
inappropriate prosecutorial argument and potentially inflammatory victim
impact testimony in this case;

- calling for clemency for Terry Short, and for his death sentence to be
commuted.

APPEALS TO:

Pardon and Parole Board
First National Center
120 N. Robinson Ave., Suite 900W
Oklahoma City, OK 73102
Fax: 1 405 602-6437
Email: receptionist at ppb.state.ok.us.

Salutation: Dear Board Members

Governor Brad Henry
State Capitol Building
2300 N. Lincoln Blvd., Room 212
Oklahoma City, OK 73105
Fax: 1 405 521 3353
Email, via: http://www.gov.ok.gov/message.php.

Salutation: Dear Governor

PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY.

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

Urgent Action Network
Amnesty International USA
600 Pennsylvania Ave SE 5th fl
Washington DC 20003

Email: uan at aiusa.org
http://www.amnestyusa.org/urgent/
Phone: 202.544.0200
Fax: 202.675.8566

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END OF URGENT ACTION APPEAL

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