[Deathpenalty] [SPAM] death penalty news----FLA., MD., CONN., CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 12



FLORIDA----impending execution

Inmate on death row for 3 decades scheduled to be executed for slaying of St. 
Pete woman


A twice-convicted murderer who has lived on Florida's death row for more than 3 
decades is scheduled to die by lethal injection this week for killing a St. 
Petersburg mother — but like many executions, why he is being killed now and 
why it didn't happen years ago are both something of a mystery.

If 65-year-old Robert Brian Waterhouse is executed Wednesday at Florida State 
Prison near Starke, he will have lingered on death row longer than any of the 
previous 276 people executed by the state, according to the Department of 
Corrections. He's spent more than 31 years mostly by himself in a 6-by-9-foot 
cell as his various appeals worked their way through the courts.

Just 18 of the 395 people currently on death row have been there longer than 
Waterhouse, who was sentenced in September 1980 for raping and killing 
29-year-old Deborah Kammerer.

No one in Gov. Rick Scott's office would talk in detail about the process that 
led him to pick Waterhouse over others whose appeals have run their course. 
It's the 3rd death warrant Scott has signed since taking office in January 
2011.

"Governor Scott takes his legal duty to sign death warrants very seriously and 
is committed to following the law in as thoughtful and deliberative a manner as 
possible. There are many factors that bear upon the governor's decision each 
time he must choose to sign a death warrant, which is always on a case-by-case 
basis," his aides said in a statement.

Asked about it at an appearance in Tampa last week, Scott said he sits down 
with a team of staffers and goes through the roster of death row inmates who 
have exhausted their appeals.

"I spend a lot of time praying about it and thinking about it, and it's a hard 
decision," he said. "There is not ever one issue" that leads to an inmate being 
selected to die.

Others familiar with the process say that because many condemned inmates' cases 
are in various stages of appeal and new litigation is filed all the time, there 
is never a clear choice for the governor.

The attorney general's office is charged with keeping track of the status of 
cases, and generally responds to requests from the governor regarding 
individual inmates who've been through their major appeals and the clemency 
process, and would likely be unsuccessful with any appeals filed after the 
death warrant is signed. Typically, they're inmates who haven't initiated any 
new litigation in a number of years.

Craig Trocino, who handled death row appeals for years before going to work for 
a University of Miami law school clinic, said the "incredibly secretive" nature 
of the governor's selection process has always disturbed death penalty 
opponents.

"There was no logic to any it, as far as we could tell, and nobody was speaking 
about it," Trocino said. "If it's really above-board, the governor would open 
his book and say 'This is the procedure I take in determining this.'"

University of Florida law professor George R. "Bob" Dekle, a former prosecutor 
who sent notorious serial killer Ted Bundy to death row, said Florida governors 
have rarely been forthcoming about the reasons they select one inmate over all 
the others for execution.

Dekle said appellate lawyers do their best to make sure it's not an easy choice 
for the governor. They file whatever they can for as long as they can to keep 
their cases alive in the courts. New issues based on recent court rulings and 
changes in the law provide new fodder for appeals all the time, he said.

"It's guerilla warfare," Dekle said. "As long as you can put it off, as long as 
you can delay, as long as you can keep the thing going in any way, shape or 
form possible, that's how much time you've got."

Time appears to be running out for Waterhouse, whose latest appeal to the 
Florida Supreme Court was denied Wednesday. Federal appeals are expected to be 
mounted as his execution approaches.

The body of Waterhouse's victim was found washed up on the tidal flats of Tampa 
Bay on Jan. 3, 1980. She'd been raped, beaten and dragged into the surf, where 
she drowned.

Unable to identify her immediately, police turned to the public for help. 
Neighbors identified Kammerer's body, and an anonymous tipster led police to 
Waterhouse, who was on parole for a New York killing. He had pleaded guilty to 
2nd-degree murder for killing a 77-year-old Long Island woman during a 1966 
burglary. He was sentenced to life but was paroled after 8 years.

In the Kammerer case, a bartender had seen her and Waterhouse leave a St. 
Petersburg bar together. Blood, hair and fibers in Waterhouse's car were linked 
to the victim. Waterhouse admitted having sex with Kammerer but denied killing 
her.

Gov. Bob Graham signed a death warrant for Waterhouse in 1985, but his 
execution was delayed by an appeal that eventually got him a new sentencing 
hearing. That hearing in 1990 ended like the first, with a jury recommending 
execution by a 12-0 vote and a judge sentencing him to death.

One of Kammerer's daughters told the Tampa Bay Times that she didn't know yet 
if she or any of her siblings will come to Florida to witness the execution.

"It's long overdue," said Wendy Mistry, 43, who lives near Dallas. "We didn't 
forget about it, but we put it in the back of our minds. You don't really ever 
forget."

(source: Associated Press)






MARYLAND:

Stephens sentencing could test Maryland death penalty law----DNA provision in 
law makes for new question for jury, judge


This week's sentencing of the prisoner convicted of killing a correctional 
officer will be the 1st case in Maryland in which prosecutors must establish a 
DNA "link" in order to pursue a death sentence, and it could become the 1st 
real test for the state's new capital punishment law.

The Anne Arundel County jury — or judge, depending on who does the sentencing — 
will have to decide if prosecution evidence that the victim's blood was on the 
defendant's clothes is conclusive enough to consider putting Lee Edward "Shy" 
Stephens to death.

Stephens, 32, was convicted Thursday of 1st-degree murder in the fatal stabbing 
of Cpl. David McGuinn at the now-closed House of Correction. His sentencing is 
scheduled to begin Monday.

The hearing will be watched closely in Maryland, where Gov. Martin O'Malley and 
the General Assembly moved in 2009 to limit the death penalty to 1st-degree 
murder cases in which there is biological or DNA evidence, a video recording of 
the crime or a videotaped confession.

"To my knowledge, this is the 1st one that is testing the DNA section of the 
statute. Anytime you are the 1st one you are in uncharted waters,' said Scott 
D. Shellenberger, state's attorney for Baltimore County.

His office recently sought the death penalty for Walter P. Bishop Jr., who was 
convicted in a murder-for-hire plot, but that effort was based on a confession. 
The jury sentenced Bishop to life in prison.

The big question for the judge or jury in the Stephens case, experts say, will 
be whether the DNA evidence "links the defendant to the act of murder." They'll 
also have to decide what that wording means.

"This is a unique provision in death penalty statutes across the country, so it 
has never been interpreted by a Maryland court or any other court," said 
Michael A. Millemann, a University of Maryland law professor who has been 
involved in capital defense work. "It is likely in this case that if the jury 
returns a death penalty, the Maryland Court of Appeals will have to interpret 
this language."

All death sentences are automatically appealed to the state's highest court.

McGuinn's blood was on Stephens' clothing, according to testimony for the 
prosecution during the trial. But the defense contended that the victim's blood 
was spread over a large area, including other cells, and claimed that evidence 
was improperly handled and contaminated.

McGuinn, 42, was ambushed by two prisoners who emerged from cells as he was 
doing the 10 p.m. prisoner count on July 25, 2006, on a tier of the Maryland 
House of Correction, prosecutors told jurors during the trial.

In addition to Stephens, Lamar (also spelled Lamarr) Cornelius "Junebug" 
Harris, 41, is also charged, but his trial date has not been set, amid 
questions about whether he is mentally competent to stand trial.

One issue the defense may raise is whether the law refers to the victim's DNA 
or the defendant's.

A major concern with the death penalty has been over how the state can make 
sure it never executes an innocent person. During chaotic hearings on proposed 
restrictions to the death penalty law, legislators heard examples of DNA 
evidence showing that prisoners did not commit the crimes of which they'd been 
convicted — for example, another person's DNA might be found at the crime 
scene.

In this case, however, testimony during the trial said the victim's DNA found 
on the defendant, not the other way around.

State Sen. Bobby A. Zirkin, a Baltimore County Democrat who drafted the 2009 
changes to the law, said the law doesn't specify the victim's or defendant's 
DNA.

"The application [of the law] in this case is appropriate," he said.

There are other questions about the law that this case may illuminate, Milleman 
said.

"How closely must the DNA evidence link the defendant to the act of murder? 
What burden of proof must the state meet?" he asked.

The law doesn't say.

The 2009 changes add to already complex death penalty issues and the sentencing 
process. In Maryland, only in death penalty cases can the jury determine the 
sentence.

Stephens must say Monday whether he wants to be sentenced by the jury that took 
nearly 6 days to convict him or by Anne Arundel Circuit Judge Paul A. Hackner, 
who presided over the trial. Whichever he chooses, the process remains the 
same.

Meanwhile, Hackner's gag order on all trial participants remains in effect. 
Nobody involved with the trial is allowed to comment on the proceedings.

If the jury — or judge — finds that the DNA evidence shows Stephens is eligible 
for a death sentence, a second part of the sentencing will begin. The various 
circumstances the jury must consider when deciding whether to impose the death 
penalty are spelled out in state law, and legislators did not change that 
aspect of the law 3 years ago.

"What the jury does is it balances the aggravating circumstances and mitigating 
factors," said Shellenberger.

That Stephens was in prison when McGuinn was slain is an aggravating factor. He 
was serving a sentence of life plus 15 years after being convicted of murder in 
the April 1997 killing of a man outside a Salisbury nightclub. Stephens was 17 
at the time.

The list of mitigating factors includes whether the defendant's actions were 
the immediate cause of death and whether he acted under duress. It also has a 
catch-all provision, where jurors can consider such testimony as whether the 
defendant endured a miserable childhood.

The sentencing hearing could continue into the following week.

(source: Baltimore Sun)






CONNECTICUT:

State may consider repealing the death penalty----Opponents were waiting for 
end of home-invasion trials


With both killers in the Cheshire home invasion facing death row, legislation 
may now come forward that would abolish the death penalty in Connecticut for 
future crimes.

State Sens. Edith Prague of Columbia and Andrew Maynard of Stonington were the 
two Democratic legislators who abruptly changed their minds last year about 
voting to end capital punishment after emotional meetings with Dr. William 
Petit, the lone survivor of the 2007 triple slaying.

At that time, only one of the murderers, Steven Hayes, had been tried and 
convicted. The trial and sentencing of Joshua Komisarjevsky would not finish 
until after the General Assembly session, and the state senators said they 
didn't want to affect the outcome of the proceedings out of respect for the 
Petit family. "I just feel that if there is anything I could do to help this 
man at all, I've got to do it," Prague said when explaining her decision.

So a bill that would have "prospectively" ended the death penalty for future 
crimes didn't come up for a vote in either legislative chamber - despite strong 
support in the House - as Prague and Maynard's switches made the Senate tally 
19 to 17 against it.

With the new legislative session under way, Maynard says his vote is back in 
the repeal column because the last home invasion trial is over. "If the vote 
comes forward today, I will vote for repeal," said Maynard. Last year, with the 
trials unfinished, "I just didn't think we could have had a dispassionate 
debate," he said.

Sources say that Prague has expressed interest in possibly rejoining the repeal 
camp if certain caveats are added to the bill.

But when asked by The Day how she stands on the issue, Prague said last week 
that she was still deciding whether to keep the death penalty or end it.

"I'm doing a lot of soul-searching here," said Prague, who returned for the 
short session after experiencing a minor stroke in December. "It's not an easy 
decision."

The veteran lawmaker was a reliable supporter of capital punishment in the 
1990s until changing her views several years ago over the case of James 
Tillman, a black man who served 18 years for rape and assault convictions 
before his exoneration by DNA evidence.

Opponents of the death penalty say there are too many wrongful convictions, 
especially of racial minorities.

Crucial 18th vote

Yet if repeal advocates are determined to force a bill through the legislature 
this year, they may not need Prague's vote.

Maynard's flip would add an 18th vote against the death penalty, provided that 
no other senator has changed his or her intent. So if Prague were to vote to 
keep the death penalty, Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman would then be called to break the 
chamber's 18-18 tie.

Wyman said Friday that she would vote for repeal, provided that the bill is 
prospective and keeps the death penalty for the 11 convicts on Connecticut's 
death row.

"I have always been against the death penalty," Wyman said. "I would prefer 
that these people be put in jail and stay there forever."

The shifting votes are stirring nervousness among capitol punishment 
proponents. State Rep. Steve Mikutel, D-Griswold, recently said he is skeptical 
that another round of appeals from Petit would have the same effect on 
legislators as it did before the Komisarjevsky trial.

Mikutel pointed out that public opinion polls consistently show a majority of 
state residents supporting the death penalty, and he said it would be wrong for 
the General Assembly to take action that "misrepresents the will of the 
people."

"It would be a slap in the face to all victims of murder to abolish the death 
penalty," Mikutel said.

"The people of Connecticut want the death penalty for serious, outrageous 
crimes, and legislators should stop interfering and just accept what the courts 
have said and what the people of Connecticut want."

Repeal activists once thought 2011 would be their year.

There was a new Democratic governor in office who pledged to sign legislation 
to end the death penalty if it reached his desk. Former Republican Gov. M. Jodi 
Rell had vetoed such a bill in 2009, a bill that had easily cleared the House 
but barely passed the Senate with a 19-17 vote at 4 a.m. after almost 11 hours 
of debate.

Bill's prospects grow

The bill that emerged last year from the legislature's judiciary committee, 
sponsored by state Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield, D-New Haven, would have replaced 
the death penalty with life imprisonment without parole. To gain votes, it was 
crafted to apply to only future crimes, so current death row inmates would 
still face execution.

Holder-Winfield never doubted the bill's chances in the House, but knew the 
Senate vote tally would be close.

In an interview last week, he said he anticipates the judiciary committee 
raising the bill again this year. He acknowledged the possibility of using the 
lieutenant governor's vote to push it through the Senate, but said he doesn't 
want to rely on a tie-breaker to pass such key legislation.

Although Holder-Winfield wishes that his bill ended the death penalty 
completely, he said there is not enough support for legislation that would 
spare those already on death row.

During a committee hearing last year on Holder-Winfield's bill, both Chief 
State's Attorney Kevin Kane and Chief Public Defender Susan O. Storey said that 
any "prospective" law that ended the death penalty for future crimes would 
likely result in appeals by death row inmates that would overturn their 
sentences.

If such a scenario plays out, both Prague and Maynard could end up voting for a 
bill that inadvertently spares the lives of Hayes and Komisarjevsky.

State Rep. Gerald Fox III, D-Stamford, judiciary committee co-chairman, said 
that members will do additional research into that question once the repeal 
bill comes up again.

(source: The Day)






CALIFORNIA:

Westerfield Convicted Of Kidnapping, Killing Danielle Van Dam, 7


In 2002, Westerfield was convicted of kidnapping and killing his 7-year-old 
neighbor, Danielle Van Dam.

The trial was covered live and transmitted all over the world. In the appeal, 
Westerfield's lawyers claim that the media was creating a "lynch mob mentality" 
and that the jury was "under siege."

David Steinberg, a professor at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law, reviewed 
the brief for 10News and agreed.

"This trial was conducted under a microscope," he said.

However, Steinberg said he does not buy into that as a very persuasive 
argument.

"Trial publicity is not your best argument for reversing a conviction," said 
Steinberg. "Your best bet typically is that there's some evidence introduced 
that should not have been."

Westerfield's attorneys argued that search warrants were illegally obtained. 
They also argued that trial judge William Mudd abused his discretion many times 
by not granting motions for a mistrial, not sequestering the jury, keeping some 
jurors despite defense protests and not excluding child pornography charges in 
a capital murder case.

In the appeal, 28 reasons were listed for reversal, including the argument that 
the California death penalty is unconstitutional.

There are more than 700 inmates on death row and 13 have been executed in the 
past 2 decades. No one was executed for the 25 years leading up to 1992 because 
it was judged unconstitutional during that time.

Death penalty appeals are usually successful. There is a 70 % success rate for 
these appeals, but Steinberg believes the Westerfield team has a real uphill 
battle.

"I would be very surprised if there is a reversal--either of his guilt or on 
the death penalty," he said.

(source: KGTV News)

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

California's death penalty law: It simply does not work----We believed the 
Briggs initiative — the death penalty measure we wrote in 1977 — would bring 
greater justice. We were wrong.


In 1977, my dad, former state Sen. John Briggs, my brother-in-law and I got 
together to discuss California's death penalty. We agreed it was ineffective 
and decided a ballot initiative was needed to expand the number of murder 
categories eligible for capital punishment. We felt such changes would give 
prosecutors better tools for meting out just punishments, and that a broadened 
statute would serve as a warning to all California evildoers that the state 
would deliver swift and final justice.

We thought we were creating a national model for capital punishment.

On a shoestring budget we collected more than 1 million signatures to put the 
proposition on the ballot. Half the signatures came via first-class business 
reply mail, which my wife, Kelly, and I manually processed. We didn't have 
laptops or self-adhesive stamps then, although we did have a bomb scanner, 
which we'd been trained to use by the FBI after they discovered a terrorist 
plot to kill my dad.

On Nov. 7, 1978, California voters passed the Briggs initiative on the death 
penalty.

Back then, my future brother-in-law was Dad's district chief of staff and I 
proudly served as my father's personal aide. Today Dad is retired, my 
brother-in-law is a California Superior Court judge and I am in my 2nd term as 
a county supervisor representing rural District IV in the county of El Dorado, 
east of Sacramento.

Recently, the 3 of us sat together under a rose trellis in the quiet cool of 
morning to talk politics. Each of us remains a staunch Republican conservative, 
but our perspectives on the death penalty have changed. We'd thought we would 
bring California savings and safety in dealing with convicted murderers. 
Instead, we contributed to a nightmarish system that coddles murderers and 
enriches lawyers. Our initiative was intended to bring about greater justice 
for murder victims. Never did we envision a multibillion-dollar industry that 
packs murderers onto death row for decades of extremely expensive 
incarceration. We thought we would empty death row, not triple its population.

Each of us, independently, has concluded that the death penalty isn't working 
for California.

I am entering my 5th year as a county supervisor, an office that has given me 
firsthand experience of the fiscally ruinous effect of our death penalty 
initiative. Each capital case the district attorney files drains about $1 
million from local coffers. And that's just the expense to the county. Much 
more state and federal money is spent on special incarceration and on appeal 
after expensive appeal. If a retrial is ordered, our county has to foot the 
bill all over again.

The politically conservative county of El Dorado is in the Sierra Nevada 
foothills. Ours is a small and close community. Kelly and I have a dear friend 
whose husband was shot to death in their home, and we have another friend whose 
son was murdered. Every 5 years they are forced to attend parole hearings for 
the murderers of their loved ones. The anguish, anxiety and grief in their eyes 
are indescribable.

A couple of years ago I became acquainted with a woman who in 1981 survived 
being abducted, raped, thrown down a gully naked and shot multiple times. For 
good measure, her attacker threw rocks at her head. On that same day, the man 
murdered the woman's friend. Because of the death penalty system we put in 
place, the survivor, a fragile mother of 3, had to find courage to face her 
would-be killer again after he weaseled a technical appeal 26 years after the 
crime, forcing a full retrial here in El Dorado. It yielded the same verdict, 
and it took a huge human toll on his living victim.

If the murderer had been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of 
parole rather than to death, the long cycle of appeals could have been avoided.

I cannot think of a single turning point in my thinking on the death penalty. 
My Catholicism teaches me that all life is precious, and that's certainly part 
of my viewpoint these days. But what resonates more in my mind is Dad's 
fondness for saying "facts are stubborn things." With hindsight's 20-20 vision 
and 3 decades of obstinate data, it's clear to my family that we created a 
fiscal monster that's taking a human toll on the very people we wanted to 
protect.

The ineffective legal beast created by California's death penalty laws costs 
taxpayers more than $100 million annually and ties up the lives of prosecutors 
and victims who could be moving on to other things.

We thought our 1978 initiative created a system to support victims' families. 
It didn't. The only people benefiting today are the lawyers who handle 
expensive appeals and the criminals who are able to keep their cases alive 
interminably.

The Briggs death penalty law in California simply does not work.

Had I known then what we do today, I would have pushed for strong life 
sentences without the possibility of parole. I still believe that society must 
be protected from the most heinous criminals, and that they don't deserve to 
ever again be free. But I'd like to see them serve their terms with the general 
prison population, where they could be required to work and pay restitution 
into the victims' compensation fund.

There are few "do-overs" in life, especially in politics. With the death 
penalty, though, 34 years later I have an opportunity to set things right. The 
Briggs family has decided to endorse the SAFE California campaign, a fall 2012 
ballot initiative that would replace the death penalty with a punishment of 
life without the possibility of parole. The state has another chance at real 
justice. We should embrace it.

(source: Op-Ed; Ron Briggs is a member of the Board of Supervisors in El Dorado 
County, Los Angeles Times)