[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CONN., VA., US MIL., PENN. (fwd)

Wed Mar 21 23:04:37 CDT 2012

March 21

CONNECTICUT:

Conn. committee passes death penalty repeal bill

A bill that would abolish the state's death penalty for all future cases and 
replace the punishment with life imprisonment has passed its 1st round of votes 
in the General Assembly despite a recent poll's findings that repeal is 
unpopular with a majority of voters.

Members of the General Assembly's Judiciary Committee voted 24-19 in favor of 
the bill on Wednesday. Now, the vote awaits further legislative action by the 
state's Senate.

The vote on the bill came shortly after a new Quinnipiac University poll showed 
62 percent of Connecticut residents do not support repealing the death penalty. 
The poll, released Wednesday, surveyed 1,622 registered voters on an array of 
issues. The margin of sampling error for the poll was 2.4 % points.

Despite the findings of the poll, state lawmakers on both sides of the issue 
have raised concerns on what the poll is actually reflecting.

Mike Lawlor, the undersecretary of Criminal Justice Policy for the Office of 
Policy and Management, said despite the lack of public support shown in the 
poll Gov. Dannel P. Malloy would sign legislation on the issue.

"If we had polled civil rights in 1962, we would still be operating largely 
under Jim Crow laws," Malloy said. "So I think I'll stick with my position, and 
that is, that matters of conscience, people should be driven by their own 
conscience."

The Quinnipiac University poll director, Doug Schwartz, said the poll found 
"about 2 to 1 were against abolishing the death penalty."

Of those surveyed, more than 80 % of Republicans said they believe abolishing 
the death penalty is a "bad idea," compared to 44 % of Democrats.

According to the poll, Connecticut men are more likely to oppose death penalty 
repeal than women.

Additionally, more than half of state residents polled said they think death 
row inmates should still be executed if the penalty is abolished.

While repealing the state's death penalty remains unpopular among voters, the 
percentage of Connecticut residents who said they oppose abolishing the 
punishment has dropped 5 % since last year.

Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield, D-New Haven, who is an outspoken supporter of 
repealing the death penalty, said the poll's recent findings on the death 
penalty are misleading. Holder-Winfield, the committee's vice chair, criticized 
the poll for not asking residents if they support life imprisonment in place of 
capital punishment, as it has in previous years.

In March 2011, Quinnipiac released a poll that surveyed nearly 1,700 state 
voters on issues including the death penalty.

The poll asked multiple questions on the subject and found that just under half 
the residents surveyed said they preferred a sentence of life in prison without 
parole over the death penalty.

"It's cool if you want to obfuscate and talk about something we're not talking 
about, except that on something this serious, you should talk about the issue 
before the state," he said.

Similar to Holder-Winfield, death penalty opponent Sen. John Kissel, R-Enfield, 
said the poll is not reflective of the population that would support repeal 
with certain caveats, like life imprisonment without parole or solitary 
confinement.

Kissel, a bill opponent, said the poll does point out that most state voters do 
not want death penalty repeal.

"For those of my colleagues who feel they know better, I would say the people 
of Connecticut are pretty darn smart," Kissel said.

In the committee's lengthy discussion before the vote, Kissel raised a bill 
amendment that would give certain egregious offenders sentences that include 
isolation. Although the amendment failed, Kissel said he will continue to raise 
the issue.

In 2009, a death penalty repeal bill passed the legislature but was vetoed by 
then-Gov. Jodi Rell. Last year, a similar effort failed in the Senate due 
largely to the ongoing death penalty trial in a fatal Cheshire home invasion 
case.

There are 11 inmates sitting on death row in Connecticut. The state has carried 
out only 1 execution in 51 years, when serial killer Michael Ross was 
administered lethal injection in 2005.

(source: Associated Press)

VIRGINIA:

Local filmmaker screens death penalty doc

Working for a Virginia law firm that specialized in defending death penalty 
cases, Jeff Reynolds spent two years immersed in the world of capital 
punishment.

At first, the Oconee native balanced the fence of the issue, he said. “But when 
I got the job at the law firm, I saw firsthand how our justice system works and 
the problems that arise when punishments are final.”

Over the course of his employment at the law firm, Reynolds met a lot of death 
row inmates in person, including a few he felt were innocent. He also learned 
that overturning a death penalty conviction is next to impossible, he said, 
because the wheels of justice turn very slowly.

“When it works, everybody is happy,” he said. “But when it doesn’t, people tend 
to keep that quiet.”

When Reynolds moved to Wilmington, N.C., to start a career in the film industry 
in 2008, he knew he wanted to make a documentary about the death penalty. And 
one of the cases he came across while working at the law firm, the now 
11-year-old conviction of Justin Michael Wolfe, encompassed everything he 
wanted to address about the subject, including the labyrinthine appeals 
process.

The movie Reynolds is filming, “Corpus: The Case of Justin Wolfe,” still is in 
production, but the filmmaker returns to Athens on Thursday to screen a short 
teaser for the project, as well a full screening of his award-winning short 
documentary “Jerry,” about a former death row executioner.

Ciné also will sneak preview Werner Herzog’s new documentary, “Into the Abyss,” 
an exploration of a triple homicide in Texas. All proceeds from Thursday’s 
screening help fund Reynold’s “Corpus” project.

Reynolds met Jerry Givens, the former executioner, while researching for the 
film about Wolfe.

“I wanted someone to explain on camera what Justin would face when he goes to 
be executed,” he said, but he didn’t find what he expected.

“We have no point of reference as to what an executioner’s personality is 
like,” Reynolds said. “Except maybe for cartoonish figures with axes and 
hoods.”

After 1 meeting, a 5-minute interview turned into a 25-minute movie.

“I found his story so compelling. I didn’t expect someone who was so warm and 
personable,” he said. “(Jerry) saw this stuff firsthand. I have my own bias, so 
it was nice to hear his point of view.”

Faced with such emotional material, especially with his own experience with the 
subject, Reynolds said he tries to retain objectivity “to a certain degree” in 
the filmmaking process, admitting he has some “pretty strong opinions.”

Making a film with an argument is totally acceptable, he said, but he tries to 
round out his film with opposing opinions, including one of the jurors who 
convicted Wolfe.

“I’m not overly concerned about being objective,” he said. “But to make an 
interesting movie, I need to be counterbalanced.”

(source: onlineathens.com)

US MILITARY:

America's record for prosecuting allegations of war crimes is spotty, death 
penalty very rare

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says the death penalty is possible if a U.S. 
military court finds an Army staff sergeant guilty of gunning down Afghan 
children and family members. But it isn't likely.

History shows that the U.S. military system is slow to convict Americans, 
particularly service members, of alleged war crimes. And when a punishment is 
imposed, it can range anywhere from life in prison all the way down to house 
arrest. Other factors can seem to play more of a role than the crime itself.

In the case of Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, the suspect in the March 11 
Kandahar shootings, legal experts say the 38-year-old married father of 2 young 
children could face a lengthy prison sentence if convicted of the crime, which 
has threatened U.S.-Afghan relations. But on his fourth combat tour and with a 
head injury on his record — the sergeant remembers little about that night, 
Bales' lawyer says — he might well be shown some leniency by the military jury, 
even if convicted.

"Political pressure is going to drive the push for the death penalty. Doesn't 
mean they're going to get it," said Charles Gittins, a Virginia-based defense 
attorney who represents service members and has handled capital cases.

Of the long list of alleged U.S. atrocities — from prison massacres in World 
War II to the slaughter of civilians at My Lai in Vietnam — relatively few 
high-profile war crimes believed to involve Americans in the past century have 
resulted in convictions, let alone the death penalty.

In the case of My Lai, President Richard Nixon reduced the only prison sentence 
given to three years of house arrest. In the 2005 Haditha shooting of Iraqi 
civilians, eight Marines were charged but plea deals and promises of immunity 
in exchange for testimony meant no prison sentences.

Prosecution against Blackwater employees in the 2007 shootings in Baghdad's 
Nisoor Square similarly floundered as civilian prosecutors tried to assemble 
the case. Charges eventually were thrown out on the grounds that prosecutors 
mishandled evidence, although a federal appeals court last year resurrected the 
case.

Legal experts say a big part of the challenge is assembling forensic evidence 
and eyewitness testimony from remote, often dangerous parts of the battlefield 
thousands of miles away from the United States. And there's an emotional 
component, too, in prosecuting U.S. citizens who have risked their lives in 
combat.

"Terms like 'fog of war' mean nothing legally," said Eugene Fidell, who teaches 
military law at Yale University. "But there's a reluctance to invoke the full 
moral sanction of criminal justice in these cases."

The military hasn't executed a service member since 1961. And like that case in 
1961, in which an Army ammunition handler was hanged for raping an 11-year-old 
girl in Austria, none of the 6 men on death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., 
today were convicted for atrocities against foreign civilians. All of their 
crimes involved the killing of U.S. civilians or fellow service members.

The military doesn't even have the equipment necessary to carry out an 
execution. If a service member were to be put to death, the military would rely 
on the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind.

Of note is that U.S. service members — as well as contractors supporting them 
in war zones — are subject to a different set of rules than civilians when it 
comes to capital punishment. Unlike in the civilian world, the president must 
personally agree to the death sentence of a service member.

Gittins estimates that since 1961, more than 1/2 of the death penalty cases 
involving U.S. service members have been overturned by military appeals courts. 
He attributes that high percentage in part to the lack of experience that 
military judges and prosecutors have in pursuing capital cases. Inexperience 
means making mistakes, he says, which higher courts use to knock down rulings.

"If someone does two (military death penalty cases) in their entire career, 
that would be miraculous," he said. The question Panetta and others will have 
to ask, Gittins says, is whether pursuing the death penalty for Bales is 
worthwhile, given the likelihood such a punishment wouldn't stick anyway.

Human Rights Watch in Washington, which opposes the death penalty, says it's 
not clear the U.S. has the political stomach to follow through with the 
prosecution of war crimes involving its own citizens.

Andrea Prasow, the organization's senior counterterrorism counsel, said there 
was only one word to describe America's track record for punishing war crimes: 
"abysmal."

She says she is most troubled by a lack of accountability in suspected abuse of 
detainees, including the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq and secret 
interrogations led by the CIA.

"Every time a case is not prosecuted, it contributes to a culture of impunity," 
Prasow said.

Much of U.S. policy in recent years has focused on protecting troops from 
prosecution by foreign states. In the 1990s, the U.S. objected to the creation 
of an international court to prosecute war crimes, in part because of the 
potential that such a court might try to claim jurisdiction over American 
troops fighting abroad.

And while Congress in 1996 agreed that the standards for treating prisoners of 
war as outlined by the Geneva Conventions should be put into law, lawmakers 
revised the rules 10 years later under pressure by the Bush administration out 
of concern that U.S. interrogators could be prosecuted for alleged war crimes.

The U.S. also has insisted on maintaining immunity from local prosecution for 
its troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, signing specific agreements with those 
countries that preserve the military's legal jurisdiction in all cases 
involving service members.

While the U.S. track record for prosecuting alleged war crimes is spotty, some 
say the tide is changing.

In one 2006 case, four soldiers were given substantial prison sentences for 
raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and killing her and her family. Steven Dale 
Green, a former 101st Airborne soldier, is serving 5 life terms after jurors 
couldn't agree on whether to impose the death penalty.

Stephen Carter, a Yale law professor who writes frequently about the ethics of 
war, notes that many of the cases that are prosecuted are aided by other 
service members tipping off authorities.

"Nearly all of our military forces serve with enormous honor and courage. It 
bears mention that at Abu Ghraib, just as at My Lai, it was fellow soldiers who 
blew the whistle on the perpetrators," Carter wrote in a Newsweek Magazine 
editorial.

(source: Associated Press)

PENNSYLVANIA:

Deal spares Angel Reyes from death penalty

Angel Luis Reyes, 67, was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday for the 1993 
drowning death of his 4-year-old daughter, Marcia Reyes, in exchange for a 
waiver of any further appeals in the case.

Reyes had been sentenced to death by 2 penalty-phase juries and had another 
penalty hearing scheduled for next month. Gov. Edward G. Rendell had signed a 
warrant for his death in January 2010 that scheduled an execution by lethal 
injection the following March.

The Federal Defenders Association of Philadelphia moved to stay Reyes’ 
execution that February, however.

A new death penalty hearing was scheduled for next month, but the girl’s 
mother, Julie E. Martinez, consented to the sentencing agreement carried out 
Wednesday by Judge Barry Dozor.

(source: Delco Times)