[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.Y., PENN., DEL., N.C.

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 11



TEXAS:

Death Watch: The Capital Aggrevation Question----Does Lisa Ann Coleman deserve 
to die?


On Friday, Sept. 5, the Office of Capital Writs (the state agency charged with 
representing inmates appealing a death sentence) filed an application for 
retrial with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on behalf of Lisa Ann Coleman, 
a 38-year-old Arlington woman found guilty in the July 2004 kidnapping and 
subsequent starvation death of 9-year-old Davontae Williams. Williams, the son 
of Coleman's partner Marcella Williams (who pled guilty to the crime in 2006, 
and is now serving life in prison), was found in Marcella's apartment dead and 
weighing 35 pounds, with evidence of beatings throughout his body.

The post-conviction investigation - filed 12 days before Coleman's Sept. 17 
execution date - cites 4 affidavits from witnesses who spent time around the 
Arbors of Arlington apartment complex, where Williams suffered and eventually 
died. One is by a longtime resident, Sheila London-Hall, who functioned as an 
unofficial apartment complex neighborhood watch. Several kids around the Arbors 
regularly referred to London-Hall as "Grandma," and she earned a reputation for 
calling Child Protective Services on any of her suspicions. The witnesses had 
varying degrees of familiarity with the Williams household, though they all 
claim to have seen the 9-year-old unrestrained and in good spirits at shops and 
around various residential functions in the months, weeks, and days immediately 
leading up to his death.

Such affidavits are important, OCW contends, because of questions surrounding 
the legitimacy of the kidnapping charges that helped raise Coleman's charges to 
capital murder. Lead attorney Brad Levenson writes that the trial attorneys 
"failed to investigate and present readily available evidence to disprove the 
kidnapping aggravator that made Coleman's crime death eligible." Indeed, the 
Court of Appeals referred to the allegation that Williams had been kidnapped in 
his own home as "counterintuitive" during Coleman's direct appeal; even the 5th 
Circuit considered the kidnapping aggravator "the weakest component of the 
capital charge" in 2010.

Levenson believes the 4 new affidavits prove that Coleman was not denying 
others access to Davontae in the time leading up to his death, and should be 
enough to warrant a retrial. "Had this reasonably available evidence been 
presented at trial," he writes, "there is reasonable probability that ... at 
least one juror would have harbored reasonable doubt as to whether Coleman 
committed a kidnapping."

Should Coleman's execution take place, she will become the 9th woman put to 
death in Texas since the mid-1800s, the 9th inmate executed this year, and the 
517th since the 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty in Texas.

(source: Austin Chronicle)

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

Wendy Davis Still Supports The Death Penalty


Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis, the Democratic nominee for governor, is not 
backing away from her support for the death penalty.

"I do support the death penalty and I will be prepared to carry it out," Davis 
said in a Wednesday interview with HuffPost Live.

Davis, who is running against state Attorney General Greg Abbott (R), said she 
believes capital punishment is appropriate when "heinous crimes" are committed.

Texas has the highest execution rate in the country. Since 1976, 515 people 
have been executed in the state, including seven in the last year.

When asked about studies that have shown that as many as 4 % of death row 
inmates are innocent, Davis said Texas had made progress on that front in 
recent years.

"I've also been very supportive of making sure that we are providing everyone 
with due process rights to assure that we never execute an innocent person," 
she said, noting that she favors advanced DNA testing before the death penalty 
is carried out.

Abbott favors the death penalty as well.

Several botched lethal injections around the country in recent months have 
raised questions about the morality of capital punishment. Davis acknowledged 
this in the interview.

"I of course respect the constitutional provisions to assure that we don't have 
cruel and unusual punishment," she said. "And as governor, I will work to 
assure that this is the case."

A June Washington Post/ABC poll found that 52 % of Americans would prefer that 
convicted murderers spend life in prison rather than receiving the death 
penalty.

(source: Amber Ferguson, Huffington Post)






NEW YORK:

Bring back NY death penalty


Rochester Police Officer Daryl Pierson lost his life trying to bring a 
convicted felon to justice. In New York State, punishment for an officer's 
murder is limited to life imprisonment, without the possibility of parole. 
After his killer is tried, convicted and returned to prison, he will be fed, 
clothed and sheltered on the taxpayer's dime. He will also have the opportunity 
to harm other prisoners and even corrections officers with relative impunity.

We need to reinstate the death penalty in New York - not to exact revenge, but 
to properly administer justice.

George E. Wegman----Greece

(source: Letter to the Editor, Democrat & Chronicle)






PENNSYLVANIA:

ACLU challenges Pennsylvania over execution drugs secrecy in federal court


The Guardian and three Pennsylvania newspapers have asked judge to unseal set 
of legal documents that contain hidden details about the source of state's 
lethal injection drugs

The secrecy imposed on the identity of the compounding pharmacy that supplied 
lethal drugs to Pennsylvania for use in executions is challenged today in an 
emergency legal motion lodged with a federal court.

The ACLU of Pennsylvania has asked judge Yvette Kane of the US district court 
in Harrisburg to unseal a set of legal documents that contain hidden details 
about the source of the state's lethal injection drugs. In tune with many other 
death penalty states, Pennsylvania has shrouded its execution procedure in 
secrecy in the hope of keeping supply routes to the medicines open in the face 
of a tight international boycott led by the European Commission.

The next execution scheduled in the state is on 22 September, when convicted 
murderer, Hubert Michael, 57, is set to die by an injection of 3 separate 
lethal drugs. The execution is currently on hold awaiting the decision of the 
3rd circuit court of appeals, but the stay could be lifted at any time which 
would pave the way for the 1st judicial killing in Pennsylvania for 15 years.

The condemned man, who pleaded guilty to raping and murdering a 16-year-old 
girl, Trista Eng, has been on death row for 2 decades and has exhausted almost 
all his legal options. He would be the 1st death row inmate in Pennsylvania to 
be put to death since 1999.

The ACLU's action has been brought on behalf of the Guardian and three state 
newspapers - the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the 
Philadelphia City Paper. The news organisations jointly argue that preventing 
them from reporting on crucial aspects of the death penalty protocol, including 
the identity of the pharmacy where the execution drugs were concocted, is a 
breach of their First Amendment rights as well as those of the citizens of 
Pennsylvania who should have full knowledge of how the punishment is being 
wielded in their name.

Under a court order issued in November 2012, the identity of the compounding 
pharmacy that provides Pennsylvania's department of corrections with the 
barbiturate pentobarbital has been kept secret. The name and other identifying 
information about the pharmacy has been issued to Hubert Michael's lawyers, but 
not to the press or public.

The ACLU and the 4 news organisations argue in Thursday's emergency motion that 
"the public and the press have a presumptive right of access to documents filed 
with the court ... These documents are of acute interest to the public and the 
media in the light of intense public scrutiny that has developed in the last 
year around the source of drugs used for lethal injection executions."

A recent string of botched executions in Ohio, Oklahoma and Arizona has brought 
a spotlight bearing down on death penalty states and raised questions about the 
effectiveness of the lethal injection protocols they are following. Among the 
concerns are whether compounding pharmacies can be relied upon as sources of 
the lethal injection drugs. The pharmacies make up medicines to order, and are 
not subject to the same stringent standards as drugs manufactured under 
supervision of the federal food and drug administration (FDA).

"In light of the recent string of horrifically botched executions, the public 
is entitled to know how the state obtained the drugs they plan to use to carry 
out executions here in Pennsylvania," said Reggie Shuford, executive director 
of the ACLU of Pennsylvania.

Mary Catherine Roper, the ACLU lawyer who is representing the Guardian and its 
co-petitioners in Thursday's filing, said: "The information sought by our 
clients is central to the debate about capital punishment. If the drugs are not 
made properly, they will not work properly, and the public should be very 
concerned about that possibility given the gruesome executions we have heard 
about in other states."

The action in Pennsylvania follows a similar legal move in Missouri, where the 
Guardian is leading a legal challenge to that state's secrecy over its lethal 
injection sources. The Guardian has also challenged Oklahoma in the courts over 
that state's decision to draw the curtain over the viewing window during the 
botched execution of Clayton Lockett, preventing reporters from witnessing what 
happened.

Despite Pennsylvania's refusal to disclose the identity of the compounding 
pharmacy that supplies it, sufficient information can be gleaned from court 
documents to know that there are grounds for concern over the lethal medicines 
it has acquired. Expert testimony in the case of Hubert Michael noted that the 
concentration of the pentobarbital in the state's possession was different from 
that called for by Pennsylvania's own execution protocol.

The testimony also noted that there was no evidence that the drugs had been 
tested for sterility or biological contaminants. It also revealed that the 
vials of pentobarbital had been confusingly labelled.

In normal medical settings, lethal drugs are colour coded to avoid mistakes in 
the operating theatre. Pentobarbital is by medical convention labelled yellow, 
while the muscle relaxant pancuronium bromide is marked in florescent red. Yet 
the vials obtained by the Pennsylvania prison system had pentobarbital in green 
and pancuronium bromide in yellow.

Pennsylvania and other death penalty states have been forced to turn to 
compounding pharmacies after the European Commission imposed a strict export 
ban on lethal drugs to the US for use in executions. The Danish manufacturer of 
pentobarbital, under the trade name Nembutal, also enforced its own rigorous 
distribution restrictions that have choked off the supply to death chambers 
across the US.

(source: The Guardian)






DELAWARE:

Paladin Club murder suspect waives hearing


Christopher J. Rivers, 1 of 3 men charged in the killings of his business 
partner and his wife last year at Paladin Club Condominiums, waived a 
preliminary hearing Wednesday morning.

Rivers, 31, and Joshua C. Bey, 29, are accused of hiring 2 Wilmington contract 
killers to murder Joseph Connell, his partner at C&S Automotive Repair in 
Talleyville. Connell and his new Russian bride, Olga Connell, were both shot 
multiple times in the head on Sept. 22. Both victims were 39 years old.

1 of the 2 alleged triggermen, Dominique L. Benson, 23, of Wilmington, was 
arrested Friday and faces a preliminary hearing Monday. The other suspect has 
not been caught, police said.

Rivers and Bey, identified in court papers as a former FBI informant who helped 
Rivers hire 2 "professional killers" to gun down the Connells, have both been 
held without bail at Young Correctional Institution since their arrests last 
week. Bey waived his preliminary hearing last week.

Rivers was brought from the prison to the New Castle County Courthouse for 
Wednesday's hearing, where county police Det. Jamie Leonard was expected to 
detail evidence against him to convince a judge to send the case to Superior 
Court.

Waiting in the courtroom were Rivers' teary-eyed mother, Marianne Rivers, and 
Joseph Connell's sister, Kelly Connell. The women spoke briefly to each other 
but neither would comment about the case.

After consulting with his court-appointed lawyers, Brian Chapman and John 
Barber, in the courthouse's basement lockup area, Rivers decided to waive his 
right to the hearing.

Rivers, Bey and Benson are each charged with 2 counts of 1st-degree murder and 
other offenses.

The contract killers, court records said, were known to charge the "going rate" 
of $10,000 for a homicide in Wilmington, where street violence has reached 
record levels the last few years. The Paladin Club Condominiums, in the Fox 
Point/Edgemoor area, are just outside the city.

Prosecutor Colleen Norris said the killings of the Connells is a 
capital-eligible case because there were 2 murder victims, 1 of the statutory 
aggravating circumstances needed to request the death penalty.

Norris said Attorney General Beau Biden, after consultation with top deputies, 
would decide whether to seek the death penalty.

(source: The News Journal)






NORTH CAROLINA:

Torture, Not Justice----The wrongful conviction of 2 North Carolina brothers 
highlights the injustice of the death penalty.


Justice at last. But at what cost?

Soon after taking the oath of office in 2009, President Barack Obama banned 
torture - or more precisely, certain forms of torture - by U.S. interrogators 
dealing with prisoners and detainees in armed conflicts. But nothing stopped 
what amounted to the torture of 2 North Carolina men who spent decades in 
prison, 1 of whom was awaiting a state-sponsored execution, for a crime they 
did not commit.

Henry McCollum and his brother, Leon Brown, were both teenagers with 
intellectual disabilities in 1983 when they were arrested for the rape and 
murder of an 11-year-old girl. They were brow-beaten by police, who gave them 
the impression that if they just signed a statement, they would be able to 
leave the police station. They were confused and scared, as any person - 
especially a young person facing all those authority figures - would be. They 
did not get to leave the station. "I just made up a story and gave it to them. 
My mind was focused on getting out of that police station," McCollum reportedly 
told the Raleigh News & Observer. Both were convicted of the crimes, and both 
were sentenced to death. Brown's death conviction was later re-litigated, 
resulting in a sentence of life in prison.

DNA evidence, unearthed by the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission, 
exonerated the 2 men and put the crime on another man, a serial rapist and 
murderer. McCollum and Brown were then released from prison.

This is what passes for a happy story in a nation that continues to execute 
people - and botch the process, sometimes, which adds to the horror of it all - 
despite the fact that there have been cases of wrongful convictions. An April 
study by the science journal PNAS found that more than 4 % of inmates sentenced 
to death are probably innocent. We are supposed to be joyful that the men were 
finally set free, that justice was eventually done.

But what justice can been squeezed out of a situation where two men lost 30 
years of their lives? What can become of men who must have wondered how they 
could live in the United States of America, be charged and convicted of a crime 
they didn't commit and die for the mistake?

McCollum not only had to face his own impending execution, but he had to watch 
as dozens of men were hauled off for their own state-sanctioned killing, 
McCollum's lawyer, Ken Rose, noted. How is that not torture?

It would be easier, too, if we could write it all off to virulent racism or 
some affirmative effort to punish innocent people. But mistakes happen, and 
human beings under pressure to respond to public outrage over a terrible crime 
are themselves hindered by their own biases. Yes, African-American men are much 
more likely to face execution than white men. But it's not because juries are 
racist. The disparity starts much earlier: Police are under tremendous pressure 
to make a collar. Prosecutors are under tremendous pressure to hold someone 
accountable. They tend to respond more aggressively (seeking the death penalty) 
in cases which provoke more public outcry. Once the conviction is achieved and 
the sentence handed down, authorities don't like revisiting the case, since 
questioning the facts after the trial could undermine public confidence in the 
system.

But it is exactly cases such as McCollum's and Brown's that should make us 
question the system constantly. Eyewitness testimony is often unreliable, and 
not because people are lying. It's because people remember things differently. 
Evidence can be lost, suppressed or just not found in time. Some mistakes will 
inevitably happen. When we have a death penalty, there is simply no way to 
reverse the error. Had Rose not been so relentless in fighting for his clients' 
lives and freedoms, they'd still be there, with McCollum waiting for his 
wrongful death.

McCollum himself is remarkably lacking in bitterness toward the people and the 
system that caused this terrible injustice and deprived him of the prime years 
of his life. When he was released, he told reporters: "[T]hey took 30 years 
away from me for no reason, but I don't hate them. I don't hate them one bit."

The rest of us should not be so forgiving. Civilized nations do not torture and 
murder. If Guantanamo Bay and other post-Sept. 11, 2001, abuses can lead to a 
ban on torture, surely McCollum's case can cause states to rethink the death 
penalty.

(source: US News)