[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., FLA., ALA., LA., CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

May 9



TEXAS:

Bluntson's attorney speaks on death penalty


Death penalties are rare, but they could become a thing of the past believes 
one of the attorneys who represented Demond Bluntson.

For nearly 25 years, Webb County had not seen a death penalty case, but that 
changed on Thursday when the jury condemned Demond Bluntson to death.

The Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, a state grassroots advocacy 
organization, estimates about 537 people have been executed in the state since 
1982.

They report that new death sentence have dropped nearly 80 % since 1999.

Attorney Eduardo Pena who represented Bluntson says he thinks the decline is 
part of a trend that would mirror eastern countries.

"Public opinion is changing away from the death penalty. Most of Europe has 
already prohibited the death penalty. And, I think eventually that's what we 
will do in the United States. I think that is the direction in which we are 
headed", said Pena.

Pena says death penalty cases can be costly and lengthy because of the years 
they can be delayed in the appeal process.

Demond Bluntson will be appealing his sentence.

(source: KGNS news)






PENNSYLVANIA:

DA finishes 1st week in Allen Wade death penalty trial


Highlights of week 1 include surveillance video of a man who prosecutors say is 
Allen Wade withdrawing $600 from Sarah's Wolfe's bank account from an ATM, and 
also using Susan Wolfe's debit card to buy cigarettes hours after the 2 were 
shot to death.

Pittsburgh homicide detective Wade Sarver testified he spent over 40 hours 
reviewing and compiling surveillance videos from businesses near the East 
Liberty branch of the Carnegie Library, where police found Sarah Wolfe's green 
Ford Fiesta on February 8, 2014, the day after their bodies were discovered by 
Sarah's boyfriend.

Wade is charged with the Feb. 6, 2014 beating and shooting-death of Sarah and 
Susan Wolfe. In a March 5, 2014 statement Wade said, "I am 100 % innocent," and 
added that allegations by police that his DNA was found on a pair of gray 
sweatpants "is a bunch of bull."

Most of the footage shows a figure dressed in a red jacket with a blue 
long-sleeve shirt underneath, gray sweatpants and white tennis shoes that have 
a distinctive flap, walking in the area of the Carnegie Library and the 
Citizens Bank ATM where the withdrawal attempts were made.

The Citizen Bank's ATM camera shows a male figure with his face obscured, 
making repeated withdrawal attempts between 12:44 and 12:53 a.m. on Feb. 7, 
2014. A glove covered the man's right hand, but he could be seen putting a 
receipt into his left hand.

Justin Hanna an investigator with Citizens Bank told the jury that after 
several attempts a $600 withdrawal was completed at 12:46 a.m. from Sarah 
Wolfe's bank account, and several unsuccessful attempts at withdrawing $300 
from Susan Wolfe's bank account were made during the same time period at the 
ATM.

Video from cameras at a nearby apartment complex and a Target department store 
show the same figure walking near the library, a Midas Muffler and in front of 
the ATM.

A video from an East Liberty Sunoco gas station shows a man wearing a pair of 
white tennis shoes with what appears to be the same flap, walk into the store 
shortly after 1:00 a.m. and purchase 2 packs of Newport cigarettes.

Prosecutors allege that Wade made the purchase with Susan Wolfe's PNC Bank 
debit card.

Pittsburgh police officer Gregory McGee told the jury Wednesday how he decided 
to search the area near where Sarah Wolfe's car was found. "I felt it was a 
strange area to leave a car and that someone may have fled on foot 
leavingevidence," he said.

Walking down South Whitfield Street near the library, Officer McGee noticed a 
black knit cap lying on top of some mulch off the sidewalk and about 60 feet 
down the street he saw a pair of gray sweatpants. Prosecutors allege that Wade 
was wearing a red jacket, gray sweatpants and white tennis shoes when he killed 
Sarah and Susan Wolfe.

Officer McGee told the jury that as he picked up the sweatpants a white 
business card fell out of a pocket that belonged to Cameron Mager, a social 
worker who prosecutors allege had been treating Susan.

Mr. Mager told jurors Thursday the business card was his and testified that he 
is "100 % certain" Wade was never his client. He also told the jury that his 
office phone number and email, which are listed on his business cards, are not 
publicly available.

Police also recovered a pair of socks from a trash can near the sweatpants, 
that prosecutors say has both Wade and Sarah Wolfe's DNA on them. Wade's DNA 
was also found on the sweatpants prosecutors say.

Pittsburgh homicide detective George Satler told jurors that Sarah Wolfe's 
boyfriend was "extremely cooperative" when he was questioned shortly after he 
found the bodies of Sarah and Susan Wolfe in the basement of their Pittsburgh 
home on February 7, 2014.

Public Defender Lisa Middleman alleged Monday in her opening argument to the 
jury, that investigators failed to fully investigate Matthew Buchholz's alibi 
as to where he was the evening of Feb. 6, the night Assistant District Attorney 
William Petulla said Allen Wade "savagely" beat Susan Wolfe and shot her and 
her sister Sarah Wolfe in the head.

Mr. Buchholz who had been dating Sarah for 8 months according to court 
testimony, provided very detailed information as to where he was at and who he 
was with that evening detective Satler testified. "He seemed he was mourning 
the loss of his girlfriend."

"Could he have been acting; could he have been lying - yes," Satler responded 
on questioning by Ms. Middleman. However, detective Satler maintained based 
upon his experience and having conducted hundreds of interviews in homicide 
cases, he believed Mr. Buchholz was being truthful.

Detective Satler admitted that he had not searched Mr. Buchholz's car or asked 
him to provide any receipts from the bar and restaurant Mr. Buchholz said he 
was at during the time prosecutors say the sisters were killed.

When he was first interviewed by police during a canvass of the neighborhood 
Allen Wade was chain smoking Newport cigarettes Pittsburgh police officer 
Thomas Leheny testified Friday morning.

Leheny also testified that he saw a pair of white tennis shoes in Wade's home 
when he spoke to him, however, he was not able to confirm they are the same 
tennis shoes that are shown in the videos.

On Friday jurors also heard testimony from Jean-Paul Martin, chief technology 
officer and co-founder of Alarm.com,, who said records indicate that the front 
door to the Wolfes' house showed it opened and closed 5 times between 7:26 p.m. 
and 9:54 p.m. Feb. 6, 2014.

The last witness to testify Friday was Doreen Oshlag, Director of Early 
Childhood Development at the Hilel Academy where Susan Wolfe worked as a 
teacher's aide. Ms. Oshlag told the jury "If she would have been five minutes 
late she would have texted me. She was always on time."

Ms. Oshlag called the police late in the morning on Feb. 6. 2014 because Susan 
had not called or shown up for work that day.

The trial is expected to last at least 2 more weeks and Wade faces the death 
penalty if convicted.

(source: digitaljournal.com)






FLORIDA:

New motion filed by Donald Smith----In regards to Cherish Perrywinkle case

Donald Smith filed a new motion Friday to prevent him from getting the death 
penalty under the new sentencing statute.

In the motion, he argues the court can not apply a new criminal statute 
retroactively. He argues the court must apply the law in effect at the time of 
the crime, which was in 2013.

This year, the Supreme Court ruled Florida's death penalty in effect in 2013 
was unconstitutional.

Smith argues the maximum sentence he can received is life in prison with no 
chance for parole.

His next court date is May 26th.

(source: news4jax.com)

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

Death row worse than execution


I worked Dade County Homicide for 16 of my 30 years as an investigator. I saw 
criminal carnage close up, many hundreds of times. I'm no bleeding heart. But 
we have to change how we handle capital crimes.

Death row is a fate worse than death. We rarely acknowledge that. We mainly 
focus on criminals paying for a crime with their life. We don't care about the 
interim torture element.

Timothy McVeigh waived all appeals for his death sentence after the Oklahoma 
City bombing in 1995. It still took 6 years to carry out the sentence. In 
truth, he considered death far more desirable than rotting in a hot, tiny cell 
1,440 minutes a day for decades.

So is it really punishment? Everlasting sleep is far more humane than lifeless 
life in a concrete cell. When we relegate suffering pets to die by the 
veterinarian needle, we call that "humane." For inmates, it's "punishment."

Brandon Jones, age 72, was executed in Georgia earlier this year after 36 years 
awaiting execution day after day confined amid steel and concrete without 
social interaction. There are hundreds of similar stories.

Viva Leroy Nash was 83 when he died of natural causes, after 27 years on 
Arizona's death row. He was deaf, nearly blind and suffered from dementia. But 
who cares?

Our president and millions of liberal-minded folks say that waterboarding 
terrorists is considered torture, even for those preparing to kill thousands of 
Americans with one bomb. But is it not torture to lock someone 23 to 24 hours a 
day in sweltering solitary confinement for 10, 20 or 30 years, driving some to 
insanity?

Florida's Supreme Court will soon address death sentences based on the new 
requirement for jury majorities that must now vote 10 out of 12 in favor before 
the death sentence can be imposed. Many of Florida's 389 death row inmates may 
have sentences commuted to life. What then? New sentencing for every death row 
inmate? Eligibility for parole? Will other inmates and/or guards be at risk, 
knowing the lifers have nothing to lose?

Appeals for capital cases can drag on for several decades. According to most 
studies, the legal morass of maintaining the death penalty in America is 2 to 3 
times more costly to taxpayers than life sentences.

But the greatest peril of capital punishment is the risk to innocents who may 
wrongly suffer from a flawed legal system.

We've seen such prosecutorial incompetence in Brevard County, when William 
Dillon agonized 27 years in a prison cell an innocent man, and Wilton Dedge, 
the same fate for 22 years. DNA proved their innocence, though their prime of 
life can never be recaptured. Other evidentiary signals existed about their 
cases which police and prosecutors should have seen as red flags pointing to 
possible innocence, but "winning" was more important than justice. Had these 
men been executed, they would have been buried as hardened criminals.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 156 death row inmates have 
been exonerated since 1973 based on new acquittals or dismissed charges. 20 
were found innocent based on DNA evidence. 25 exonerations came from Florida's 
death row.

The source lists 13 other executions in which there are strong indications that 
the deceased inmate had been innocent. That includes Florida's Leo Jones, 
executed in 1998.

2943 inmates now occupy death row cells in 33 states. Florida is ranked 2nd 
behind Texas, with 396. Hypothetically, if only 1/2 of 1 % of the inmates 
awaiting execution are actually innocent, that means we're preparing to wrongly 
execute 15 people. 1 would be too many. There is no argument that can justify 
that.

The system is too imperfect to be taking human life.

It's time to end the risks and complications and do what 98 % of the 
industrialized world has done; Abolish capital punishment and establish an 
offense-based tier system for housing dangerous inmates serving life without 
parole. It will reduce costs and likely save innocent lives.

What's more important?

(source: Guest Columnist; Marshall Frank is an author and retired Miami police 
detective----Florida Today)

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

"Dead man Walking" nun still fighting to end executions


In 1981, Sister Helen Prejean moved into the infamous St. Thomas housing 
project near the Mississippi River in New Orleans as part of her order's 
outreach mission called Hope House. She was in her early 40s.

St. Thomas was a violent, poor, predominantly black neighborhood stretching 
along Tchoupitoulas Street that the locals came to call "The Killing Fields." 
It was an eye-opening experience for Prejean, who had grown up as the 
privileged daughter of a white lawyer in Baton Rouge.

"The 1st day I walked into the projects, I said, 'Whoa. This is it, boy. This 
where all the gunshots go,'" Prejean said late last week on the phone from her 
home in Louisiana. "But I walked in and people greeted me. They loved the 
(Catholic) sisters there. ... But when I got in my bed that night, I made sure 
that my bed was below that window sill. Sister Lillian had a bullet come 
through her room and went through 4 of her best skirts. She was so p.o.'d by 
that. It got her good skirts."

Prejean, 77, let out a loud and hearty laugh, which is not really what one 
expects from the nation's leading advocate for abolishing the death penalty.

At the St. Thomas projects, Prejean quickly got a front-row introduction to 
abject poverty and its deadly consequences. As she later wrote in an essay 
published in Salt of the Earth magazine: "It didn't take long to see that for 
poor people, especially poor black people, there was a greased track to prison 
and death row."

"I saw the injustice and it struck the fire in my heart," Prejean said.

Her next step took her to Louisiana State Penitentiary where she became a 
spiritual adviser for convicted killers Patrick Sonnier and Robert Lee Willie, 
who were waiting on death row. Prejean wrote about being an eye-witness to 
execution in the Pulitzer Prize-nominated memoir "Dead Man Walking" (1993), 
which was later made into an Oscar-winning movie with Sean Penn and Susan 
Sarandon.

"That little book is still doing good work," said Prejean, who has been 
nominated 3 times for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Prejean will discuss "Dead Man Walking" and her life's work during the 
"Steppin' Out With The Innocence Project of Florida" gala and dinner on 
Thursday evening at Mission San Luis, 2100 W. Tennessee St. She said the visit 
is part of her mission to keep the flaws, failures and injustices of the death 
penalty in the public eye.

"The American people aren't wedded to the death penalty at all. They just don't 
think about it because it doesn't touch them," Prejean said. "The whole idea 
behind doing the talks, the whole idea behind the film 'Dead Man Walking' is to 
wake up the people. Bring them close to something they would never, otherwise, 
have the chance to see or experience. Not just buy into the general rhetoric 
that, 'Oh, yeah, he was a convict and he deserved to die.'"

When Prejean was asked if the death penalty would ever be justified in certain 
egregious cases - like Tallahassee's most infamous serial killer Ted Bundy, for 
example - Prejean didn't miss a beat.

"It moves you right to the question, 'Who is going to decide that? Who are the 
deciders of the worst of the worst?' The Green River Killer, who murdered 32 
people, got a life sentence because he agreed to show where the victims were 
buried. He doesn't get the penalty while others do? So, who gets to decide 
that? It's a broken system."

Not everyone is keen to see Prejean's abolition movement succeed. One recent 
email from a critic, which she shared with CNN reporter Moni Basu, read: "There 
has not been one instance on the planet where an executed convict ever 
committed another homicide. The U.S. justice system is the fairest in the 
world. If you are judged guilty by a jury of your peers based on the evidence 
presented that is the way it works. If you do not like it then get out of the 
country."

Not one to hide from criticism, Prejean asked her staff to post the email to 
her website.

Outside the prison walls, Prejean has taken her anti-death penalty campaign to 
the highest office of the Catholic Church. In January, she traveled to Vatican 
City in Rome to deliver a thank-you letter to the pope from death row inmate 
Richard Glossip, whose execution in Oklahoma was halted following pleas from 
Pope Francis.

"He is just everything he seems to be. ... His heart is so in it," Prejean 
said. "He so hears the cries of poor people and vulnerable people. His heart is 
really with him. He's a bloomin' miracle."

Similar to Pope Francis, Prejean, starting the day she moved to the Thomas 
housing project, decided to dedicate her life to the downtrodden, outcasts and 
less fortunate people of the world.

"Look at who Jesus hung out with: lepers, prostitutes, thieves - the throwaways 
of his day," Prejean wrote in her essay from in Salt of the Earth "If we call 
ourselves Jesus' disciples, we too have to keep ministering to the marginated, 
the throwaways, the lepers of today. And there are no more marginated, 
thrown-away, and leprous people in our society than death-row inmates."

The essay was bluntly titled: "Would Jesus pull the switch?"

If you go ...

What: Talk by Sister Helen Prejean at the "Steppin' Out With The Innocence 
Project of Florida" benefit and dinner

When: 7 p.m. Thursday; VIP reception starts at 6 p.m.

Where: Mission San Luis, 2100 W. Tennessee St.

Cost: $125 general public; $100 students and government employees

Contact: 561-6767 or visit www.floridainnocence.org

(source: Tallahassee Democrat)






ALABAMA----impending execution

Death row inmate Vernon Madison set to be executed


Death row inmate Vernon Madison is set to be executed on Thursday, May 12 at 
the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.

Madison was convicted for the 1985 shooting and killing of Mobile police 
officer Julius Shulte.

Madison, 65, is one of Alabama's longest serving inmates on death row. His 
execution is set for 6:30 on Thursday.

(source: WPMI news)






LOUISIANA:

Louisiana's Color-Coded Death Penalty


The last time a white person in Louisiana was executed for a crime against a 
black person was in 1752, when a soldier named Pierre Antoine Dochenet was 
hanged after attempting to stab 2 enslaved black women to death with his 
bayonet.

This is just one of many grim facts in a new report describing the history of 
capital punishment in Louisiana and analyzing the outcome of every death 
sentence imposed in that state since 1976, when the Supreme Court reversed its 
brief moratorium on executions and allowed them to resume.

Racism has always been at the heart of the American death penalty. But the 
report, in the current issue of The Journal of Race, Gender, and Poverty, 
drives home the extent to which capital punishment, supposedly reserved for the 
"worst of the worst," is governed by skin color.

In Louisiana, a black man is 30 times as likely to be sentenced to death for 
killing a white woman as for killing a black man. Regardless of the offender's 
race, death sentences are 6 times as likely - and executions 14 times as likely 
- when the victim is white rather than black.

The new report shows that Louisiana's death penalty isn't only consistently 
racist; it's also profoundly error-prone. Of the 155 death sentences the state 
has handed down and resolved since 1976, 28 resulted in executions. The other 
127 - or 82 % - were later reversed. Since 2001, 2 people have been executed, 
while 53 have had their death sentences reversed.

These reversals are usually the result of major errors at trial that violate 
the defendant's constitutional rights, such as prosecutorial misconduct, 
improper jury instructions and incompetent lawyering. In most cases, the 
discovery of these errors resulted in the defendants' being removed from death 
row and receiving lesser sentences. In 9 of the cases, though, the defendant 
was fully exonerated of the crime and cleared of all charges.

Louisiana's record is terrifying, but other capital punishment states aren't 
much better. Nationwide, the reversal rate for resolved death sentences is 72 
%, and while the average exoneration rate for death row inmates in other states 
is 1.8 % (less than 1/2 of Louisiana's rate), that still translates to a 
national total of 156 innocent people sentenced to death and later exonerated 
since 1973.

Even if capital punishment could be imposed with zero risk of racial bias or 
error, it would still be brutal, immoral and ineffective at deterring crime - 
as most countries have found. But with bias and error endemic to the death 
penalty in this country, how can the Supreme Court continue to uphold its 
constitutionality?

(source: Editorial, New York Times)






CALIFORNIA:

'Grim Sleeper' Lonnie Franklin never took a murder 'nap' and likely killed at 
least 25 say police


The California serial killer convicted of murdering 9 women and a teenage girl 
never really took the hiatus from homicide that earned him the tag 'The Grim 
Sleeper', according to officials. Lonnie David Franklin Jr. was dubbed the 
nickname because of a supposed gap of 14 years between a string of murders in 
the 1980s and a 2nd group of homicides that followed from 2002.

"I don't think he stopped killing," Los Angeles Detective Daryn Dupree told the 
Los Angeles Times.

Investigators believe Franklin is responsible for at least 25 murders, 
including 11 that occurred during the time frame that police initially believed 
was a "dormant" period for Franklin Jr.

The additional murders were connected to Franklin after he was charged with the 
other homicides, but prosecutors are worrying that adding on to the charges 
would only delay his conviction and would not increase the potential penalty 
against him. The other victims' families backed the decision not to prosecute 
the other cases, the LA Times also reports.

Now that Franklin has been convicted of 10 murders - and an attempted murder- 
his trial is now set to move into the penalty phase, in which the jury will 
determine whether to sentence him to the death penalty or a custodial sentence 
that will mean life in prison.

Authorities will use the penalty phase to present evidence of at least five 
additional murders to nudge the jury into a death sentence against California's 
most prolific serial killer. Families of the victims will also testify about 
their loss.

All of Franklin's victims were poor and black and most were young. They were 
all raped, shot in the chest and discarded in alleyways or dumpsters near the 
South Los Angeles home of the 1-time garbage truck driver. It wasn't until 2009 
that investigators were able to use DNA evidence to finally track down 
Franklin, employing lab technology that was not available when the murders were 
committed.

Franklin's final death toll will likely never be known. Detectives found more 
than 1,000 photos and hundreds of hours of video in Franklin's house featuring 
women, many nude and in sexually suggestive poses, with several apparently 
appearing to be unconscious. Many of the women have never been identified or 
located.

(source: ibtimes.co.uk)

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

Memo to Justice Breyer on CA Death Penalty


To: Stephen Breyer, Associate Justice, U.S. Supreme Court

From: Joe Mathews

Re: Switch to decaf, dude

Just read your dissent from a U.S. Supreme Court decision turning down a 
challenge to the death penalty in California. You alone among the 8 justices 
wanted to hear the case. And after reading it, I've gotta give you some advice:

Chill.

I know you don't like the death penalty. I know you don't think it's 
unconstitutional. But California is not the place to make your legal stand.

You probably should know this. You were born and raised in San Francisco, a 
graduate of Lowell High. But then again, it's been a while since you lived 
here. So you're making your judgment based on legal briefs, and a very literal 
reading of California's law and constitution. And that's a big mistake - our 
law and constitution often has very little to do with what goes on here.

In fact, relying on the law could leave you with the misimpression that we have 
the death penalty here.

Don't worry. We don't.

Yes, it's on the books. But California has brilliantly made such a hash of the 
death penalty rules that we can't really put anyone to death. It's been more 
than a decade since we did so. And it's unlikely that we're going to start 
again anytime soon.

It's actually sort of brilliant. The death penalty is legal but no one is put 
to death. The best of both worlds! Even the folks on death row seem to like it. 
When voters were asked recently to throw out the death penalty, many of the 
people on death row publicly opposed eliminating the death penalty. They like 
the special treatment they get - especially access to lawyers and the ability 
to file appeals and challenge their convictions. Call it a win-win-win.

Your dissent, in a too-literal and academic way, thus completely misses this 
point. You think all the costs and delays are some sort of problem, instead of 
the lasting accommodation they represent.

"Put simply," you wrote, "California's costly administration of the death 
penalty likely embodies three fundamental defects ... serious unreliability, 
arbitrariness in application and unconscionably long delays." You also noted 
that more death row inmates had died or committed suicide than were executed by 
the state.

Your Honor, those are not defects - those are features. Our death penalty 
policy is working for us.

Shouldn't you be bothering Texas or Virginia or someplace where they actually 
put people to death?

(source: Joe Mathews, foxandhoundsdaily.com)

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

Stunning 'Dead Man Walking' is a triumph for Fresno Grand Opera


Where to start in my praise of the tour de force performance Saturday night of 
Fresno Grand Opera's "Dead Man Walking"?

Perhaps in a way that isn't the most obvious. Let's focus on Suzanna Guzman. 
She played the mother of the death row inmate upon which the operatic 
adaptation of Sister Helen Prejean's book about capital punishment is focused. 
(Jake Heggie wrote the music and Terrence McNally the excellent libretto.)

In the 2nd act, Mrs. De Rocher, whose son, Joseph, is about to die by lethal 
injection for the murder of 2 Louisiana teenagers, has to say goodbye. He tells 
her he is sorry for making her go through this. She says to hush, that there is 
no reason to be apologize because he is innocent of the crime.

Caught in Guzman's grip, the moment danced between sobering and exhilarating.

In the deeply textured and emotionally soaring world of the production in which 
we've been steeped for more than 2 hours, however, both of these characters - 
and the audience - know he is guilty.

The son wants to tell the mother everything. She can't bear to hear that truth. 
The tension is palpable. In her vocals and body language, Guzman came across as 
so authentic at that moment - so frightened and stubborn and sad - that it 
transcended the artificiality of the theatrical experience.

Everything seemed to melt away for me: the people seated around me, my 
awareness of the stage and design of the show, even the sense of being in the 
Saroyan Theatre. In that moment, Mrs. De Rocher was real. I felt her pain. 
Caught in her grip, the moment danced between sobering and exhilarating.

Guzman is a good example of just how high a quality of an experience the Fresno 
company delivered. She has performed two starring roles at the Metropolitan 
Opera, including Maddalena in "Rigoletto," and done 39 productions with Los 
Angeles Opera. She brought to the Fresno stage a wealth of experience, a 
beautiful mezzo-soprano voice and - most important - a passion for the material 
that made it unforgettable.

By singling out Guzman, I don't mean to slight the 2 leading roles in "Dead Man 
Walking" nor the uniformly excellent supporting cast.

Laura Krumm, who played Sister Helen, offered a soaring and emotionally fierce 
performance. Christopher Magiera, as Joseph De Rocher, brought nuance and 
wrenching vocals to his role. Stage director Michael Mori brought it all 
together in a precise and understated, yet never sterile, way.

The terrific supporting performances are almost too numerous to praise, from 
Jeanine De Bique's moving 2nd-act duet as Sister Rose to James Callon's 
precisely surly prison chaplain.

Liisa Davila and Zeffin Quinn Hollis, as parents of one of the murdered 
teenagers, added a fire (and a balance in terms of the capital punishment 
issue) with their heartfelt takes on their roles.

Liliana Duque Pineiro's production design established a minimalist tone, 
including a simple but imposing set dominated by a diagonal slash of prison 
cell blocks.

Erik Vose's lighting design felt expert, including a stunning moment - directed 
exquisitely by Mori - in which the condemned man stands for a family portrait 
on his last night of life.

Tara Roe's costumes, from Sister Helen's bland wardrobe to De Rocher's bright 
orange jumpsuit, added to the texture of the production.

Heggie's music came to glorious life with the Fresno Grand Opera orchestra, 
sometimes heaving like a storm, other times zeroing in on the tenderness of 
just one soul, under conductor Ryan Murray.

2 critical notes: The prologue of the production, in which we see the murders, 
was too distant and vague for me, starting the show on a tentative note. And a 
technical issue meant no supertitles during the first act. You can't always 
foresee such difficulties, but I would have made the call to stop the show and 
fix the problem before proceeding. Supertitles are that important.

My only big disappointment was in the size of the audience. It was far too 
small for such an important and groundbreaking cultural event.

Yes, it was a busy weekend, and, yes, I realize that the subject matter might 
have sounded like a downer, especially on Mother's Day weekend. But if you 
didn't come out and see this production - and you're one of those who are in 
the habit of remarking to me that it's too bad that you have to go to San 
Francisco and Los Angeles to experience excellence - then I only have this to 
say: You really missed out.

Did the political beliefs of people in this region and their opinions about the 
efficacy of capital punishment affect the turnout? Perhaps. But even though 
Prejean has made a cause out of opposing the death penalty, her book (and this 
opera) are not 1-sided polemics. There are no easy answers.

When Prejean came to Fresno in March to talk about the opera, she called the 
death penalty a "secret ritual" far removed from the people in whose name it is 
carried out. "Dead Man Walking" on Saturday shined a great and powerful light 
on that ritual, and regardless of how you feel about the death penalty, it was 
an emotional and artistic wallop. That's what great art is about.

(source: Donald Munro, fresnobee.com)