Month: May 2012

LOUISIANA- Cost of Louisiana’s death penalty

May 24, 2012 Source : http://www.ksla.com

LAKE CHARLES,

There are currently 88 inmates on Louisiana’s death row, including two women. All were convicted in a court of law and are going through the appeals process before their time is up.

In the last 10 years, three people have been executed by lethal injection in Louisiana – a far cry from the 1980s when 18 inmates in the state were electrocuted for crimes committed. Louisiana is among 33 states where the death penalty is legal, but as the price goes up all have seen dramatic declines in capital cases.

“Many years ago the death penalty was used a whole lot more than it is now,” said Calcasieu Parish District Attorney John DeRosier.

The last capital murder case to be tried in Calcasieu Parish was Jason Reeves in November 2004 under then District Attorney Rick Bryant. A jury sentenced Reeves to death for the murder of 4-year-old Mary Jean Thigpen. Reeves has been serving his time on death row at Angola ever since.

“Taxpayers are paying a tremendous amount of money for death penalty cases,” said DeRosier.

According to DeRosier when compared to other cases the cost for the death penalty is often triple. For example the recent Davis/Saltzman case cost taxpayers an estimated $77,000 to try in court. DeRosier said a death penalty case will easily come in at $250,000 or more.

The case of Lee Roy Williams, the man convicted of the Labor Day quadruple murders, was being considered to be tried as a death penalty case.

Though Williams originally denied his involvement in the four murders the evidence was mounting. He eventually confessed to investigators and accepted a plea deal. 8 1/2 weeks after the murders Williams was indicted, entered a guilty plea and sentenced all in the same day.

“When Williams was confronted with the physical evidence and confronted with the possible alternative of the death penalty he opted for four life imprisonment sentences consecutive to each other,” said DeRosier.

Aside from the cost it’s an uphill battle for prosecutors. Not only do they have to convince a 12 person jury the defendant is guilty of first degree murder, but those same 12 jurors must all agree on the death sentence.

“It’s not easy to sit on a death penalty jury. When choosing a jury we have to be sure we choose a jury that can do the job under the law,” said DeRosier.

Even though they are found guilty and sentenced to death the process and dollars are really only starting to add up.

“The appellate process starts at that point and that appellate process will go through the entire state system and if resulted in death penalty verdict it will also go through the federal system. It will take a lot of years and a lot of money,” said DeRosier.

According to the Louisiana Department of Corrections it costs a little more than $60 a day to house and feed a prisoner at Angola. With the appeals process taking at least a decade if not longer – you can see the money being spent at the expense of taxpayers.

Though the costs are high DeRosier said, “It’s a factor we consider. It’s not necessarily the main factor we consider because we represent the community and we represent victims and that’s our first consideration.”

DNA has also been a game changer. Since 1989 seven men have left Louisiana’s death row free men after being exonerated by DNA and other evidence.

Meanwhile without getting into all the details there are some pretty interesting death penalty cases in Louisiana.

Click here to view list of men on Louisiana’s death row.

Click here to view list of women on Louisiana’s death row.

ALABAMA- Court rejects appeal of death row inmate in killing of Alabama preacher

May 24. 2012 Source : http://www.therepublic.com

USCALOOSA, Ala. — A federal court has rejected the appeal of an Alabama death row inmate convicted of killing a Fayette County minister.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals turned down arguments by Christopher Lee Price. The Tuscaloosa News reports (http://bit.ly/LcLrCh ) that Price argued that his attorney was ineffective and the prosecutor made prejudicial statements during the sentencing phase of his capital murder trial in 1993.

The 49-year-old Price from Winfield was convicted of the stabbing death of Bill Lynn, who was pastor of the Natural Springs Church of Christ.

He was killed with a sword and knife during a robbery at his home in the Bazemore community on Dec. 22, 1991. Lynn’s wife, Bessie Lynn, was injured when she went to help her husband.

TEXAS- Most Texas Voters Still in Favor of the Death Penalty

May 25, 2012 Source : http://global.christianpost.com

The study, a joint project by the University of Texas and the Texas Tribune, found that while 73 percent of voting residents fully or somewhat support the death penalty, only 21 percent of voting residents are somewhat or strongly opposed to it. In terms of how fair they find capital punishment, 51 percent said that they believe it is fairly applied, 28 percent said it was unfair, while 21 percent could not give an opinion.

“They’re pretty strong proponents of the death penalty,” said Daron Shaw, a UT-Austin government professor and co-director of the poll. “But you’ve got a lot of other people who are pretty hard on crime but aren’t sure the death penalty works.”

“We have had dramatic support for the death penalty for a long time. And given an alternative, there’s not a wholesale rush for the exits,” added co-director Jim Henson, who teaches government at the University of Texas at Austin.

In general, Texas remains one of the most pro-death penalty states in the country. According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, 482 people have been executed in the state and dozens more remain on death row. Thirty-two other states still also carry out capital punishment, although in March Connecticut officially became the fifth U.S. state in the past five years to abolish the death penalty.

The results come only weeks after an in-depth investigation led by a Columbia School of Law professor found that 27-year-old Carlos DeLuna was executed in 1989 for a murderer he did not commit. He was mistaken for the real criminal who resembled him and shared the same first name.

“Unfortunately, the flaws in the system that wrongfully convicted and executed DeLuna – faulty eyewitness testimony, shoddy legal representation and prosecutorial misconduct – continue to send innocent men to their death today,” a statement accompanying the report by professor James Liebman and five of his students observed.

The UT/TT poll questioned 800 Texas voters and was conducted May 7-13 and has a margin of error of +/- 3.46 percentage points.

Besides the death penalty questions, pollsters also asked voters to state their opinion on various other subjects, ranging from abortion to the economy and state of the country. Respondents identified themselves as 33 percent Republican, 31 percent Democrats, and 28 percent Independent.

 

KENTUCKY- Death row inmate wins hearing on mental status – Gregory Wilson

May 25, Source : http://www.courier-journal.com

Wilson

Twenty-five years after the victim was raped and murdered, the Kentucky Supreme Court ordered a judge Thursday to hold a hearing on whether Gregory Wilson, who was convicted of the crimes, should be exempt from the death penalty because he is mentally retarded.

The court ruled 5-2 that a Kenton Circuit Court judge improperly rejected Wilson’s claim without a hearing.

The Supreme Court also ordered the judge, Gregory Bartlett, to rule on whether Wilson is entitled to DNA testing of semen found in the automobile of the victim, Deborah Pooley.

In a heated dissent, Justices Bill Cunningham and Wil Schroder, who sits in Covington, argued that the case has gone on long enough and that Wilson should have raised the issues long ago.

“Don’t forget after all these years that an innocent person named Deborah Pooley was ruthlessly murdered and her killer is still in the courts of this state,” Cunningham wrote.

Wilson was convicted in the 1987 murder, kidnapping, rape and robbery of Pooley. His conviction came after a raucous trial in which he represented himself at times while at other times was represented by two lawyers who volunteered to try the case for $2,500, after the trial judge begged for somebody to handle it.

One of the lawyers had never tried a felony case while the other listed a local pub as his office and was described later by his co-counsel as a “burned-out alcoholic.”

Wilson was scheduled to die by lethal injection on Sept. 16, 2010, but the execution was halted by Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd, who cited questions about Wilson’s mental status and new state regulations for carrying out executions.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Minton said that Wilson, who moved for a new trial in 2010, presented enough evidence that he was mentally retarded to justify a hearing.

Kentucky law bars the execution of an offender considered “seriously mentally retarded,” which is defined as having an IQ of 70 or below combined with “substantial deficits in adaptive behavior” exhibited as a child.

Wilson submitted school records showing that, at 14, he had an IQ of 62 and was “easily influenced by delinquent peers.”

But the same evaluation said he was only “mildly retarded” and that his adjustment to school “should be no problem.”

Cunningham also noted in the dissent that Wilson was able to write pleadings in his own case that were “articulate, organized and possessed of writing skills and vocabulary that many college students do not possess.”

The court rejected part of Wilson’s appeal, saying he wasn’t entitled to a jury determination of whether he is mentally retarded, and it also reiterated a previous holding that there is no constitutional right to DNA testing.

Wilson’s current lawyer, chief Jefferson County public defender Dan Goyette, said he was reviewing the opinion and did not have an immediate reaction.

Allison Martin, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, noted that Wilson, as Cunningham’s dissent points out, was found competent to stand trial and his lawyers have failed to produce that report. “We are hopeful that the upcoming hearing in Kenton Circuit Court will result in an order from the court to obtain the competency report,” she said.

Pooley was abducted and forced into her car at knife point, then taken to a secluded location on Covington’s floodwall, where her hands were tied and she was raped in the back seat.

Wilson’s girlfriend, Brenda Humphrey, who also was convicted of murder, testified that Wilson strangled Pooley, despite her pleas for her life, and that they later dumped her body in a remote thicket before using her stolen credit cards on a shopping spree.

The trial captured state and later national attention when no lawyers would defend Wilson because of the minimal fee that was provided in capital cases. Chief Circuit Judge Raymond Lape Jr. posted a plea on his courthouse door saying he was “desperate” for somebody to come forward.

One of the lawyers who finally volunteered, William Hagedorn of Newport, a semi-retired lawyer, volunteered to serve as lead counsel for free, though he had no office, no staff, no copy machine and no lawbooks.

It also turned out that on each day of the trial bailiffs took Humphrey to have sex with one of Lape’s colleagues on the bench. That judge and Hagedorn are now deceased.

From Texas death row, the case of Rodney Reed

Source : http://nodeathpenalty.org

These days, it’s not shocking to hear about an innocent person on death row, so it won’t be surprising to learn that Rodney Reed is just such a person.

Rodney has been caged on Texas death row for the past 14 years. He was convicted by an all-white jury in 1998 of raping and killing 19-year-old Stacey Stites in the town of Bastrop, Texas. But it seems that the only thing Rodney is guilty of is being Black and daring to have a relationship with a white woman, who was engaged to a white police officer, Jimmy Fennell. 

Early on the morning of April 23, 1996, Stacey failed to show up for work. That afternoon, her body was found in a wooded area. She had been strangled to death with a belt, and her body lay partly clothed in the grass. Several beer cans were found at the site. The pickup truck she usually drove to work, which belonged to Jimmy Fennell, was found miles away in a high school parking lot.

The only physical evidence linking Rodney to the crime was semen found in and on Stacey’s body. No hair, skin or fibers connecting Rodney to the crime scene or the truck were found anywhere. Rodney says that he was seeing Stacey off and on, and the two were intimate in the days before she was killed.

At Rodney’s trial, the state presented evidence not challenged by his lawyers that Stacey had been raped at or near the time of the murder. But prominent forensic experts have since confirmed that there is essentially no evidence of rape—and that the evidence merely suggests that Rodney and Stacey had sex within a week of her death.

In the small Texas town where Rodney lived, people were likely to take notice of the relationship between Rodney and Stacey. In fact, 11 people were prepared to speak at Rodney’s trial or had written affidavits attesting to the fact that they had seen the two together. But only two of these witnesses were heard from at the trial.

The state claims that Rodney abducted Stacey and drove her in the pickup truck to the wooded area where she was found. But none of Rodney’s fingerprints were found in or on the truck. Only prints for Stacey and her fiancé Jimmy were found. Rodney’s fingerprints likewise weren’t found on the murder weapon, nor on Stacey’s name badge nor anything else found at the crime scene.

There are huge holes in the state’s case against Rodney. For example, Jimmy Fennell, a former Giddings, Texas, police officer, has failed two lie detector tests when asked the question “Did you strangle Stacey Stites?” Yet Fennell was never pursued as a suspect. “Why wasn’t he?” asks one of Reed’s first lawyers, Jimmy Brown. “It makes no common sense…It was clear he’d failed the polygraph—not once, but twice. My question to the state was, how is that? Why do you not consider him a suspect? There was no answer.” 

The pickup truck that Stacey is believed to have driven the morning she died was given back to Fennell just six days after the crime, and Fennell promptly sold it. Police never searched the apartment Stacey and Jimmy shared, the last place she was known to be alive.

A friend of Stacey’s, Ronnie Reveal, told investigators, he talked with Stacey shortly before her death. “… She seemed quite a bit down. She told him that her and her boyfriend were having problems and also that the boyfriend had a violent temper.” Reveal was never called to testify at trial.

Police never searched the apartment Stacey and Jimmy were living in, which is the last place she was known to be alive. According to other police officers this would be standard practice.

When Stacey’s body was examined by investigators, they saw that her nails had been cut to the quick, but not filed—something a police officer would know to do to lessen the chance of being identified by fingernail scrapings. This was never presented to the jury.

Since his conviction, Rodney has won an evidentiary hearing where he was able to present evidence never heard during his original trial. For example, prosecutors had withheld from Rodney’s lawyers the fact that the two beer cans found at the crime scene were tested for DNA. The report excluded Rodney, but stated that the cans contained a mixture of DNA that might have come from Stacey and two police officers. One of these officers committed suicide before Rodney’s trial, and the other was a good friend, co-worker and neighbor of Jimmy Fennell.

Subsequent DNA testing of the beer cans ruled out Stacey and one of the officers, but the other officer couldn’t be ruled out as a DNA match. 

Had this information been presented at trial it would have been devastating to the state’s case.

Also not presented at Rodney’s original trial was the testimony of two important witnesses. One, Mary Barnett, saw Stacey and Jimmy in the midst of an argument in the parking lot of a convenience store in the early morning hours on the day she was murdered. This was at a time when Fennell testified he was at home and asleep. This eyewitness account was conveyed to the district attorney before Rodney’s trial, but never disclosed to the defense.

Another witness, Police Officer Mary Blackwell, said she heard Fennell, in a police academy class, say that if he ever found out that his girlfriend was cheating on him, he’d “strangle her, and would avoid leaving fingerprints by using a belt.” As it turned out, Stacey was killed with a belt. Blackwell also witnessed Fennell being abusive toward Stacey. Again, this information was transmitted to law enforcement, but was never followed up, nor disclosed to the defense.

Despite this compelling evidence presented at Rodney’s evidentiary hearing in 2006, Judge Reva Towslee Corbett, the daughter of the original trial judge in the case, ruled against Rodney. She signed a lengthy ruling that was copied verbatim from a document prepared by the state, denying all of Rodney’s claims and saying, in essence, that the evidence wouldn’t have affected the jury’s decision.

In 2008, the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals denied Rodney again, sending his case back into the federal courts, where it remains.

“I hope and pray for his freedom everyday,” says Rodney’s mother Sandra Reed, who is an active abolitionist, “ He’s tired. I’m tired. We’re all tired. It has caused a strain across the board, not just for Rodney, but also for all of us because we are a family. It’s hard.” She goes on to say, “I never dreamed that the truth would be covered up for 14 years. There is such corruption in the justice system.

If they had just let the truth be told, Rodney would have been home a long time ago.

I am someone that always believed in the justice system. I thought, well, nothing is perfect, but that the good outweighs the bad. But, it appears that the bad outweighs the good when it comes to the justice system. Now I see, it’s all about greed, money and power.”

The Reed family along with activists from the Campaign to End the Death Penalty and other abolitionist groups have marched in Bastrop and participated in the annual Texas abolition marches. Sandra Reed speaks on panels and at marches to try to help her son, but also to advocate for an end to the death penalty. The Reeds have a banner hanging outside of their house that reads, “Innocent man on death row, Free Rodney Reed.”

One person who noticed the banner in front of the Reed’s house is Caitlin Adams. She moved to Bastrop in 2010 and, curious about the sign, approached family members one day when she saw them on the porch. Since then, Caitlin has written about the case and visited Rodney many times. She has created a blog that brings to life the humanness behind the prison walls where Rodney is unjustly imprisoned.

Caitlin does this even as her own health deteriorates from ALS, a neuromuscular disease that is weakening her muscles, making it difficult for her to walk and speak. But she feels she was meant to meet Rodney, and the encounters with him have given her a fresh outlook on life:

“I’m reminded with every visit what the important things are in life,” she says. “I’ve visited Rodney, almost weekly since September, and I can only tell you he is inspiring to me, a good person and friend. I’ve spent a lot of time researching his case, and I am convinced he is completely innocent.”

Activists in Austin and Bastrop have plans to show the excellent documentary about Rodney’s caseState vs. Reed in the community center in Bastrop. “We have to keep the pressure up, we can’t leave it up to the courts, because they have failed Rodney for the past 14 years,“ says Lily Hughes.

While activists are convinced of Rodney’s innocence, there are those who are not. Rodney’s detractors point to several allegations of abuse toward women. But Rodney was never prosecuted for any of these allegations, except one, where Rodney was acquitted at trial.

Nevertheless, the facts of this case speak for themselves: the many instances of misconduct by police, the botched investigation, the withholding of exculpatory evidence by prosecutors, and the inadequate defense during the original trial. All of this at the very least should mean a new trial for Rodney—something that Rodney, his family, friends, and activists are still hoping for. 

In fact, there is mounting evidence pointing to Jimmy Fennell as the likely suspect, an avenue that Rodney’s defense team continues to pursue. In 2008, Fennel pled guilty after being charged with kidnapping and raping a woman in 2007 while on duty as a police officer in the city of Georgetown, Texas. He is currently serving a 10-year sentence. 

Bryce Benjet, one of Rodney’s current lawyers, says, “We have developed a trove of evidence that shows that Rodney is innocent and suggests that Jimmy Fennell, assisted by others, murdered Stacey and dumped her body in the woods. Based on his racist and violent nature, Jimmy Fennell certainly had motive and opportunity to kill Stacey. Further, his leaving her body in a remote location matches his conduct in two other attacks on women. We are confident that the federal courts will listen to the hard facts of the case and give Rodney the new trial he so clearly deserves.”

Rodney remains hopeful that “justice for all” will one day include him and is thankful for the efforts of activists on his behalf.

For more information about this case, read the comprehensive articles written by Jordan Smith for the Austin Statesmen.

How you can help:

1. Sign and circulate the online petition for Rodney.

2. Join Rodney’s Facebook page.

3. For more information or to download a fact sheet about Rodney’s case, visit the Get the Factssection of our website.

4. Read and share this new blog about Rodney on our website

Tales from Death Row: Justice for Rodney Reed

Recently, the CEDP began publishing a regular blog by Bastrop, Texas, resident Caitlin Adams. After meeting the family of Rodney Reed outside of their home in 2011, Caitlin began visiting Rodney, and continues to do so on a regular basis. Her blog posts are incredibly moving; filled with humor and pathos. Caitlin brings Rodney’s spirit beyond the prison walls.

TEXAS : Judge: Overturn Cathy Lynn Henderson conviction, death sentence

May 23, 2012 Source : http://www.statesman.com

Cathy Lynn Henderson, once two days from execution for the 1994 death of an infant she was baby sitting, should have her murder conviction and death sentence overturned, a Travis County judge has recommended.

District Judge Jon Wisser said scientific discoveries into the nature of head injuries — and a change of heart from the prosecution’s star witness, former medical examiner Roberto Bayardo – means no reasonable juror would convict Henderson if presented the new evidence at trial.

“Testimony of the state’s chief experts was, at bottom, scientifically flawed,” Wisser wrote in findings dated May 14 and delivered to the appeals court Tuesday.

After reviewing new evidence via testimony and briefs, Wisser recommended that the Court of Criminal Appeals dismiss Henderson’s conviction and return her case to Travis County, where she may face “any indictment or charges” that prosecutors choose to pursue in the death of 3-month-old Brandon Baugh.

Henderson claimed that Brandon died after slipping from her arms and falling about four feet to the concrete floor in her Pflugerville-area home. She said she panicked, burying the boy’s body in a Bell County field before fleeing in Missouri, where she was found and arrested 11 days later.

The search for the boy’s body and hunt for Henderson dominated headlines in February 1994.

At Henderson’s 1995 trial, Bayardo testified that it was “impossible” to attribute the boy’s extensive head injury to an accidental fall. The only explanation, he said, was a deliberate and forceful blow struck by Henderson, adding that Brandon would have had to fall “from a height higher than a two-story building” to sustain a similar injury.

But in a 2007 affidavit and in testimony before Wisser, Bayardo said recent advancements in the understanding of pediatric head injuries indicates that relatively short falls onto a hard surface could produce similar injuries to those he found on Brandon during a 1994 autopsy.

“Based on the physical evidence in the case,” Bayardo said, “I cannot determine with a reasonable degree of medical certainty whether Brandon Baugh’s injuries resulted from an intentional act or an accidental fall.”

Bayardo, now retired, also said his autopsy report, which concluded that the child was a homicide victim, would today list the manner of death as undetermined “because of the new information” about pediatric head injuries.

The Court of Criminal Appeals will determine whether to accept Wisser’s recommendation. It can rule on his submission, request further briefing or schedule oral arguments. A final decision on Henderson’s fate is likely to be months away.

 

Trayvon Martin Case: Witnesses Change Accounts, Which Could Hurt Zimmerman

 

May 23, 2012 Source : http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Zimmermanwounds

George Zimmerman’s self-defense claim could be hurt by his own witnesses, who have changed their accounts since they were interviewed early on in the Trayvon Martin case.

The Orlando Sentinel reported that four witnesses’ statements regarding the Feb. 26 shooting changed significantly when they were interviewed a second time in March. The statements are included in the collection of evidence officially released by the State Attorney’s Office last week.

 

 

Here is an overview of the key changes in their accounts, as reported by the Sentinel.

Witness 2A young woman who lives in the Retreat at Twin Lakes community, where Trayvon was shot, was interviewed twice by Sanford police and once by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

She told authorities that she had taken out her contact lenses just before the incident. In her first recorded interview with Sanford police four days after the shooting, she told lead Investigator Chris Serino, “I saw two guys running. Couldn’t tell you who was in front, who was behind.”

She stepped away from her window, and when she looked again, she “saw a fistfight. Just fists. I don’t know who was hitting who.”

A week later, she added a detail when talking again to Serino: During the chase, the two figures had been 10 feet apart.

That all changed when she was reinterviewed March 20 by an FDLE agent. That time, she recalled catching a glimpse of just one running figure, she told FDLE Investigator John Batchelor, and she heard the person more than saw him.

“I couldn’t tell you if it was a man, a woman, a kid, black or white. I couldn’t tell you because it was dark and because I didn’t have my contacts on or glasses. … I just know I saw a person out there.”

 

Witness 12 was interviewed on March 20, saying she “didn’t know which one” was on top of the other during the scuffle. Six days later, she said she was sure it was Zimmerman on top, the Sentinel reported.

Witness 6 lived close to where the incident occurred. On the night of the shooting, he told investigators that Martin was on top, “just throwing down blows on the guy, MMA-style,” the paper reported. He also noted that Zimmerman was calling for help. But three weeks later, the witness said he wasn’t sure who was calling for help.

Witness 13 said he spotted Zimmerman with “blood on the back of his head,” he told police. Zimmerman allegedly told the witness that Martin “was beating up on me, so I had to shoot him.” In two interviews after that one a month later, the witness described Zimmerman’s demeanor as nonchalant, “… More like, ‘Just tell my wife I shot somebody’ like it was nothing.”

The witnesses are expected to be interviewed at least once more before Zimmerman’s trial.

This week, security video was released showing Trayvon Martin at a Sanford, Fla. 7-Eleven the night he died. The teen purchased a bag of Skittles and an Arizona iced tea, a short time before he was killed.

The evidence from that night — and the dialogue surrounding it — has grown increasingly complex. Last week, it was revealed that Zimmerman really did sustain injuries to his face and head during the incident. In addition, information from Martin’s autopsy report was leaked just one day after medical records from Zimmerman’s family physician were released.

ABC News reported that the teen had traces of THC, the drug found in the marijuana plant, in his system the night of the shooting.

Zimmerman has been charged with shooting 17-year-old Trayvon Martin on the evening of Feb. 26 in a gated community in Sanford, Fla. Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer called 911 and told a police dispatcher that the teen, who was returning from a trip to a nearby convenience store, “looked suspicious.” After an altercation, Zimmerman shot Martin in the chest, subsequently telling local police that he acted in self-defense.

 

Related articles

TEXAS – Should prosecutors be punished for withholding evidence ?

may 23, source 2012 : http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com

Must-read stuff from Texas Monthly, including a fascinating roundtable discussion among exoneree Anthony Graves, the prosecutor who helped clear him, Kelly Siegler, state Sen. Rodney Ellis, Austin police chief Art Acevedo, Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Barbara Hervey, and Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins:

Lots of interesting tidbits from the roundtable, but let’s point out one interesting discussion below the jump about whether training is sufficient to cause prosecutors to hand over exculpatory evidence to the defense, or if punishment is needed for noncompliance.
Remarkably, Kelly Siegler declared that ” I have been a prosecutor my whole life, and I am telling you, we are not properly trained in how to deal with Brady. That’s separate and apart from criminal prosecutors like Charles Sebesta. We are talking two different things here.” Given that Brady has been around since (just) before Grits was born, I find that extraordinary. So did Chief Acevedo, who had this exchange with her:

Acevedo: … I’ve got to tell you, it really bothers me when I hear prosecutors say that prosecutors don’t understand Brady, when, as a police chief, I use Brady to fire people.

Siegler: You’re thinking that Brady is this black-and-white, clear-cut thing. That’s not what Brady is in the world of prosecutors. …

Acevedo: I’m not an attorney, but if I’ve got information that is exculpatory, I have a moral obligation to—

Siegler: “Exculpatory” is an easy word to use, but we’re talking about inconsistent evidence, mitigating evidence—that too. And I guarantee you every single one of the cops that work for you don’t put in their offense reports every single little inconsistent thing they know.

Acevedo: Oh, absolutely. But you know what? Here’s the piece that is missing, that Anthony’s talking about. You can train people all you want, but you’re dealing with human beings. If there are not consequences for willful misconduct, you can have all the training in the world, you can have all the rules in the world.

Graves: You gotta do more than train.

Acevedo: It drives me nuts that I have 180 days [from the time of misconduct to discipline a police officer]. That’s all I have. One hundred and eighty days. That’s nothing. There should not be a statute of limitations when it comes to violating the public trust. And cops will hate me for saying that. Prosecutors will hate me for saying that. But in a democracy, if our criminal justice system doesn’t work, we are in deep trouble. And it starts with those consequences.

Acevedo called for criminal prosecution of prosecutors who break the law, as Kelly Siegler alleged Charles Sebesta did in Anthony Graves’ case. (She called the retired DA a “criminal”; I’ll bet TM’s libel lawyers had a field day vetting that one!) The problem with criminalizing prosecutor misconduct is, as in Sebesta’s case, what prosecutor would prosecute it, especially against a sitting elected DA who’s the boss of all the prosecutors who might do so?

On the civil side, Siegler insists there can be no reduction of immunity, but I wish Acevedo had pressed that point, too. Police officers only have “qualified” instead of “absolute” immunity like prosecutors, which basically means they can be held liable only when they knowingly and intentionally violate someone’s civil rights. (In practice, qualified immunity covers nearly all lawsuits citizens bring against police – very few get past the summary judgment stage.) But the actions for which police officers have immunity are usually things done in the blink of an eye – the gun fired, the punch thrown, the chase engaged, the red light run, etc.. By contrast, prosecutors can sit in their offices for months deciding whether or not to disclose exculpatory evidence, but if they knowingly, intentionally withhold it they have “absolute” immunity. Grits sees no good reason prosecutors should have greater immunity than police officers, and I’d love to hear any prosecutors or their defenders please explain in the comments WHY they should.

There’s quite a bit more in the roundtable discussion, from which I just pulled one interesting tidbit, so read the whole thing.

TEXAS – Man gets death penalty in break-in deaths – Roderick Harris

May 21, 2012 Source : http://www.chron.com

DALLAS (AP) — A jury has decided a man should get the death penalty for capital murder in the fatal shootings of two brothers during a March 2009 Dallas home-invasion robbery.

A Dallas County jury reached its decision Monday afternoon on Roderick Harris after deliberating since last week. The same jury on May 10 found Harris guilty of capital murder in the deaths of Alfredo and Carlos Gallardo (gah-HAHR’-doh).

Witnesses said Harris entered the Gallardos’ home and confronted six family members inside, demanding wallets and valuables. When the robber tried to force the family into a walk-in closet, the brothers tried to defend the family and were shot.

Harris was shot and wounded by police after shooting at officers.

US – States urge feds to help import lethal injection drugs

May 21, 2012 Source : http://edition.cnn.com

A nationwide shortage of a commonly used imported drug used in capital punishment has prompted 15 states on Monday to urge the U.S. Justice Department to intervene. Led by Oklahoma officials, the move comes as the 33 states with the death penalty — all of whom use lethal injection as the primary execution method — struggle to preserve existing stock or search for legally acceptable chemical alternatives. A federal judge in March had blocked the importation of thiopental into states like Arizona, South Carolina, and Georgia saying it was a “misbranded drug and an unapproved drug.” Judge Richard Leon in Washington ordered state corrections departments to return suspected foreign-made thiopental to the Food and Drug Administration. The states called that a “flawed decision” and now want the FDA to appeal that judge’s decision, saying upcoming executions are being undermined. Attorneys General Scott Pruitt in Oklahoma and Marty Jackley in South Dakota are leading the legal effort. “At the very core of the states’ police powers are their powers to enact laws to protect their citizens against violent crimes. As state attorneys general, we are tasked with enforcing those laws, including in instances where capital punishment is authorized for the most heinous of crimes,” according to attorneys general from the 15 states. States argued the federal agency had routinely released the imported drug for executions, a practice suspended after the judge’s ruling. “If the (court) decision is not overturned, we as state attorneys general will be forced to take actions to ensure execution by lethal injection remains a viable option.” This comes after Texas officials disclosed Monday they only have enough drugs on hand for 23 more executions. The next scheduled execution in the U.S. is Bobby Hines in Texas on June 6. Missouri earlier this month announced new protocols, and will use an entirely new drug. Propofol is a surgical anesthetic that in large doses can be administered fatally, but has never been used in the U.S. to put prisoners to death. Officials in Ohio, Texas and other states last year cited a nationwide shortage of sodium thiopental in their decisions to separately use pentobarbital, a barbiturate that has alternately been used to put animals to sleep. Some states use a single execution drug, others rely on a three-drug mixture or cocktail. Pentobarbital has become the new legal flashpoint over capital punishment. It was used in a U.S. execution for the first time in December 2010, when it was administered as the first ingredient in a three-drug cocktail used in a lethal injection given to an Oklahoma inmate. It also has limited Food and Drug Administration approval in smaller doses for humans as a mild anesthetic and to treat some seizures. Many physicians say they no longer administer it to people for medical purposes. The second drug in the three-drug cocktail — pancuronium bromide — paralyzes all muscle movement.The third drug, potassium chloride, induces cardiac arrest and death. In 2009, Ohio became the first state to perform an execution with a single drug, using a higher concentration of sodium thiopental. There were no reported complications and its use encouraged other states to follow suit. The nation’s only manufacturer of sodium thiopental since announced it was stopping production. Many capital punishment opponents claim sodium thiopental, which renders the prisoner unconscious, can wear off too quickly, and that some prisoners would actually be awake and able to feel pain as the procedure continued. The European manufacturers of both pentobarbital and sodium thiopental have opposed using their products for executions in the United States. Pentobarbital is widely available and has been used for physician-assisted suicide, including in Oregon, where the practice is legal in limited circumstances. Nationwide, death penalty use continues to decline. Connecticut recently became the latest state to ban capital punishment, although the 11 people on death row will remain there. Only 43 people were executed in the U.S. in 2011, down three from the previous year, and a 56% decline from 13 years ago, when nearly 100 people were put to death. Eighteen have been executed so far in 2012.