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Amnesty International Urges Thorough, Impartial Investigation in Prisoner’s Death in California
Amnesty International USA issued the following comments today from Thenjiwe McHarris, senior campaigner in the U.S. program, in response to the death of a prisoner at the Corcoran State Prison in California:
“The state of California must immediately order a thorough, impartial investigation into the death of prisoner Billy Sell and make the results public” said McHarris. “This case underscores our concerns at treatment of and conditions for prisoners in CA SHUs, whether or not they are participating in the hunger strike. It is imperative that the public know the facts surrounding this death – whether they reveal that Sell was refusing food as part of the hunger strike, and requested medical attention in the days before he died, as prisoners advocates have alleged, or was a suicide, as prison authorities attest and the country coroner ruled. The state is obligated to find the truth in this case and make the facts public. There must be no uncertainty or dispute over how Billy Sell died.”
“Conditions for prisoners in solitary confinement in California are an affront to human rights and must end. No human being should be held under the deplorable conditions we have witnessed in California prisons for prolonged periods, even decades – this amounts to cruel, inhumane and degrading conditions.”
The hunger strike by prisoners in solitary confinement in California entered its 23rd day on Tuesday, with the state reporting about 600 prisoners refusing food. The strike had involved 30,000 prisoners at the start. Amnesty International visited California’s prison isolation units in November 2011 and issued a highly critical report, “The Edge of Endurance“ the following year.
The severe negative psychological consequences of isolation are such that suicides occur more frequently in isolation units than in the general prison population. In California, over a five-year period from 2006 to 2010, the average number of prison suicides was 34 a year, with 42 percent occurring in administrative segregation or isolation units.
On July 5, in advance of the hunger strike, Amnesty International issued a full statement calling on California authorities to respond to the planned strike by enacting reforms. Read the statement.
Read Amnesty International’s 2012 report, “The Edge of Endurance: Prison Conditions in California’s Security Housing Units“
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UPCOMING EXECUTION: Florida’s Narrow Interpretation of Mental Competency Leads to New Date
Florida has set an August 5 execution date for John Ferguson, a death row inmate who has suffered from severe mental illness for more than four decades. As far back as 1965, Ferguson was found to experience visual hallucinations. He was sent to mental institutions and was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic, delusional, and aggressive. In 1975, a mental health doctor described Ferguson as “dangerous and cannot be released under any circumstances.” Nevertheless, he was released less than a year later. Ferguson believes he is the “Prince of God” and is being executed so can save the world. Ferguson’s attorneys recently filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court, asserting that Florida courts have applied the wrong standard for mental competency, ignoring the current interpretation of this issue by the High Court, which requires that an inmate have a rational understanding of why he is being executed. An earlier editorial in the Tampa Bay Times opposing Ferguson’s execution, agreed, “Florida is embracing an interpretation of competency for execution so pinched that it would virtually extinguish limits on executing the severely mentally ill. The state says Ferguson is aware that he is being put to death and that he committed murder, and is therefore competent to be executed.”
(“Scott Sets New Date For Executing Mass Killer,” Associated Press, July 24, 2013; Editorial Board, “State shouldn’t execute severely mentally ill killer,” Tampa Bay Times, November 2012; Read Ferguson’s petition to U.S. Supreme Court). See American Bar Association’s amicus brief on behalf of Ferguson.
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OHIO: Ohio gov.: No clemency despite DA’s plea
Ohio Gov. John Kasich has rejected clemency for a condemned Cleveland killer despite a prosecutor’s rare plea to commute his sentence to life without parole.
Kasich announced his decision Wednesday not to grant mercy to death row inmate Billy Slagle in his neighbor’s 1987 stabbing death.
Attorneys for the 44-year-old Slagle had long argued he deserved clemency because he was just 18 at the time of the slaying and already a drug addict and alcoholic with a chaotic upbringing.
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty had changed his office’s approach to capital punishment and says he doubts it could obtain a death sentence for Slagle under today’s laws.
Friends of victim Mari Anne Pope say sparing Slagle would have dishonored the jury’s sentence.
(source: Associated Press)
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COLORADO: Holmes judge upholds law on ‘indifference’ murder
The judge in the Colorado theater shootings has upheld the constitutionality of one of the laws used to charge James Holmes with murder.
The judge on Friday rejected a request by defense lawyers to overturn the law making it a crime to commit murder with extreme indifference.
Holmes is accused of killing 12 and injuring 70 at an Aurora movie theater in July 2012.
He’s charged with 12 counts of murder with extreme indifference and 12 counts of murder with deliberation.
His attorneys argued the extreme indifference statute is vague and, therefore, unconstitutional. The judge disagreed.
Holmes is also charged with multiple counts of attempted murder. He has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
His trial is scheduled to begin in February.
(source: Associated Press)
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Former San Quentin Warden Woodford says death penalty almost dead
To hear former San Quentin State Prison Warden Jeanne Woodford tell it, the death penalty is all but dead in California.
“The political consensus is that California’s death penalty is on its way out,” she told an audience of about 70 people Saturday in the auditorium at the Redwoods in Mill Valley. “The question remains when and how it will go.”
The 61-year-old Woodford, who oversaw four executions during her five-year stint as warden of San Quentin, was a prominent leader in last year’s narrowly defeated Proposition 34 campaign to replace the death penalty with life in prison without possibility of parole.
On the eve of the election, a Field Poll showed the Prop. 34 initiative in the lead. It ended up losing 48 percent to 52 percent, a margin of just 500,000 votes.
She pointed out that public opinion has changed drastically since the death penalty was reinstated in 1978, when 70 percent of California voters favored it. Since then, it has cost the state $4 billion to administer.
“If 250,001 voters had changed their minds and voted yes, we would have won and no longer have the death penalty in this state,” she said, adding, “We did succeed in forever changing the landscape on this issue in this state. With 48 percent of voters supporting repeal, we have shown that the state is now evenly divided on the death penalty. We have fundamentally changed the conversation.”
In opposing the death penalty, Woodford, who rose through the ranks to become the director of the entire California prison system, says she knows from first hand experience that it wastes money, does not make law-abiding citizens any safer and risks executing death row inmates who may have been wrongfully convicted and are innocent. (Marin Independent Journal)
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Obese former death rown inmate dies in Ohio -Ronald Post
CLEVELAND (Reuters) – A convicted Ohio killer who sought to be spared the death penalty because he was obese died Thursday at a Columbus hospital of natural causes, an Ohio prison spokeswoman said.
Ronald Post, 53, who weighed more than 450 pounds, had been scheduled to be executed by lethal injection last January for the aggravated murder in 1983 of motel desk clerk Helen Vantz during a robbery.
The execution was commuted to life in prison by Ohio Governor John Kasich last December, following a recommendation by a parole board panel. The panel had found numerous omissions, missed opportunities and questionable decisions by defense attorneys.
Post had previously appealed unsuccessfully to stop his execution on grounds his extreme weight created a substantial risk that he would have a “torturous and lingering death” if executed by lethal injection.
Post died of undisclosed causes Thursday morning at Franklin Medical Center, Ricky Seyfang, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction said on Friday. Seyfang said Post’s death was “medically expected.”
Post had been sentenced to death by a three-judge panel in 1985 for Vantz’s murder after entering a plea of no-contest.
Post’s lawyers argued that previous counsel should not have advised him to enter a no contest plea without assurances he would not face the death penalty.
Post told the clemency board he never confessed to killing Vantz, as prosecutors portrayed, and had only confessed to driving a man who he said committed the crime to the motel and waiting in a vehicle outside. (Reuters)
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U.S. assures Russia no death penalty for Snowden
Eric Holder tells his Russian counter party Snowden would be tried in a civilian court.
Attorney General Eric Holder has appealed to Russia to extradite NSA leaker Edward Snowed by assuring Moscow that the U.S. would try him in a civilian court, would not seek the death penalty and would not torture him.
A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, again ruled out extradition for the 30-year-old former defense contractor, RT.com reports.
The promises came in a letter from Holder to his Russian counterpart, Justice Minister Vladimirovich Konovalov.
“The charges he faces do not carry that possibility, and the United States would not seek the death penalty even if Mr. Snowden were charged with additional death penalty-eligible crimes,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in a letter to Russian Minister of Justice Vladimirovich Konovalov.
In addition, Holder said that would be tried in a civilian court and “would not be tortured.”
In the past, Russia has cited the prospect of capital punishment as a factor in its decision not to turn Snowden over to the U.S.
“We believe that these assurances eliminate these asserted grounds for Mr.Snowden’s claim that he should be treated as a refugee or granted asylum, temporary or otherwise,” Holder wrote.
A copy of the letter was released by the Justice Department on Friday.
The letter came amid discussions about the Snowden case between FBI director Robert Mueller and FSB chief Aleksandr Bortnikov, RT.com reported..
Despite the flurry of activity, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov, said Friday that “Russia has never extradited anyone, and will not extradite,” according to RT.com.
The spokesman also said he is certain that the former defense contractor, who has applied for asylum in Russia, will stop harming Washington with leaks or new revelations about the National Security Agency if allowed to stay in Russia
Peskov said that if Snowden, through his actions, should undermine Moscow’s ties with Washington, “the head of state (Putin) has expressed strong determination not to allow this.”
Snowden argued in his application for temporary asylum in Russia that he “he faces persecution by the U.S. government and he fears for his life and safety,”according to his lawyer Anatoly Kucherena. (USA Today)
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Castro accepts plea deal to avoid death penalty, prosecutors recommend sentence of life without parole
(CBS/AP) — Ariel Castro, the Ohio man accused of kidnapping three women and holding them captive in his Cleveland home for about a decade, has accepted a plea deal that will spare him from the death penalty.
Castro faced 977 charges including rape, kidnapping, and aggravated murder stemming from the death of an unborn child of one of the victims. An amended indictment includes 937 charges, an attorney said.
The terms of the deal offered by prosecutors call for no death penalty with a recommended sentence of life without parole plus an additional 1,000 years, attorneys said in court. A judge must decide whether to accept the sentence.
Castro pleaded guilty to numerous charges including aggravated murder, rape and kidnapping as the judge, Michael Russo, read through the indictment.
“Because of the plea deal, I will plead guilty,” Castro replied, as Russo asked how he would plead to an aggravated murder count.
Castro appeared in court wearing glasses and an orange prison jumpsuit, sitting up in his chair and looking behind him into the courtroom before the hearing. The 53-year-old spoke in court as he answered questions from the judge, saying that he understands he is waiving his right to a trial in the case.
Castro also said he understood the deal means he will never be released from prison.
“I knew I was going to get pretty much the book thrown at me,” Castro said. He said he was “fully aware” of the terms of the plea agreement and consented to it, adding, “There are some things I don’t understand…because of my sexual problem.”
Russo asked Castro whether he understood several of the charges against him included a “sexually violent predator” specification, a classification that mandates a sentence of life without parole on an aggravated murder charge.
“The violent part I don’t agree on, but yes,” Castro said.
Castro repeatedly said that he didn’t “care for the wording” of the sexually violent predator specification, but agreed to plead guilty to the charges nonetheless.
The deal also spares the victims in the case from testifying.
(Source: CBS News, July 26, 2013)
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Douglas Feldman to become 503rd inmate put to death since reinstatement
Fri., July 26, 2013
Just two months after his 40th birthday, Dallas County resident Douglas Feldman, rode his motorcycle up next to the cab of an 18-wheeler and fired a half-dozen rounds into the passenger area, killing 36-year-old driver Robert Everett.
Reportedly, Feldman was riding his Harley-Davidson on Dallas’ Central Expressway in August 1998 when Everett sped up next to him and then abruptly changed lanes in front of Feldman, nearly clipping him. Feldman was enraged, according to court records, pulled out a pistol and fired several rounds into the back of the truck before reloading the weapon and speeding up to parallel with the cab to shoot Everett. Feldman then fled. Less than an hour later, and about 11 miles from the scene of Everett’s murder, Feldman passed an Exxon service station, where 62-year-old Nicolas Velasquez, a tanker driver, was replenishing the station’s gas supply. Feldman rode into the station and fired two rounds into Velasquez’s back, killing him; the sight of the man next to the truck sent him back into a rage, he testified at his 1999 trial. More than a week later Feldman shot Antonio Vega, as Vega stood next to an 18-wheeler outside a Jack in the Box restaurant; again, Feldman said the sight of the truck was what compelled him to shoot. Vega survived. A bystander to the Vega shooting called in Feldman’s license plate number and police were able to match Feldman’s gun to all three shootings. Feldman was arrested and charged with capital murder.
Feldman admitted to police that he was responsible for the shootings, and at trial testified in his own defense, “noting that he had not forgiven Mr. Everett for his trespasses,” reads a Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals opinion in the case. “Feldman explained that he had shot Mr. Velasquez because the man was standing beside an [18-wheeler], which caused Feldman to ‘explode again in anger.'” Feldman was convicted and sentenced to die. On July 31, he will become the 503rd inmate put to death in Texas since reinstatement, and the 11th inmate killed by the state this year.
On appeal, Feldman argued that qualified jurors had been improperly excluded from the jury pool, that his attorney failed to present evidence that he suffered from bipolar disorder as possibly mitigating evidence, and that his trial judge erred by not allowing jurors to consider a lesser charge of murder (which would spare Feldman’s life), among other arguments. According to Feldman the murders arose out of a “sudden passion” and thus mitigated his culpability. “Even though sudden passion arising from an adequate cause is not a legally valid defense to capital murder under Texas law, it is definitely a factually valid rational explanation of the causal events leading up to the offense,” Feldman argued in a subsequent, handwritten appeal he filed on his own with the Fifth Circuit. That appeal, too, has been rejected, clearing the way for Feldman’s execution at the end of the month.
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