Capital punishment

Alabama – High cost of death penalty

april 11, 2012  source : http://www.timesdaily.com

With states like Alabama having to slash services over monetary woes, it’s an appropriate time to reconsider the high costs of the death penalty.

Many TimesDaily readers have expressed the opinion that Sheffield native and death row inmate Tommy Arthur has been in the news much too often in recent months.

They are tired of the seemingly endless appeals process that has allowed a convicted killer to remain on death row for 29 years. Since Arthur was sentenced in 1983, the courts have upheld his conviction in a murder-for-hire plot involving Muscle Shoals resident Troy Wicker. But at the same time, Arthur has avoided execution five times through the appeals process, most recently in late March.

One reader asked how much the efforts to execute Arthur have cost compared to simply sentencing him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. That’s a good question, considering the dire budget situation facing the state.

The answer is not simple, but by comparing Alabama to other states we can get a rough idea of the price.

The annual cost to house one state inmate in 2009 was about $15,118, according to the Alabama Department of Corrections. If 70-year-old Arthur reached the lifespan of the average U.S. male, he would serve a total of 35 years for capital murder at a cost to the state of about $529,130. That does not include the cost of his initial trial.

A report from the Death Penalty Information Center offers what it says is a “very conservative” estimate of $30 million to reach a single execution. This amount factors in the millions wasted on cases where there is never an actual execution.

One specific example is Maryland, where a legislative commission recommended abolishing the death penalty after a study showed the state was paying $37 million per execution.

Much of the costs involved in executing an inmate revolves around exhausting every effort to ensure the person is guilty. As DNA evidence has proved in recent years, the state doesn’t always get it right. The fact that Alabama has no law ensuring access to DNA testing for people convicted of capital crimes and does not require that biological evidence be preserved throughout the capital inmate’s incarceration is among several moral concerns.

But beyond those moral issues remains the nagging thought that revoking the death penalty could make a substantial difference as the state faces a $330 million budget shortfall.

With Arthur and 198 other inmates on death row, the state Legislature should undertake an in-depth study of the cost specific to Alabama’s death penalty.

 

Time to end death penalty in Texas

april 10, source : http://www.star-telegram.com

Two events last week — one in the Connecticut Senate chamber, the other in a Dallas courtroom — helped once again to focus attention on two of the nation’s most glaring flaws: wrongful convictions and capital punishment.

In Dallas, three more men were exonerated for crimes they did not commit, bringing to 30 the total number of exonerations in Dallas County since 2001. One of the men had been sentenced to 99 years in prison for a 1994 violent purse snatching involving a 79-year-old woman.

About 1,600 miles away in Hartford, the Connecticut Senate voted 20-16 to repeal the death penalty based partly on the growing evidence of wrongful convictions and the possibility that an innocent person could be executed. The state’s House of Representatives is likely to approve the measure soon, and the governor has vowed to sign it into law.

If the measure is enacted, Connecticut will join a growing number of states (the fifth in five years) to abolish capital punishment. California voters will weigh in on the subject in a ballot initiative in November.

After the Dallas defendants were officially cleared in court, both District Attorney Craig Watkins and District Judge Lena Levario declared that it was time to have a discussion about race and justice, The Dallas Morning News reported.

Actually we need a discussion about much more than that in America.

The latest Dallas case again revealed that prosecutors withheld evidence from the defense and that police, during their initial investigation, subjected the suspects to prejudicial identification tactics. These kinds of injustices cry out for discussion.

How many innocent people are behind bars based on overzealous police work, unethical prosecution or just honest mistakes? How many might be on Death Row?

When it comes to executions, there are signs that the nation’s thirst for blood is waning, bringing some hope to those of us who have been fighting against capital punishment for so long.

Even in Texas, which has the busiest death chamber in the country, the numbers are decreasing. Texas juries are sentencing fewer people to death, and the population on Death Row is declining.

Texas executed 13 people last year, the lowest number since 1996 when three people were killed by lethal injection. In 2000, a record 40 executions occurred in the state.

Four people have been put to death this year in Huntsville, bringing the total to 481 since 1982, when Texas resumed executions after the Supreme Court had declared capital punishment “cruel and unusual” in 1972.

Today 298 people are on Texas’ Death Row, including nine women. The ethnic breakdown is 29.2 percent Anglo, 40.6 percent black, 28.5 percent Hispanic and 1.7 percent other. At the end of fiscal 2001, the Death Row population was 446.

Those are all good signs, but not good enough.

If more states continue to lead the way, maybe the Lone Star State will eventually follow. New York, New Jersey, Illinois and New Mexico recently repealed capital punishment, and The Associated Press reports that Kansas and Kentucky are considering it.

Many people acknowledge that we have a flawed justice system, and that’s understandable with any structure that depends on human judgment and actions.

But it is because of the fallibility of humans that we mortals should not be charged with deciding to take a life — the one thing we can never give back in case of a mistake — in the name of the state.

The progress toward abolishment of the death penalty has been steady, but slow. It’s now time to pick up the momentum.

I’m ready to see the movement gather steam, wage an all-out legal assault and awareness campaign to change these barbaric laws one state legislature at a time.

We are a nation that should be better than this. Let’s vow to end capital punishment in this country, now and forever.

 

10 years after DNA cleared York County man, death penalty still debated

april 8, 2012 source : http://www.ydr.com

Some believe that Pennsylvania will eventually abolish the death penalty.

Ten years ago today, Ray Krone walked out of an Arizona prison after DNA tests showed he did not murder a Phoenix bartender in 1991.

He became the 100th death row exonoree, and his case came at a time when federal legislators were considering death penalty reform, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

What shook many was that Krone had been convicted twice in the murder, he said.

Krone was a military veteran, a Bible reader, and one of the top graduates in his Dover Area High School class. He had maintained his innocence during the 10 years he spent in prison, two of those years on death row.

“It was a revelation that so many mistakes could have been made,” Dieter said.

In the past 10 years, several states, such as Illinois, New Mexico and New Jersey, have abolished the death penalty, Dieter said. Others, such as Maryland, Connecticut and California, are seriously considering it.

The number of executions nationwide has dropped in the last 10 years, and the public is more aware of the errors that can occur.

Pennsylvania to study the death penalty

The last execution in Pennsylvania took place in 1999.

It marked only the third execution in the state since 1976, and in all three cases, the defendants gave up their appeal efforts.

Yet, today, more than 200 remain on death row in the state. Eleven are from York County cases.

A death penalty without executions is not a death penalty, Dieter said.

The state Senate passed a resolution in December authorizing a study of the death penalty.

Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, R-Montgomery/Bucks counties, who sponsored the resolution, said he thinks the review is appropriate, given the studies done by other states. Questions about the cost, deterrence and appropriateness of the death penalty need to be answered, according to a news release.

The study will involve The Justice Center for Research at Penn State,

the Pennsylvania Interbranch Commission on Gender, Racial and Ethnic Fairness, and the Pennsylvania Joint State Government Commission.

The task force will study more than a dozen areas, including whether the selection of defendants for capital trials is arbitrary, unfair or discriminatory, and whether adequate procedural protections exist to prevent an innocent person from being sentenced to death and executed.

It will have two years to do the work.

Problems with the death penalty

Some, such as Kathleen Lucas of Springettsbury Township, believe it is only a matter of time until Pennsylvania repeals capital punishment.

Since the 1970s, 140 exonerations now have been reported nationwide, said Lucas, executive director for

Pennsylvanians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. Six have been in Pennsylvania.

In addition to Krone’s exoneration, the Sept. 21 execution of Troy Davis in Georgia has left a bad taste in people’s mouths, she said.

Davis was sentenced to death for the 1989 murder of a police officer, but he maintained his innocence until the end. His defense team had argued that some of the witnesses had recanted their statements that implicated him.

Pennsylvania has been singled out for problems with the death penalty, Lucas said. The American Bar Association cited numerous areas for reform in a 2007 report.

Studies have revealed, for example, that 98.6 percent of jurors in capital cases in Pennsylvania failed to understand “at least some” portion of the jury instructions, the report states.

Of those questioned, 82.8 percent of the jurors did not believe “that a life sentence really meant life in prison,” according to the report.

Racial and geographical disparities also exist, according to the report. A Pennsylvania Supreme Court committee found that one third of black death-row inmates in Philadelphia County would have received sentences of life in prison if they had not been black.

Death penalty cases are costly

Lucas questions why the state keeps the death penalty when it isn’t executing anyway. She argues the money spent on capital cases costs three times or more than sentencing a defendant to life.

The average death penalty case in Maryland costs about $3 million, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (citing the Urban Institute, 2008). It’s anticipated the state will pay $186 million for cases pursued between 1978 and 1999. The state has had five executions since 1976.

Death penalty cases demand more work because of what’s at stake, Dieter said. Typically, two defense lawyers and two prosecutors are assigned to the case. They must prepare for two phases — the trial and the sentencing — which require different investigations.

“We’re just throwing money down a big, black hole,” said Marc Bookman, executive director of the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation.

It also costs more money to incarcerate death-row inmates, Bookman said.

In these tough economic times, Lucas said, the money could be used elsewhere, such as education. Police also could pursue cold cases.

Support of the death penalty

The state District Attorneys Association doesn’t think the death penalty should be abolished, executive director Richard Long said.

It helps to bring a measure of closure to the victim’s family, and it has a deterrent effect as well.

“We think Pennsylvania has decided it’s an appropriate penalty in the most egregious type of murder cases,” he said.

It is the Third Circuit Court of Appeals that is slowing down the cases, Long said. The appeals are not moving through the process and being addressed in a timely manner — no matter what the outcome.

Many cases are being overturned because of problems, such as ineffective counsel, Lucas said.

Some, who started with the death penalty, end up with a life sentence, Dieter said. Pennsylvania has done studies and made efforts to fix problems, but “at this point, I think it’s still not working.”

York County District Attorney Tom Kearney said he has taken an oath to uphold the will of the people.

“When we seek the penalty, it is for the worst of the worst, and that is what we’re charged with doing,” he said.

His office takes great pains to consult with the victims, looking at the statute and reviewing the case to determine if the death penalty is a realistic option.

He pointed to the Michael and Nanette Craver case as an example. His office withdrew the death penalty against the couple in the death of their 7-year-old adopted Russian son.

That’s because after talking with experts, it appeared the mitigating circumstances would outweigh the aggravating circumstances. It would have meant a life in prison without parole.

The couple later was convicted at trial of involuntary manslaughter, child endangerment and conspiracy.

“The taking of a life is a serious business,” Kearney said. “This is not something we do on the fly.”

Kearney said he thinks it’s healthy for the community to discuss the death penalty and whether they believe legislators should change the law.

Local defense attorney Gerald Lord said he has handled numerous death penalty cases in which the defendants are found not guilty of first-degree murder. Some are convicted of lesser charges.

Lord cited the 2003 shooting death of 25-year-old Anthony Lloyd as an example.

A jury acquitted his client, Dorian Eady of Erie, of first- and third-degree murder, attempted homicide, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment in the case. At one point, he faced a death penalty notice.

Witnesses testified Eady was in Buffalo the day before the shooting and in Erie when the shooting occurred. Eady had always maintained his innocence.

“It’s the ultimate penalty, and if you make a mistake, you can’t take it back,” Lord said.

Ten years later

As for Ray Krone, he moved back to York County and has made attempts to resume a normal life.

He has been thankful for the support of his friends, family and the residents of York County, he said. It has helped him as he has traveled across the country trying to make a difference.

Krone has been an outspoken proponent of abolishing the death penalty. He has spoken with legislators, students and others about his case, wrongful convictions, DNA testing and judicial reform.

Krone serves as director for communications and training for Witness to Innocence, an organization that consists of exonerated death row survivors and their loved ones who are fighting to end the death penalty.

Krone said he traveled to Connecticut last year to testify along with Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project for the repeal of the death penalty.

Legislators did not approve the repeal last year, but it is moving through the legislature this year.

“If they could do it to me, they could do it to anybody,” Krone said.

 

Who is on death row

Eleven people from York County cases are on death row in Pennsylvania.

They are:

— Kevin Dowling, 53, convicted in the October 1997 murder of Spring Grove shop owner Jennifer Myers. The York County District Attorney’s Office maintained Dowling killed Myers to prevent her from testifying against him in an attempted rape and robbery case.

— Daniel Jacobs, 41, convicted in the February 1992 stabbing death of his girlfriend, Tammy Lee Mock of York, and the drowning of their 7-month old daughter, Holly Danielle Jacobs.

— Harve Johnson, 30, convicted in the April 2008 beating death of 2-year-old Darisabel Baez.

— Kevin Mattison, 35, for the December 2008 shooting death of Christian Agosto during a robbery and burglary. Mattison of Baltimore had a previous murder conviction for killing a man in a street fight in Maryland in 1995.

— Hubert Lester Michael Jr., 55, pleaded guilty to the July 1993 kidnapping and shooting death of 16-year-old Trista Elizabeth Eng in the Dillsburg area.

— Milton Montalvo, 49, and Noel Montalvo, 48, convicted of the April 1998, stabbing deaths of Miriam Asencio-Cruz and Manuel Ramirez Santana, also known as Nelson Lugo. Asencio-Cruz was Milton Montalvo’s estranged common-law wife, and Santana was her friend.

— Hector Morales, 29, convicted of the July 2009 murder and burglary of Ronald Simmons Jr. Simmons was shot about 12 hours before he was to testify against Morales in a drug case.

— John Small, 52, convicted of the 1981 murder and attempted rape of 17-year-old Cheryl Smith, whose body was found in West Manheim Township.

— Mark Newton Spotz, 41, convicted of the February 1995 shooting death of Penny Gunnet, 41, of New Salem, his third victim in a four-day crime spree through central and eastern Pennsylvania.

— Paul Gamboa-Taylor, 51, pleaded guilty to the May 1991, hammer slayings of four family members: his wife, Valeria L. Gamboa-Taylor; their two children, Paul, 4, and Jasmine, 2; and another child, Lance Barshinger, 2. He received a life sentence for killing his mother-in-law, Donna M. Barshinger.

About the Krone case

Ray Krone was convicted twice and later exonerated in the 1991 murder of a Phoenix bartender.

Kim Ancona, 36, was found stabbed to death Dec. 29, 1991, in the CBS Restaurant Lounge in Arizona.

Police began their investigation, including questioning Krone. Police arrested him on New Year’s Eve.

Krone believed that police, in their investigation, would realize they had the wrong man. But he went to trial in the summer of 1992. An expert presented a videotape showing that a bite sample from Krone matched a bite mark on the victim’s breast.

A jury found Krone guilty of first-degree murder and kidnapping. He was sentenced to death.

In 1995, the Arizona Supreme Court overturned Krone’s conviction, granting him a new trial.

At his second trial in 1996, the prosecution argued that the bite marks on the victim’s body matched Krone’s “unique dentition.” Krone’s attorney, Christopher Plourd of San Diego, countered that the bite marks were not Krone’s, and the saliva found on the victim provided a DNA pattern that excluded Krone.

A jury convicted him again.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge James McDougall said he had doubts about Krone’s guilt and sentenced him to life in prison.

In 2002, testing of DNA on the victim’s clothes proved Krone wasn’t the killer and instead implicated Kenneth Phillips Jr.

Krone was freed that year after 10 years in prison.

Krone sued Maricopa County in Arizona, and the city of Phoenix over his wrongful conviction. He received settlements totaling $4.4 million.

Krone now lives in Conewago Township.

 

Life in prison

Is there a difference between how death row inmates versus those sentenced to life without parole live in prison?

The answer is yes, said Sue McNaughton, press secretary for the state Department of Corrections.

Death row inmates are locked in their cells 22 hours a day. They are allowed outside to exercise, to shower or to research their appeals in a mini law library, she said.

When they do leave their cells, they are shackled and escorted by several staff members, McNaughton said.

Inmates who are in for life live in regular housing. In general population, two inmates can live in a cell, but those with lifetime sentences might be offered a single cell.

Inmates serving a life sentence can work prison jobs, she said. They can go to the library to read a book. They are not as restricted.

Feds want more time to weigh death penalty

april 8, 2012 source : http://www.lasvegassun.com

Prosecutors want more time to decide whether to seek the death penalty for a legally dead Mississippi man charged with a kidnapping that resulted in the death of a 12-year-old Las Vegas girl whose body was found in Louisiana.

Thomas Steven Sanders was declared dead in Mississippi in 1994. He surfaced as a suspect in the death of Lexis Roberts, whose body was found in October 2010 in Catahoula Parish, La. The body of her mother, Suellen Roberts, was found the next month in Yavapai County, Ariz.

Sanders is charged with the child’s death in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, La.

Prosecutors have asked for a 30-day extension until Aug. 1 to decide on seeking the death penalty. The motion says defense attorneys agree with the request.

U.S. District Judge Dee Drell has not yet ruled.

Authorities have said in court records that Sanders confessed to killing the mother and daughter. His attorneys, however, have filed motions to prevent that information from being presented at trial. They argue Sanders asked for a lawyer, and questioning should have stopped.

At the request of Drell, U.S. Magistrate James Kirk investigated the confession issue and in March wrote a lengthy recommendation to allow the confession at trial. Kirk’s recommendation contained some of the most graphic details to become public about the killing.

According to the judge’s recommendation and other court documents, Sanders was living at a storage facility in Las Vegas when he met Roberts. A relationship developed and they planned to take her daughter on a trip to Bearizona, a wildlife park in Arizona near the Grand Canyon, for the Labor Day weekend in 2010.

They spent the night in a hotel and played in the swimming pool, court records said. On their way back to Nevada, Sanders pulled over in the desert “ostensibly so Suellen could shoot his .22 rifle” but instead he shot her in the head, Kirk wrote in his March filing, which drew upon the confession documents.

“Sanders then loaded Lexis, who was in hysterics over seeing her mother murdered, into the car and traveled to Louisiana. He took Lexis to a wooded area and shot her in the back of the head and, when she didn’t die, he shot her twice more in the head. When she still didn’t die, he tried to shoot her through the heart. When she still didn’t die, he cut her throat, killing her,” Kirk wrote.

Sanders‘ attorneys have been trying to get the confession thrown out based on the argument that questioning continued after he asked for a lawyer. Kirk disagreed, saying that Sanders only requested a lawyer to discuss certain questions: why he killed the mother and daughter, what he had been doing while in Nevada and whether he had worked for a mattress company.

Authorities in Louisiana and Arizona have said Sanders could face state charges.

Sanders walked away from his family in Mississippi in 1987 and they didn’t hear for him for years. His parents, brother and ex-wife petitioned a Pike County, Miss., court in July 1994 to have him declared dead. Despite the death certificate, Sanders was able to move about easily and undetected even though he was arrested over the years, including for drug paraphernalia and a number of traffic and motor vehicle incidents, all in Tennessee. He was sentenced to two years in jail in Georgia for simple battery.

He’s being held without bond. His trial is scheduled for January.

Ohio death penalty debate continues as executions start up again

april 7, 2012 source : http://www.the-daily-record.com

COLUMBUS — Attorney General Mike DeWine has released the 2011 Capital Crimes Annual Report, the yearly snapshot of Ohio’s Death Row, listing facts and figures about inmates who have been executed and those facing death.

It’s a timely survey, given the continuing debate over Ohio’s administration of the death penalty.

According to the report, 313 death sentences have been issued in Ohio since 1981, a number that includes multiple sentences for some individual inmates.

Of those, the state has executed 46. The first was Wilford Berry on Feb. 19, 1999. The most recent was Reginald Brooks on Nov. 15 of last year.

The average age of executed inmates was 45. Nineteen were black, 27 white, all men, serving an average of more than 16 years on Death Row.

They killed 76 people, including 17 children.

The highest number of executions in recent years was in 2010, when eight inmates received lethal injections. Five more were put to death last year.

Sixteen inmates had their death sentences commuted. Gov. John Kasich has granted clemency twice, for Shawn Hawkins (convicted of a drug-related double murder in Hamilton County in 1989) and Joseph Murphy (convicted of killing an elderly Marion woman in 1987).

Former Govs. Ted Strickland, Bob Taft and Dick Celeste commuted the sentences of five, one and eight Death Row inmates, respectively.

Twenty-two inmates died in prison either of natural causes or suicide before their death sentences being carried out.

Eight were deemed mentally retarded and, thus, not eligible for death sentences. Eight are pending resentencing. And 71 had their sentences blocked by judicial action.

That leaves 154 people on Ohio’s Death Row, most of whom have been relocated from the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown to the Chillicothe Correctional institution, located about 50 miles south of Columbus.

Four of those received death sentences last year. A dozen have dates set for their lethal injections.

Mark Wiles, convicted in the brutal knifing death of a Portage County teen, is next in line on April 18, pending any additional legal challenges.

Green light

The report was released a few days before a federal court ruled Ohio could move ahead with Wiles’ execution.

But Judge Gregory Frost didn’t mince words concerning Ohio and the death penalty.

In a decision last week, he declined a request from legal counsel for Wiles to stop his scheduled execution, opening the door for the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to restart lethal injections after several months of delays.

But Frost made it clear prison officials better get it right this time.

He’s understandably skeptical, writing in his decision, “Ohio has time and again failed to follow through on its own execution protocol. The protocol is constitutional as written and executions are lawful, but the problem has been Ohio’s repeated inability to do what it says it will do.”

He added later, “They must recognize the consequences that will ensue if they fail to succeed in conducting a constitutionally sound execution of Wiles. They must recognize what performing a constitutionally sound Wiles execution and then returning to the flawed practices of the past would mean.”

Death penalty-free

Two Democratic state lawmakers continue to call for an end to the death penalty in Ohio, “raising fervent opposition” to Judge Frost’s decision last week,

Reps. Nickie Antonio, from the Cleveland area, and Ted Celeste, from the Columbus area, are sponsors of legislation that would ban the death penalty, replacing it with life in prison without parole.

Last week, they pointed to Connecticut, the 17th state in the country that has ceased putting inmates to death.

“Moving forward with executions is a step backward for Ohio,” Antonio said in a released statement. “Now is the time for Ohio to join policy leaders throughout the country and move to life without parole.”

Celeste added, “Connecticut will soon be the fifth state in the past five years to abolish this barbaric, outdated form of punishment. Public opinion is clearly changing with regard to capital punishment, and I am hopeful that Ohio will soon be able to capitalize on this momentum as well.”

Conn. Ends Death Penalty, But Not For 11 Men On Death Row

april 7 , source : http://www.thedailybeast.com

Can you call it abolition if you’re still executing people? David R. Dow considers Connecticut’s hair-splitting new law, and wonders whether our focus on innocence is to blame.

On the website of The New York Times, there’s an old photo of a man named William Petit standing next to his wife, Jennifer, and their two daughters, Hayley and Michaela, 17 and 11. They look peaceful and content, a portrait of happiness

Dr. Petit is the only one of the four still alive. On Aug. 6, 2007, his wife and daughters were brutally murdered in their Cheshire, Connecticut home. The manner of their shocking deaths helps explain an otherwise bizarre development: The Connecticut legislature is going to abolish the death penalty, but not until the Petit killers are put to death.

In a crime so chilling that even some death-penalty opponents I know reconsidered their opposition, Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky entered the Petit house at three in the morning. They beat Dr. Petit unconscious with a baseball bat, tied him up in the basement, and went upstairs. There, Hayes raped Jennifer while Komisarjevsky attacked Michaela. The men strangled Jennifer to death and tied the girls to their beds. Then they set the house on fire.

With his legs still bound, Dr. Petit broke out of the basement and stumbled across the yard.  He screamed to his neighbor for help. Twelve hours later, Hayes and Komisarjevsky were under arrest. Connecticut juries sentenced both men to death.

And now they are the last two men to be sentenced to death in the state, because last week, by a vote of 20 to 16, the Connecticut Senate voted to abolish the death penalty. The bill will now move to the House, where it is certain to pass, before being signed by Gov. Daniel Malloy.

Yet Hayes and Komisarjevsky, along with nine other inmates, remain on Connecticut’s death row, their sentences unaffected by the new law. How can that be? How is it possible for a legislature to decide that the death penalty should be eliminated, but only after we first execute 11 more men?

The morality of the death penalty has nothing to do with error. It is not even about deterrence; and for most people, it is not about cost. It is about belief.

Home Invasion

I believe the answer to that question has to do with two troubling features of the modern anti-death-penalty movement. The first is the excessive reliance on the concept of innocence. The second is the often tepid, tone-deaf response from the abolitionist community to unspeakable crimes like the one that destroyed the Petit family.

The innocence revolution—driven largely by advances in DNA analysis—has been undeniably dramatic. Forty-four states now have innocence projectsdevoted to identifying and helping gain the release of innocent prisoners. Nationwide, nearly three hundred men have walked out of prison exonerated, after DNA proved beyond question we sent the wrong man to jail.

And as these cases began to permeate the public consciousness, death-penalty opponents seized on them as a tactic: None of those 289 exonerated inmates, they said, would have been released if he had been executed. The possibility of error became the central argument in the abolitionist brief.

Measured along one metric, the tactic has paid off: When the most recent abolition becomes official, Connecticut will be the fifth state in the past five years (along with New York, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Illinois) to have repealed the death penalty.

But that metric does not tell the full story. Connecticut has not actually executed anyone since Michael Ross, who waived his appeals, was put to death almost seven years ago. Before Ross, the state had not executed anyone in more than 30 years.  In Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and New Mexico, there were a combined 26 people on death row when capital punishment was stricken from the books.

In contrast, in the remaining death penalty states, more than three thousand men await execution.

With Connecticut now on the abolition side of the ledger, only 10 of the 33 states with a death penalty have executed someone in the past five years. Meanwhile, Texas alone has executed nearly half the people put to death in America since 2007 (102 out of 232).

read full article

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Linda Carty – Gran Appeals To UK To Save Her From Execution

april 5 2012  source : http://news.sky.com

watch interview : click here

The British Government has said it is doing all it can the save the life of a British grandmother who has spent 11 years on Death Row in the United States.

Linda Carty, 53, could receive a date for her execution at any moment after her final attempts to secure a new appeal failed.

She would become the first British woman to be executed in 50 years.

She was convicted of killing a young mother in Texas a decade ago but has always said she was framed.

Her lawyers believe she was failed by the American legal system and admit her situation is “desperate”.

Carty spoke to Sky News on Death Row in Texas and told us: “I am 110% innocent. I know I didn’t commit this crime. They took 11 years of my life for something I know I didn’t do.”

She was born on the Caribbean island of St Kitts before its independence from Britain and now wants support from the UK.

“If you don’t then you’re telling me there’s no value to my life and if you do intercede it is saying that every British national, it doesn’t matter whether we were born in the mother country or in the colonies, we matter,” Carty said.

“We are British. I can’t wash off my nationality with soap and water. I am going to always be British.”

Ms Carty said she feels sympathy for the family of victim Joana Rodriguez.

“She was somebody’s child too, somebody’s daughter. For me it’s not only a healing process but its to show the families that the person you’ve been hating all these years did not commit this crime,” she said.

Ms Carty is being represented by the campaign group Reprieve.

Director Clive Stafford-Smith said her best chance of avoiding the death penalty was clemency.

Rick Perry, the longest serving governor in the Texas’ history, has now signed off on 242 executions since December 2000 – the most of any governor ever.

Read Greg Milam’s blog on executions in the US

The Foreign Office said it is putting pressure on the authorities in Texas.

“The Prime Minister and British Government are deeply concerned by the position Ms Carty is in,” it said in a statement.

“We are committed to using all appropriate influence to prevent the execution of any British national.

“We are working closely with Ms Carty’s legal team to ensure their work to secure clemency is supported by appropriate political representations.”

Since her conviction, Ms Carty has been held at the Mountain View unit in Gatesville where all of the women on death row in Texas are held.

She admitted she fears her death sentence.

“I won’t get up and ask the British Government to go out in the public and lobby for me had I known that I am guilty because then it would be an embarrassment not only to myself and my family but also the country that I love.

“So for me when I say I am innocent and that I didn’t commit this crime I mean that.”

:: Meanwhile, the Connecticut Senate has voted to repeal the state’s death penalty, moving it one step closer to becoming the fifth US state in five years to abandon capital punishment. The measure now moves to the House of Representatives.

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Connecticut may be latest state to repeal death penalty

april 5 2012

(CNN) — The Connecticut Senate on Thursday voted to repeal the death penalty, setting the stage for Connecticut to join several states that have recently abolished capital punishment.

In the last five years, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Illinois have repealed the death penalty. California voters will decide the issue in November.

The bill now goes to the House of Representatives, where it is also expected to pass. Gov. Dannel Malloy, a Democrat, has vowed to sign the measure into law should it reach his desk, his office said.

“For everyone, it’s a vote of conscience,” said Senate President Donald Williams Jr., a Democrat who says he’s long supported a repeal. “We have a majority of legislators in Connecticut in favor of this so that the energies of our criminal justice system can be focused in a more appropriate manner.”

In 2009, state lawmakers in both houses tried to pass a similar bill, but were ultimately blocked by then-Gov. Jodi Rell, a Republican.

Capital punishment has existed in Connecticut since its colonial days. But the state was forced to review its death penalty laws beginning in 1972 when a Supreme Court decision required greater consistency in its application. A moratorium was then imposed until a 1976 court decision upheld the constitutionality of capital punishment.

Since then, Connecticut juries have handed down 15 death sentences. Of those, only one person has actually been executed, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonpartisan group that studies death penalty laws.

Michael Ross, a convicted serial killer, was put to death by lethal injection in 2005 after giving up his appeals.

“It’s not a question of whether it’s morally wrong, it’s just that it isn’t working,” said Richard Dieter, the group’s executive director. “I think when you hear of 15 to 20 years of uncertain appeals, that’s not closure and that’s not justice. It’s a slow, grinding process.”

Eleven people are currently on death row in Connecticut, including Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky, who both were sentenced for their roles in the 2007 murders of the Petit family in Cheshire, Connecticut.

The high-profile case drew national attention and sparked conversations about home security and capital punishment. In vetoing the measure to eliminate the death penalty in 2009, Rell cited the Cheshire deaths.

Dr. William Petit, the sole survivor in that attack, has remained a staunch critic of repeal efforts.

“We believe in the death penalty because we believe it is really the only true, just punishment for certain heinous and depraved murders,” Petit told CNN affiliate WFSB.

Advocates of the existing law say capital punishment can act as a criminal deterrent and provides justice for victims.

Opponents say capital punishment is often applied inconsistently, can be discriminatory and has not proven to be an effective deterrent. They also point to instances in which wrongful convictions have been overturned with new investigative methods, including forensic testing.

“Mistakes can be made and you may not know about it until science later exposes them,” said Dieter.

But a recent Quinnipiac poll found that 62% of Connecticut residents think abolishing the death penalty is “a bad idea.”

“No doubt the gruesome Cheshire murders still affect public opinion regarding convicts on death row,” said Quinnipiac University Poll Director Douglas Schwartz.

That number jumps to 66% among Connecticut men, and drops to 58% among the state’s women, according to the poll.

The Senate’s proposed law is prospective in nature, meaning that it would not apply to those already sentenced to death.

Texas – TDCJ wants to block release of lethal injection drug info

april 3, 2012 source : http://www.chron.com

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice is refusing to disclose the size of its stock of a key pharmaceutical used in executions, saying doing so would endanger its drug makers and suppliers.

The charge comes in a brief filed with the Texas Attorney General’s Office in response to a December query by an British newspaper concerning the contents of state’s death house medicine chest. The agency said releasing such information would provide ammunition for Reprieve, a British anti-death penalty group that successfully has pressured drug makers to stop selling to executioners.

Likening Reprieve’s campaigns to those of violent prison gangs, the brief written by TDCJ Assistant General Counsel Patricia Fleming asserts that releasing information “creates a substantial risk of physical harm to our supplier. … It is not a question of if, but when, Reprieve’s unrestrained harassment will escalate into violence…”

TDCJ is seeking authorization not to answer questions posed in a December public information request by Ed Pilkington, the New York correspondent for The Guardian, a national British newspaper. An attorney general’s response is expected this month.

Pilkington sought to determine how much pentobarbital, one of three drugs used in executions, the death house had in stock. He also asked how the agency met requirements that a second “back up” dose of lethal drugs be available at executions.

“I was very surprised by the language they chose to use, which was pretty inflammatory, really,” Pilkington said. “Obviously, there is an international disagreement over the death penalty. … Usually that discourse is conducted in a civilized manner.”

He called the claim that the prison system’s drug suppliers were in jeopardy, “pretty far-fetched.”

‘Public interest’

Joseph Larsen, a lawyer for the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, said Pilkington’s questions go to the “heart of how effectively TDCJ performs its official functions.”

“The whole idea behind the Texas Public Information Act is that the governmental bodies do not get to control the information that underlies political discussion,” he said. “Specifically, the governmental body does not even get to ask why a requestor wants certain information. How then can a governmental body base its argument for withholding on what use it anticipates will be made of the information if released?”

In a 2008 case, the Attorney General’s Office sided with TDCJ in denying Forbes magazine the names of companies that supplied execution drugs, noting that “releasing the names of the companies would place the employees of those companies in imminent threat of physical danger.”

Drug’s maker pressed

An appeals court rejected that ruling the following year.

Pentobarbital was added to the state’s lethal cocktail in May 2011, replacing sodium thiopental after that drug’s maker stopped production, in part because of Reprieve’s anti-drug agitation.

Reprieve followed by directing international pressure on Lundbeck, pentobarbital’s Danish maker, obtaining a July 2011 agreement that the company no longer would sell to prisons in death penalty states. The production plant later was sold, but the new owner abided by the agreement.

Reprieve also targeted a pharmaceutical company that had supplied sodium thiopental to Arizona. On its website, Reprieve posted photos of the supplier’s office along with its tax returns and the name, phone number and address of its owner.

Ray’s Story – wrongfully convicted

Ray Krone was sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit. He has been proven innocent and exonerated, and now helps other “exonerees” share their stories of unjust sentences and close calls with state-sanctioned death penalties. Ray works for Witness to Innocence, which receives support from Atlantic, toward abolishing the death penalty throughout America. Atlantic is the largest funder of work to abolish the death penalty in the U.S.

For more info see: http://www.atlanticphilanthropies.org/rays-story-death-penalty-mistake