death penalty

Man sentenced to death for murder at Caesars Palace – Bryan Hall

November 9, 2012 http://www.ktnv.com

Las Vegas,  — Bryan Hall appeared in court Friday to find out if he could face the death penalty for killing a waiter at Caesars Palace.

Family and friends of the victim, Brad Flamm, gathered in the courtroom at the Regional Justice Center for the decision.

It was an emotional morning as both attorneys argued the pros and cons of the death penalty in the case.

Just a few hours later, the jury reached a verdict that Hall will face death as punishment for his conviction.

Hall was convicted of murdering Flamm earlier in the week.

Flamm’s family was visibly satisfied when the decision was read in court.

“We’re just glad justice is done. This guy won’t hurt anyone ever again,” said Flamm’s father, Fred. “He’s put away, and he’s not going to be with us anymore. Hopefully the sooner the better.” 

Hall and Flamm had been friends, but police said they got into an argument over a woman they both dated.

In May 2009, Flamm’s body was found by a loading dock outside Caesars Palace. He had been beaten and strangled.

Flamm’s mother said it was hard to see him in court, but harder to see him at the county jail, where she happens to work.

“But now he won’t be there,” Jennifer Flamm said. “I won’t have to go into work and worry about him being there.”

The Flamm family is happy to be able to now move forward, keeping Brad’s spirit alive.

“Brad lives on in our hearts,” Fred Flamm said. “We miss him, but he’s still there.”

Hall will return to court for a formal sentencing on January 17.

Claim your Innocence 71’500 views, 570 posts

I want to say THANK YOU, for all my followers around the world. for all readers, 

thank you, people who follow too, “Claim your Innocence world”

I am very proud of this blog, and I hope that people can become aware of the death penalty, as we continue to execute in the world innocent people, that human rights are not respected,

I have not forgotten the victim’s family, but take another life you will does the person you have lost? and if the person is not the one who has killed, can you live with the death of another innocent person ? I can understand the pain of losing a loved one. But I think a life sentence is harsher than the death penalty because the guilty will not die and never in the same conditions as the victim.

Justice is not infallible, because justice is made ​​by human laws are made by humans and error is human

Anabel

OKLAHOMA – EXECUTION, GARRY ALLEN 11/06/2012, EXECUTED 6.10 P.M

November 6, 2012 http://mcalesternews.com

March 7, 2012 dead
Oklahoma death row inmate Garry Thomas Allen, 56, was executed this evening in the death chamber at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.

Witnessing the execution were two media representatives, two of Allen’s attorneys, the victim’s sister-in-law, Oklahoma Department of Corrections Director Justin Jones and several Department of Corrections employees.

At 5:58 p.m., Jones gave the go-ahead for the execution procedure to begin and the blinds between the witness area and the execution chamber were raised.

Allen raised his head from the execution gurney and looked into the witness room. His eyes wandered until they landed on familiar faces. When he saw his attorneys he said, “Hi.” And they lifted their hands and waved at him.

Allen then began to talk. He rambled unintelligibly about Obama and Romney. Allen’s garbled speech about the presidential race coincided with a loud banging noise as the other inmates in H-Unit said their good-byes.

“Obama won two out of three counties. It’s going to be a very close race,” Allen said just before Oklahoma State Penitentiary Deputy Warden Art Lightle asked him if he had a last statement.

Allen looked at Lightle and asked, “Huh?” Then he continued in his garbled speech and then again raised his head and said, “Hi,” to his attorneys. Allen’s unintelligible ramblings continued. He spoke about Obama and Jesus.

“I hope that more realize Jesus is the son of God — the only son of God. Jesus is the one and only savior,” Allen said. This statement was followed by more unintelligible ramblings.

Lightle told Allen that his two minutes were coming to an end. Allen turned his head to look at Lightle and asked, “What?” Then he continued his garbled speech.

One of Allen’s attorneys began to get teary eyed and she leaned down and placed her head in her hands. At 6:02 p.m., when she sat back up, and as Allen’s unintelligible talking continued, Lightle said, “Let the execution begin.”

Allen again turned his head and looked at Lightle and asked, “Huh?”

Then he lifted his head and looked at the witnesses, fixing his eyes on his attorneys. “Hi,” he said to them again. And again they both lifted their hands and waved at him.

His garbled speech continued until the concoction of execution drugs apparently affected his system. He turned and lifted his head one last time and looked at Lightle. He made a loud, strained grunting sound and laid his head back down on the gurney.

At 6:07 p.m., the attending physician checked Allen’s vital signs and said something about a pulse. The physician rubbed Allen’s chest and then stepped away as Allen’s attorney wiped a tear from her cheek.

The physician stepped back to Allen’s body minutes later, checked his vital signs and pronounced Allen’s death at 6:10 p.m.

The victim’s family submitted the following written statement following Allen’s execution:

“Our beloved Gail — daughter, sister and mother of two young boys was taken from our family tragically and senselessly due to domestic violence.

“For over 25 years we have waited for justice to be served and for this sentence to be carried out.

“We are thankful to close the book on this chapter today, but we will never stop grieving the loss of Gail.

“It has been an emotional roller coaster for our family and one we have endured far too long.

“Gail’s memory will continue to live on through the lives of her now grown sons and her grandchildren.”

This was not the first time Allen was scheduled for execution. In April, officials at the OSP conducted normal execution day procedures while waiting to find out about approval or disapproval of an appeal filed with the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals

A stay was issued for Allen one day before his scheduled execution on April 12.

“A federal judge stayed Garry Allen’s execution,” said OSP Warden’s Assistant Terry Crenshaw in April. U.S. District Judge David L. Russell issued the stay, ruling that Allen’s claims that he is insane and ineligible for the death penalty should be reviewed. Allen had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and his attorneys argued his mental state deteriorated on death row.

“Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt has filed a notice of appeal to the stay of execution,” Crenshaw said in April. If the appeal to the stay of execution was granted, officials at OSP had “measures in place to carry out the execution according to court orders.” However, Pruitt’s appeal was not granted at that time.

Allen was also set for execution on Feb. 16, but Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin granted a 30-day stay of execution for the condemned man. She said the stay was issued so her legal team could have more time to consider a 2005 recommendation by the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board to commute his sentence to life.

“Having thoroughly reviewed the arguments and evidence presented in this case, I have determined that clemency should be denied in this case, and that the sentence of death be carried out,” Fallin wrote in an executive order filed March 13.

The 30-day stay would have set Allen’s execution for March 17, but that date was moved to April 12, before being stayed yet again.

Allen received his death sentence for the 1986 murder of his 24-year-old wife, Lawanna Gail Titsworth. The McAlester News-Capital reported in May of 2008 that Allen’s conviction and death sentence came after he gunned down Titsworth four days after she moved out of their home with their two sons, who were 6 and 2 at the time.

Allen was first scheduled to be executed May 19, 2005. A stay of execution was granted by Judge Thomas Bartheld one day before his scheduled execution. The Associated Press reported Allen’s mental competency was in question after a psychological exam at OSP indicated he had developed mental problems while confined on death row. The doctor’s report noted Allen had dementia caused by seizures, drug abuse and being shot in the face.

The U.S. Supreme Court and state law prohibit execution of inmates who are insane or mentally incompetent.

On May 1, 2008, a Pittsburg County jury decided, on split decision, that Allen is “sane to be executed.” For more than three years since, numerous court motions and legal arguments have been heard in the case.

On Dec. 28, Bartheld signed a legal order vacating Allen’s stay of execution, stating “the court … having reviewed the pleadings, finds that the issue of the sanity of Garry Thomas Allen for execution has been resolved…”

On Nov. 21, 1986, reports indicate Allen went to his children’s daycare center in Oklahoma City when his wife, Titsworth, was scheduled to pick them up. Titsworth had gone to the parking lot when Allen confronted her, according to court records. As Titsworth opened the door to her truck, Allen shut the door and prevented her from entering, court documents state.

As the two argued, Allen reached into his sock, pulled out a revolver and shot Titsworth twice in the chest.

“It is unclear whether Titsworth was holding her youngest son at the time of the shooting or had picked him up immediately thereafter,” documents filed with the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Criminal Appeals state.

After Allen shot Titsworth, she begged him not to shoot her again and fell to the ground. Allen then asked Titsworth if she was all right and lifted up her blouse, apparently attempting to examine her injuries.

“At the time of the shooting, some of the daycare employees were in the parking lot and several of the children were in a van parked a few feet from Titsworth’s truck,” court documents state.

“After the shooting, Titsworth managed to get up and start running toward the building along with a daycare center employee.”

As they headed up the steps leading to the front door, Allen pushed the daycare employee through the door and shoved Titsworth down on the steps, where he shot her twice in the back at close range.

Oklahoma City police officer Mike Taylor responded to a 911 call within minutes and a witness pointed to an alley where Allen was hiding. Taylor spotted Allen in the alley, pulled his revolver and ordered him to stop and remain still.

Although Allen initially complied with the order, he turned and began walking away. When Taylor reached out to place a hand on him, Allen quickly turned and grabbed the policeman’s gun.

During a struggle, Allen gained partial control of the gun and “attempted to make officer Taylor shoot himself by applying pressure to Taylor’s finger which was still on the trigger,” court documents state.

As the struggle continued, Taylor regained control of the gun and shot Allen in the face, according to court records.

Allen was hospitalized for approximately two months for injuries to his face, left eye and brain. Afterwards, he entered a blind plea — meaning no plea bargain agreement had been reached — to first-degree murder and other charges on Nov. 10, 1987.

An Oklahoma County judge subsequently sentenced Allen to death. The appeals court later ordered a second sentence hearing, which also resulted in the death sentence.

According to the Oklahoma Department of Correction’s website, at http://www.doc.state.ok.us, Allen had been incarcerated at OSP since Dec. 23, 1987, and was housed on death row in the prison’s H-Unit.

 

BOOKS part3: news books 2012 Death row’s testimony – death penalty

A new book by Professor Robert Bohm of the University of Central Florida looks at death-penalty decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court prior to the modern era of capital punishment that began in 1968. In The Past As Prologue, Bohm examines 39 Court decisions, covering issues such as clemency, jury selection, coerced confessions, and effective representation. These early decisions have shaped modern rulings on capital punishment, and the book provides an analysis of these effects. In addition, the cases provide an historical perspective on prior death penalty practices. Bohm is a Professor of Criminal Justice and has published widely in this field and on capital punishment.

Survivor on Death Row, a new e-book co-authored by death row inmate Romell Broom and Clare Nonhebel, tells the story of Ohio‘s botched attempt to execute Broom by lethal injection in 2009. In September of that year, Broom was readied for execution and placed on the gurney, but the procedure was terminated after corrections officials spent over two hours attempting to find a suitable vein for the lethal injection. Broom was removed from the death chamber and has remained on death row ever since.  In the book, Broom discusses his troubled childhood and his life of over 25 years on death row, including his repeated requests for new DNA testing and a new legal team. Broom has always maintained his innocence.  Jon Snow, a reporter for Channel 4 News in England, called the book “A horrifying story embracing all the evils of the death penalty. Bad forensics, dodgy DNA, awful lawyers, render this a must-read.”

A new book by Larry Koch, Colin Wark and John Galliher discusses the status of the death penalty in the U.S. in light of recent legislative activity and court decisions. In The Death of the American Death Penalty, the authors examine the impact of factors such as economic conditions, public sentiment, the role of elites, the media, and population diversity on the death penalty debate. The book highlights the recent abolition decisions in New York, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Illinois, and the surprising decline of the death penalty even in the deep South. James R. Acker, Distinguished Teaching Professor in Criminal Justice at the University at Albany, said, “Support for capital punishment in this country, as measured by the laws authorizing it, prosecutors’ enthusiasm for seeking it, jury verdicts that dispatch it, and executioners’ final deliverance, has eroded rapidly in recent years. A decade after the publication of its predecessor and carrying on in that volume’s fine tradition, The Death of the American Death Penalty provides detailed explanations—the where, how, and why—of these dramatic developments in death penalty laws and practices.”

A new book by Professor Harry M. Ward of the University of Richmond examines the death penalty in Virginia at a time when executions were carried out for all to see. In Public Executions in Richmond, Virginia: A History, 1782-1907, Ward provides a history of the hangings and, during the Civil War, firing-squad executions in Virginia’s capital city. Thousands of witnesses attended the executions, which were seen as a form of entertainment. Public executions ended with the introduction of the electric chair in 1908. In 1995, Virginia adopted lethal injection as its primary form of execution.

Long-time death penalty scholar Hugo Adam Bedau died on August 13, 2012 . Dr. Bedau had been the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University, and is best known for his work on capital punishment. Dr. Bedau frequently testified about the death penalty before the U.S. Congress and many state legislatures. He authored several books about the death penalty, including The Death Penalty in America (1964; 4th edition, 1997), The Courts, the Constitution, and Capital Punishment (1977), Death is Different (1987), and Killing as Punishment (2004), and co-authored In Spite of Innocence (1992).  This last book, written with Prof. Michael Radelet of the University of Colorado and Constance Putnam (Dr. Bedau’s wife), contained one of the best early collections of people who had been wrongly convicted in death penalty cases. In 1997, Bedau received the August Vollmer Award of the American Society of Criminology, and in 2003 he received the Roger Baldwin Award from the ACLU of Massachusetts.  Dr. Bedau was a founding member of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

A new book by Professors Saundra Westervelt and Kimberly Cook looks at the lives of eighteen people who had been wrongfully sentenced to death and who were later freed from death row. In Life After Death Row: Exonerees’ Search for Community and Identity, the authors focus on three central areas affecting those who had to begin a new life after leaving years of severe confinement: the seeming invisibility of these individuals after their release; the complicity of the justice system in allowing that invisibility; and the need for each of them to confront their personal trauma. C. Ronald Huff, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, noted, “The authors skillfully conduct a journey inside the minds of exonerees, allowing readers to see the world from their unique perspectives.”

A new electronic book by former journalist Peter Rooney offers an in-depth look at the case of Joseph Burrows, who was exonerated fromIllinois’s death row in 1996. In Die Free: A True Story of Murder, Betrayal and Miscarried Justice, Rooney explains how Burrows was sentenced to death for the murder of William Dulin based on snitch testimony.  He was convicted primarily on the word of Gayle Potter, who recanted her testimony eight years later and admitted to committing the crime herself. According to one review, “Rooney makes it clear his book Die Free isn’t an argument against the death penalty, but simply another example of why such an extreme punishment should be re-evaluated. His points are made clearly and with merit as he details obvious evidence withholding by an over-aggressive district attorney, threats and intimidation of a borderline mentally challenged man, and the old school thoughts of little women versus big, burly men.”   Rooney is a former staff writer for the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette and is currently the director of public affairs at Amherst College.  Joe Burrows died at age 56 in 2009.  This case, and similar exonerations, led to the abolition of the death penalty in Illinois in 2011. The book is available for electronic download on Amazon.com.

A new book by Clive Stafford Smith, a British lawyer who has defended death row inmates in the U.S., offers an in-depth view of capital punishment in America. In Injustice: Life and Death in the Courtrooms of America, Stafford Smith examines the case of Kris Maharaj, a British citizen who was sentenced to death in Florida for a double murder, to expose problems in the justice system. The book reveals disturbing details of Maharaj’s case, including anomalies in the prosecution files–witnesses with exculpatory testimony who were never called, falsified and suppressed evidence, and reports that a witness to the shootings failed a lie detector test. Maharaj’s death sentence was later commuted to life without parole. Stafford Smith is the Legal Director of Reprieve, which provides legal assistance in death penalty cases. In 2005 he received the Gandhi International Peace Award.  He was a founder of the Louisiana Crisis Assistance Center, defending death row inmates in that state.

 American Bar Association recently published The State of Criminal Justice 2012, an annual report that examines major issues, trends and significant changes in America’s criminal justice system. This publication serves as a valuable resource for academics, students, and policy-makers in the area of criminal justice, and contains 24 chapters focusing on specific areas of the criminal justice field. The chapter devoted to capital punishment was written by Ronald Tabak, special counsel and pro bono coordinator at Skadden Arps. Tabak addresses the decline in the use of the death penalty, the geographic, racial and economic disparities in implementing capital punishment, important Supreme Court decisions, and other issues such as the continuing risk of wrongful executions. In concluding, he writes, “Ultimately, our society must decide whether to continue with a system that has been found in study after study, and has been recognized by a growing number of leading judges, to be far more expensive than the actual alternative – in which life without parole is the most serious punishment. In view of the lack of persuasive evidence of societal benefits from capital punishment, this is one ineffectual, wasteful government program whose elimination deserves serious consideration.”

Human Rights Commission passes resolution to abolish death penalty in Kentucky

October 19, 2012 http://www.courier-journal.com

Arguing that capital punishment is often applied unfairly against minorities and the poor, the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights board has passed a resolution opposing the death penalty in Kentucky.

The commissioners at a meeting in Lexington Wednesday urged the Kentucky General Assembly to repeal the law that allows the use of the death penalty in murder convictions. The commission also urged Gov. Steven Beshear to sign any such law brought before him.

The resolution unanimously passed by the commissioners will be submitted to Beshear and to each state legislator.

As of April 1, Kentucky had 35 inmates on Death Row at the Kentucky State Penetentiary in Eddyville, according to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Marco Allen Chapman was the last Kentucky inmates executed, by lethal injection in 2008.

State Sen. Gerald Neal, D-Louisville, said the state legislature has considered abolishing the death penalty several times without passing a measure. He said he expects that a bill proposing the end of capital punishment will be introduced again and that he wouldn’t be surprised if the measure might have a chance to be enacted. “In my view, it could happen, because it’s so long overdue,” Neal said.

The commission resolution read:

“Since 1976, when Kentucky reinstated the death penalty, 50 of the 78 people sentenced to death have had their death sentence or conviction overturned, due to misconduct or serious errors that occurred during their trial. This represents an unacceptable error rate of more than 60 percent.”

The resolution said that “statistics confirm that the imposition of the death penalty is disproportionately imposed on minorities and the poor. African Americans constitute 12 percent of the U.S. population, but represent 42 percent of prisoners on death row.”

It cited figures from Amnesty International that more than 20 percent of black defendants executed since 1976 were convicted by all-white juries.

Additionally, it said, states are more likely to seek the death penalty when the offender is black and the victim is white, and that a death sentence is more likely to be imposed on black offenders convicted of killing a white victim.

The resolution also noted that more than 90 percent of defendants in capital cases are indigent and cannot afford an experienced criminal defense attorney.

According to Amnesty International, more than two-thirds of the countries in the world have abolished the death penalty in law or practice.

The Kentucky Commission on Human Rights is the state authority that enforces the Kentucky and United States Civil Rights acts, which make discrimination illegal.

SOUTH DAKOTA – Execution – ERIC ROBERT- Monday 10/15/2012 10 P.M EXECUTED 10.24 p.m

Eric Robert, 50, received lethal injection and was pronounced dead at the state penitentiary in Sioux Falls at 10:24 p.m. He is the first South Dakota inmate to die under the state’s new single-drug lethal injection method, and only the 17th person to be executed in the state or Dakota Territory since 1877.

Robert had no expression on his face. Asked if he had a last statement, Robert said: “In the name of justice and liberty and mercy, I authorize and forgive Warden Douglas Weber to execute me for the crimes. It is done.”

 

October 14, 2012 argusleader.com

October 12, 2012FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Michael Winder, Communications & Information Manager
Execution date, time set for Inmate Eric Robert
(Pierre, S.D.)- In accordance with South Dakota Codified Law 23A-27A-17, Doug Weber, Director of Prison Operations and Warden of the South Dakota State  Penitentiary, has set the date and time for the execution of Inmate Eric Robert as Monday, October 15, 2012 at approximately 10:00 p.m. CDT.
State law allows for the judge in a capital punishment case to appoint a week for the execution to occur. The exact date and time of the execution is left to the warden’s discretion. The warden is required by state law to publicly announce the scheduled day and hour of the execution not less than forty-eight hours prior to the execution.

perp walk

Eric Robert’s life bears little resemblance to that of his peers on death row.

Most condemned killers have troubling personal stories and long criminal histories.

Donald Moeller was beaten, demeaned and made to watch his biological mother’s drug use and sexual behavior. Elijah Page, executed in 2007, moved from house to house with substance-abusing parents then bounced from foster home to foster home in several states.

Rodney Berget suffered with an alcoholic father and abuse, and was first sent to the adult prison system at age 15. His brother, Roger, was executed in 2003 in Oklahoma, eight years before Rodney Berget and Robert would commit a capital crime in the murder of Corrections Officer Ron Johnson.

Robert’s life looked nothing like Berget’s. He will be put to death at 10 p.m. Monday.

Robert was the child of a single mother who helped raise his younger sister in his home state of Wisconsin. He had a stellar academic record, put himself through college and had a successful career in wastewater treatment. He was an emergency medical technician and frequent community volunteer who once helped erect a monument to a murdered sheriff.

He grew close to his longest-term love interest through her son, whom Robert coached on a Little League team.

In 2005, before he was sentenced to 80 years in prison for a Meade County kidnapping, his sister told the judge that her brother “has done more good in his life than many people in this world.”

This week, the state of South Dakota intends to put Robert to death by lethal injection for the brutal, premeditated killing of Johnson on April 12, 2011.

The rage that fueled the killing was a measure of how far he’d fallen from the life he once had. Robert said so himself in court one year ago. He’d refused to let his lawyer mention his good deeds.

“To be honest with you, the good acts that I’ve done in my life were not mentioned here, because they are irrelevant to these proceedings,” Robert said. “That person who did good things no longer exists.” 

Last week, through his lawyer Mark Kadi, Robert reiterated his reasoning for staying quiet about his prior kind acts during sentencing for the Johnson murder “My client feels that none of the good things he’s done justify the killing of Ron Johnson,” Kadi said.

Eric Robert was born May 31, 1962, in Massachusetts. His father was gone by the time he was 6 months old. Robert, his mother and younger sister moved to Hayward, Wis., when he still was young.

His sister, Jill Stalter, declined to comment for this story but testified on her brother’s behalf in 2005.

She said then that Robert was the father figure in their house as their mother worked three jobs and studied to earn a college degree.

“My brother took care of everything. He took out the trash, he made sure dinner was on the table, he even did grocery shopping. He got me my first dog. He did everything. He even shoveled snow, and in Hayward, it’s a lot of snow,” Stalter said. “He put himself through college by working weekends and during summer breaks. He didn’t take a penny from my mother because she was putting herself through college.”

He was a good student, as well, graduating 18th in his class at Hayward High School in 1980. He returned to Hayward after earning a biology degree with a chemistry minor at the University of Wisconsin-Superior.

In 2000, he applied for a job as the wastewater treatment supervisor for the city of Superior. On his job application, released as part of a records request by the Argus Leader, Robert wrote that he hadn’t missed a day of work in 10 years.

He got along well with co-workers. Frog Prell, the city attorney, started work for the city in 2000, just a few months after Robert, whom family and friends knew as “Ranger.”

Robert used to drop by the office to joke around, quiz Prell about small towns in Wyoming, which is Prell’s home state. The short interactions left an impression on Prell, who didn’t know Robert was on death row until the records request came across desk this month.

“If you’d have asked me what I thought about Eric Robert before this, I’d have said he seemed like a pretty cool guy,” Prell said.

Dan Romans, the wastewater administrator for Superior, called Robert a “natural-born leader” who accomplished more in 18 months on the job than others had for decades.

Robert eventually lost his job in Superior, though, because he failed to comply with a city residence requirement, but he continued to consult with the city afterward.

He was living in a home in the rural community of Drummond, more than an hour southeast of Superior.

Violent toward women

It was in Hayward, almost a decade before, where he met the woman with whom he’d later build the house in Drummond.

That woman, who testified at Robert’s presentence hearing last year in Sioux Falls but declined to comment for this story, said there was an undercurrent of anger in him even then — one most people didn’t see.

“He was an aggressive, mean person who didn’t like other people and had to be in control,” she said the woman, whom the Argus Leader is not identifying because she is a victim.

She’d gone to high school with Robert but didn’t know him well at the time. They got reacquainted in 1992, when he was coaching her son’s baseball team. Robert soon was living with the woman and her two children.

“We got along fine at first,” she said, but then “he showed me his true colors.”

She recounted three specific incidents in court from their decade-long romance.

They rented an apartment in Cable, Wis., as they built their house, she said. One day, as they sat on the couch together, Robert backhanded her over an offhand remark.

She hit him back, she said, then recoiled when she realized that he was sure to retaliate.

“He punched me in the mouth so hard it pushed my bottom teeth through my lip,” she said.

Robert, who knew most of the employees in the local ER through his work as an EMT, told the doctors and nurses she’d slipped on icy steps while carrying in groceries.

He had similar explanation for her appearance at the ER with a broken foot years later. She called police on him after a separation, when he showed up at her house drunk and started a fight that ended with him pulling her around the yard by her hair.

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NORTH CAROLINA – Unresolved challenges put death penalty on hold in N.C.- Cornell Haugabook Jr.

October 3, 2012 http://www.starnewsonline.com

New Hanover County prosecutors decided last month to seek the death penalty against Cornell Haugabook Jr. for the June killing of a Chinese food delivery driver, despite doubts about whether such a sentence will ever be carried out.

North Carolina has not executed an inmate in six years because issues with the state medical board and unresolved litigation have led to a de facto moratorium. So while the state continues to pay for costly capital trials, no one is actually being put to death.

New Hanover County District Attorney Ben David, who is also president of the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys, said the moratorium has become a point of concern among prosecutors. “Any decision to move forward (with the death penalty) has to include a frank discussion with the victim’s family about the realistic possibility of the punishment being carried out,” he said.

The issue is particularly timely for New Hanover County, which is preparing to try Haugabook for his alleged involvement in the robbery and fatal shooting of Zhen Bo Liu. The 60-year-old immigrant was attempting to bring a food order to an address on South 13th Street when he was robbed and shot in the foot and face. Haugabook, 20, is one of six men facing charges in connection to the crime, but he is the only one legally eligible for the death penalty.

The district attorney’s office is also seeking death for Andrew Adams, 56, who is accused of bludgeoning 24-year-old Latricia Scott with a hammer and then burying her body in his backyard. Adams was arrested in January.

Prosecutors face a litany of hurdles when seeking death. For one, jurors have shown a growing reluctance to impose the penalty, a shift that some scholars attribute to a string of highly publicized exonerations. Even after a death sentence is secured, ongoing appeals and litigation challenging the constitutionality of lethal injection, the state’s sole execution method, have tied up executions for the indefinite future.

Critics say pursuing capital punishment amid a moratorium is an expensive gamble. That argument has gained traction as shrinking budgets and the frustratingly slow growth of the economy prompt some states to re-examine their criminal justice policies.

Philip Cook, a professor at Duke University, authored a study two years ago that analyzed costs associated with North Carolina’s death penalty in 2005 and 2006. He concluded the state would save $11 million annually by abolishing capital punishment.

But supporters of the death penalty fear cost concerns might undermine what they view as an appropriate form of justice for especially heinous crimes.

“Justice should not have a price tag,” David said. “Ask a victim’s family whether it’s too costly.”

With 46 executions since 1976, North Carolina had been among the most active users of capital punishment, according to data from the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, based in Washington, D.C.

But recent years have seen a turnaround. Even before the state’s moratorium took hold, executions had grown exceedingly rare for several reasons. The number of death sentences handed out has trended downward since 2000, dropping from 18 that year to three in 2007, according to Isaac Unah, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The decline coincides with the state’s creation of the Office of Indigent Defense Services, which scholars say is the single biggest contributor to the drop.

The office has led to enhancements in the way poor defendants are represented.

“Prosecutors stop asking for death so easily knowing they’re going to be faced with much more substantial defense teams on the other side,” said Frank Baumgartner, another UNC Chapel Hill professor who has studied the death penalty.

In New Hanover County, the decision on whether to seek death is made by a committee of senior prosecutors, who analyze so-called “aggravating factors,” which include things like whether the crime was especially heinous or was committed for monetary gain. David said prosecutors have one month after the indictment is issued to declare if they are seeking the death penalty.

“This is not arbitrary or capricious,” David said. “This is a thorough review of the facts and the law that the legislature has set forth.”

N

Lon Allan: Panels to debate death penalty

September 25,2012 http://www.sanluisobispo.com

All my life, I have favored the death penalty. I have always believed it deters crime, that execution is cheaper than life sentences for our most dangerous criminals and that the timely application of the death penalty offers relief and a sense of justice served to victims’ families.

I continue to hold to the above frame of mind, but discussions lately regarding doing away with the death penalty have me questioning the practice. Proposition 34 on the upcoming November ballot is asking Californians to put an end to the death penalty.

A friend of mine who is a member of the Yes on Prop. 34 Committee sent me some information on the subject along with the dates of two seminars coming up very soon dealing with the issue.

The first panel presentation will be held Sunday at 7 p.m. at Oak Creek Commons, 635 Nicklaus Ave. in Paso Robles. Guest panelists include Jay Adams, Ph.D., clinical psychologist with 10 years at the California Men’s Colony; The Rev. Lyle Grosjean, a death penalty opponent/activist for 50 years; Jaimee Karroll, a survivor of a violent crime and now a teacher at San Quentin; and Tom Parker, former deputy chief agent for the Los Angeles region of the FBI. I got to know and respect the Rev. Grosjean when he served as pastor of the local Episcopal Church many years ago.

There will be an opportunity to ask questions at this event.

The next night, Monday, there will be a panel discussion in the Chumash Auditorium at Cal Poly at 7 p.m. In addition to the Rev. Grosjean, Adams, Parker and Karroll, this panel will include Lesley Becker, graduating senior of Poly’s social science department, and Chris Bickel, professor of sociology at Cal Poly.

I’m interested in learning more about the whole subject. Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno is quoted in material I received from the Yes on Prop. 34 folks as saying, “I have inquired for most of my adult life about studies that might show that the death penalty is a deterrent. And I have not seen any research that would substantiate that point.”

I remember a crime scene here in Atascadero where two young people had just been killed. Their small children were protected by their mother’s body. I was glad when the killer was convicted and sentenced to the death penalty. That was almost 30 years ago. I still think he deserves to die for what he did.

But at this stage of my life, I find myself questioning a lot of what I thought I believed.

I have a lot of homework to do between now and Nov. 6.

Reach him at 466-8529 or leallan@tcsn.net.

Claim your innocence World – News about the death penalty in the world

Hi everyone,

Just a little reminder, I created a blog about the death penalty in the world, you can read the news in all countries practicing the death penalty.

You find the blog here,  http://claimyourinnocenceworld.wordpress.com/

Thanks so much for your support.

 

Anabel

TEXAS – CLEVE FOSTER – Execution scheduled september 25, 2012 EXECUTED 6.43 p.m.

Cleve Foster, one of the more controversial death row inmates,  is currently up for execution on September 25 in Texas. I say controversial because there are plenty of people who believe Foster is innocent of the crime he’s on death row for.

Foster even has his own website Cleve Foster – Innocent on TX Death Row.

He was found guilty and sentenced to death for the February 13, 2002 abduction, rape,  and murder of 28-year-old Nyanuer “Mary” Pal in Tarrant County, Texas. His partner in crime was Sheldon Ward, who was also sentenced to death. He’s since died of a brain tumor, so one less monster to worry about. One of the main reasons, besides the presence of Foster’s semen in Pal, is that there is substantial proof that these two men committed a similar crime in December 2001 against Rachel Urnosky. The gun used in that murder was also used in Pal’s murder. Both men were convicted of Urnosky’s murder, but never tried. The jurors in Foster’s trial never got to hear about Rachel Urnosky. What are the odds that this man is innocent when he’s linked to TWO similar crimes? Will he receive a fourth stay of execution?

Update septembre 24, 2012

What Cleve Foster remembers most about his recent brushes with death is the steel door, the last one condemned Texas inmates typically walk through before their execution.

‘You can’t take your eyes off that door,’ he says.

But twice over the past year and a half, Foster has come within moments of being escorted through the door, only to be told the U.S. Supreme Court had halted his scheduled punishment.

On Tuesday, Foster, 48, is scheduled for yet another trip to the death house for participating in the abduction and murder of a 30-year-old Sudanese woman, Nyaneur Pal, a decade ago near Fort Worth.

It takes just under an hour to drive west from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Polunsky Unit, where the state’s male death-row inmates are housed, to the Huntsville Unit, where condemned Texas prisoners have been put to death for nearly a century. The last 485 have been by lethal injection; the first 361, from 1924 through 1964, from the electric chair.

On execution day, the condemned inmate waits, usually for about four hours, in a tiny cell a few steps from the steel door to the death chamber.

Foster, a former Army recruiter known to his death row colleagues as ‘Sarge,’ denies his role in the murder. Prosecutors say DNA ties him to the killing and that he gave contradictory stories when questioned about Pal’s death.

‘I did not do it,’ he insisted recently from a tiny visiting cage outside death row.

Appeals again were pending in the courts, focusing on what his lawyers argued was poor legal help both at his 2004 trial in Fort Worth and by attorneys early in the appeals process. Similar appeals resulted in the three previous reprieves the courts subsequently have lifted, but his lawyers argue his case should get another look because the legal landscape has changed in death penalty cases.

‘I don’t want to sound vain, but I have confidence in my attorney and confidence in my God,’ he said. ‘I can win either way.’

Pal’s relatives haven’t spoken publicly about their experiences of going to the prison to watch Foster die, only to be told the punishment has been delayed. An uncle previously on the witness list didn’t return a phone call Friday from The Associated Press.

Foster, however, shared his thoughts of going through the mechanics of facing execution in Texas – and living to talk about it.

The process shifts into high gear at noon on the scheduled execution day when a four-hour-long visit with friends or relatives ends at the Polunsky Unit outside Livingston.

‘That last visit, that’s the only thing that bothers me,’ he said. ‘The 12 o’clock-hour hits. A dozen or so guards come to escort you.’

By Foster’s count, it’s 111 steps to the prison gate and an area known as the box cage. That’s where he’s secured to a chair for electronic scrutiny to detect whether he has any metal objects hidden on his body.

It’s the legacy of inmate Ponchai Wilkerson. Wilkerson, asked by the warden if he had a final statement after he was strapped to the death chamber gurney for execution in 2000, defiantly spit out a handcuff key he’d concealed in his mouth.

‘You’re in handcuffs, you’re chained at the ankles, they give you cloth shoes and you have to shuffle to keep them on,’ he said.

As he waddles the 111 steps, he gets acknowledgement from fellow prisoners who tap on the glass of their cells.

At the prison gate, armed officers stand by as he’s put in a van and secured to a seat for the roughly 45-mile trip to Huntsville that he says feels like a ’90-mph drive.’ There are no side windows in the back of the van where Foster, accompanied by four officers, rides to the oldest prison in Texas. Only the back doors have windows.

‘It’s like stepping back in time, dungeons and dragons,’ he said of entering through two gates at the back of the Huntsville Unit, more commonly known as the Walls Unit because of its 20-foot-high red brick walls.

Prison officials then hustle him into the cell area adjacent to the death chamber.

‘Going inside, it’s a little spooky. You can tell it’s been there a while,’ he said. ‘Everything’s polished, but still it’s real old. You look down the row. History just screams at you.

‘It’s almost like `Hotel California,” he said, referring to the song by The Eagles. ‘You can check out anytime, but you can’t leave.’

Both times he’s been there, most recently last September, he’s been treated ‘like a human being,’ Foster said. Officers look at him but don’t smile, he said.

At one point, he saw someone walk by with a bulging envelope that he assumed contained the lethal injection drugs.

At 4 p.m., during his first trip to the death house in January 2011, he was served a final meal. He’d asked for several items, including chicken.

‘It tasted so good,’ he said. ‘It actually had seasoning on it.’

Two hours later, at the start of a six-hour window when his execution could be carried out, he received the Supreme Court reprieve.

Since then, inmates no longer get to make a final meal request. Procedures were changed after a state lawmaker complained that condemned inmates were taking advantage of the opportunity and that murder victims never get that chance.

Foster was looking forward to nachos and chicken, the same food served to other inmates the day last year that he made his second trip to the death house, but he never received it. Instead, his attorney tearfully brought him news of another Supreme Court reprieve just before dinner time.

He asked for a doggie bag but was refused. He was put back in the van and returned to death row.

‘I’ve already told the chaplain: Take the phone off the hook before 4 o’clock,’ he said, anticipating his next trip Tuesday. ‘I want to get that last meal.’