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FORMER JUDGES AND PROSECUTORS CALL FOR HALT TO UPCOMING TEXAS EXECUTION
Posted: September 3, 2008
Charles Hood is scheduled for execution in Texas on September 10. Strong evidence has emerged that the trial judge and trial prosecutor at Mr. Hood's original trial and sentencing were having a romantic relationship that was common knowledge in the District Attorney's office. Numerous ethicists have indicated that such a relationship constitutes a structural defect to the proceedings, requiring a new hearing. [ More ]
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Upcoming Arkansas Execution In Doubt Because of Lethal Injection Problems and Clemency Recommendation
Posted: September 2, 2008
A state judge in Arkansas has thrown further doubt on whether the upcoming execution of Frank Williams will be carried out on September 9 because the state did not follow proper procedures in adopting its lethal injection protocol. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Timothy Fox barred the Arkansas Department of Correction from using the protocol in its execution of Frank Williams, Jr. because the new execution procedures should have been subject to public comment before implementation. Chief Deputy Attorney General Justin Allen commented, “The million-dollar question is: What does that do to the September execution date? That is still uncertain.” Judge Fox referred to the Arkansas Administrative Procedure Act in his ruling that the new protocols are subject to public scrutiny and input. Allen said Williams' execution will likely be delayed if the Arkansas Supreme Court doesn’t overturn the lower court's ruling. [ More ]
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After 27 Years on Death Row, California Man's Sentence Reduced to Life
Posted: August 29, 2008
California prosecutors and defense attorneys recently agreed that Calvin Coleman, Jr., a man sentenced to death for murder in 1980, is mentally retarded and therefore exempt from capital punishment. After the U.S. Supreme Court's 2002 decision that declared execution of mentally retarded individuals unconstitutional (Atkins v. Virginia), California modified its laws in 2005 to conform to the ruling. Coleman is the first person about whom both the prosecution and the defense agreed that he met the conditions. Some cases have been rejected while others are still pending [ More ]
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EXECUTIONS: 100% in the South
Posted: August 27, 2008
Executions resumed in the U.S. on May 6 following the Supreme Court's decision on lethal injections on April 16. There have been 20 executions in 4 months, with 4 months of the year remaining. Pertinent statistics follow:
Geography:
100% in the South;
40% in Texas [ More ]
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NEW VOICES: Victim's Brother Says Execution left him with "horror and emptiness"
Posted: August 26, 2008
Ronald Carlson wanted vengeance when his sister was murdered in 1983 in Texas. But when he witnessed the execution in 1998 of the person who committed the murder he changed his mind. In a recent op-ed in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Carlson said he had no opinion on capital punishment before his sister’s death and remembers feeling hatred and “would have killed those responsible with my own hands if given the opportunity.” But he later discovered that, “Watching the execution left me with horror and emptiness, confirming what I had already come to realize: Capital punishment only continues the violence that has a powerful, corrosive effect on society.” [ More ]
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NEW VOICES: Former U.S. Senator Joseph Tydings Speaks About the Death Penalty
Posted: August 25, 2008
Joseph Tydings is a former U.S. Senator from Maryland who has both prosecuted and defended death penalty cases. In a recent op-ed in the Baltimore Sun he wrote of his growing concerns about capital punishment generally, and about Maryland's death penalty in particular. His experience with the death penalty led him to the conclusion that "deep and irrefutable flaws [] are built into our present system of capital punishment. These flaws hold the most risk for those at the margins of society.” Given that insufficient protections exist for those facing the death penalty he recommended that "The penalty for conviction in capital cases should be changed to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole until we are willing or able to provide the resources to stop these frightfully tragic miscarriages of justice.” [ More ]
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Federal Judge Sharply Criticizes Texas System in Ordering Stay of Execution
Posted: August 22, 2008
Jeff Wood’s execution was stayed with only hours remaining by U.S. District Court Judge Orlando Garcia of San Antonio. The judge chastised the Texas courts for their refusal last week to hire mental health experts to determine whether Wood was insane or appoint a lawyer to represent him for a competency hearing. The state courts had ruled that Wood had to show he was insane before they would appoint a lawyer and a psychologist to help prove he was insane. Judge Garcia's opinion said such a system is absurd, “With all due respect, a system that requires an insane person to first make ‘a substantial showing’ of his own lack of mental capacity without the assistance of counsel or a mental health expert, in order to obtain such assistance is, by definition, an insane system.” [ More ]
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Attorneys for Texas Death Row Inmate Seek to Compel Prosecutor and Judge to Discuss Alleged Affair
Posted: August 21, 2008
The defense attorneys for death row inmate Charles Hood in Texas have filed a civil lawsuit that would require retired Judge Verla Sue Holland and former district attorney Tom O’Connell, Jr. to testify under oath whether they were having an intimate affair while both were participating in the capital trial of Mr. Hood. The underlying claim is “that Judge Holland or Tom O’Connell deprived Charles Hood of his constitutional rights by not revealing this romantic relationship prior to his capital murder trial,” defense attorney Greg Wiercioch said. The filing asks the court to depose the pair and order the two to produce any letters, cards, and gifts exchanged between them, as well as credit card or store receipts for any gifts, all photographs and videotapes depicting the two together, and all emails or text messages pertaining to allegations about their alleged romantic relationship. “It’s the only way we feel we’re going to be able to get to talk to Judge Holland and the former district attorney Tim O’Connell,” said Wiercioch. “Nobody’s heard anything from them and it’s getting close to the execution date. We need to find some method of asking them or court ordering them to cooperate.” [ More ]
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BOOKS: Abolition, One Man's Battle Against the Death Penalty
Posted: August 20, 2008
A compelling narrative of the legal and political fight to end the death penalty in France has just been released in an English translation. Abolition: One Man’s Battle Against the Death Penalty is authored by Robert Badinter, probably the single person most responsible for abolishing the death penalty in France. He begins his story in 1972 when one of his clients was guillotined in a case he felt was unjust. Upon dedicating his career to abolishing the death penalty, he agreed to represent any convict facing capital punishment, and he succeeded in having six death sentences overturned. Readers follow Badinter’s journey from writing the legislation to ban the death penalty to the push through the National Assembly and Senate. His narrative moves from courtroom experiences to the political front throughout this memoir. [ More ]
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NEW RESOURCES: Live Radio Show Covers Issues in Texas Executions
Posted: August 19, 2008
A new radio program, Execution Watch, is providing live coverage and commentary on days that Texas executes a death row inmate. Each show will air live starting at 6 pm Central Daylight Time at http://www.kpft.org or http://executionwatch.org with a wide variety of special guests and host Ray Hill. The programming is available through the Internet. On its upcoming broadcast, the show will cover issues related to the case of Jeffrey Wood, who is scheduled to be executed on Aug. 21. Wood was convicted and sentenced to death under Texas' "law of parties" even though he did not participate in the actual murder committed by an accomplice to the robbery. [ More ]
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Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment Examines State Death Penalty
On
July 28, 2008, the Maryland
Commission on Capital Punishment held the first of several public
hearings to assess whether Maryland death penalty procedures meet
basic standards of fairness and avoid bias and error.
Established earlier this year by Maryland’s General Assembly, the
23-member commission is examining issues including racial disparities
in the
application of the death penalty, the costs of litigating prolonged
capital cases as compared to life imprisonment, and the risk of executing the innocent.
Following the hearings, the Commission will submit a final report of its findings and recommendations by December 15, 2008.
Excerpts
from Testimony:
"To be
meaningful, justice should be swift and sure. Life without
parole, which begins immediately, is both of these; the death penalty
is neither. Capital punishment drags victims' loved ones through an
agonizing and lengthy process, holding out the promise of one
punishment in the beginning and often resulting in a life sentence in
the end anyway." - letter to Commission from murder
victims' families read by Lisa Delity, sister of murder victim, 8/19/08
-§§§-
- Judge Andrew L. Sonner, former
MD state
prosecutor, 8/19/08
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"It is difficult to sympathize with a cold-blooded killer,
but it makes
no sense that a murderer in one county is subject to the death penalty
when an identical crime would be treated in an entirely different way,
if it were committed in another county."
- Deborah Poritz, former Chief
Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, 7/28/08
-§§§-
“We elect our trial-level prosecutors by county so that local people
have local control over how the discretion of the office is exercised.
If the voters of suburban Baltimore County choose to elect a prosecutor
who seeks the death penalty frequently, while the voters
of downtown Baltimore City elect one who seeks it rarely, that is their
choice.”
- Kent Sheiddegger, "Smoke &
Mirrors on Race and the Death Penalty" - report presented to Commission,
7/28/08
-§§§-
"The death penalty is a bankrupt policy that wastes increasingly scarce
state and federal resources. Our state desperately needs to invest more
in caring for those traumatized by violence, particularly youth, if we
are ever going to break the cycle of violence in of our communities.
Our tax dollars would be much more effectively invested in education,
mental and physical health care, childcare – and other essential
ingredients of opportunity, equality and public safety."
– Meldridge James, NAACP,
7/28/08
See Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment. See also Studies.
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