Supreme Court says Georgia man should get hearing

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday ordered a new hearing for death row inmate Troy Davis, whose supporters say is innocent and should be spared from execution for killing a police officer 20 years ago.

Davis has spent 18 years on death row for the 1989 slaying of Savannah, Ga., police officer Mark MacPhail. Davis' attorneys insist that he is innocent and deserves a new trial because several witnesses at his trial have recanted their testimony.

The high court ordered a federal judge in Georgia to determine whether there is evidence "that could not have been obtained at the time of trial (that) clearly establishes petitioner's innocence."

Defense lawyers had appealed to the Supreme Court after a federal court denied a new trial request in April.

"The substantial risk of putting an innocent man to death clearly provides an adequate justification for holding an evidentiary hearing," said Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the court. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer concurred with Stevens.

MacPhail was slain 20 years ago while working off-duty as a security guard at a bus station. He had rushed to help a homeless man who had been pistol-whipped at a nearby parking lot, and was shot twice when he approached Davis and two other men. Witnesses identified Davis as the shooter at his 1991 trial.

But Davis' lawyers say new evidence proves their client was a victim of mistaken identity. They say three people who did not testify at Davis' trial have said another man confessed to the killing.

The case has attracted worldwide attention, with calls to stop Davis' execution from former President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Desmond Tutu.

But state and federal courts have rejected Davis' request for a new trial, and state officials have rejected calls for clemency.

Davis was scheduled to be executed on Sept. 23, but it was postponed after the Supreme Court agreed to consider whether he should get a new trial.

Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented from the decision to order an evidentiary hearing, with Scalia saying that "every judicial and executive body that has examined petitioner's claim has been unpersuaded."

Davis' "claim is a sure loser," Scalia said. "Transferring his petition to the District Court is a confusing exercise that can serve no purpose except to delay the state's execution of its lawful criminal judgment."

Scalia said the Supreme Court was sending the District Court for the Southern District of Georgia "on a fool's errand."

"That court is directed to consider evidence of actual innocence which has been reviewed and rejected at least three times," he said.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was just confirmed as a new justice earlier this month, did not take part in the consideration of Davis' motion, the court said.

Source(www.bnd.com)

Keller drags Texas through the mud

No matter the outcome of the hearing scheduled to begin today that could end in sanctions against embattled Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Chief Justice Sharon Keller, her already battered reputation will be pounded some more. While the judge's many detractors will find some satisfaction in that, the Texas way of administering criminal justice also will take a beating.

A politician's reputation is insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but if a society claims to be one based on law, then its justice system is only as good as the confidence in it.

Beyond the question of whether Keller's handling of a last-minute death row appeal was legally appropriate is the much larger question of whether criminal appeals in Texas are handled objectively and whether the state's court of last resort in criminal cases is in reality nothing more than a state agency dedicated to upholding convictions.

Texas has always relished its "tough on crime" reputation. Politicians who campaign against crime always find a friendly crowd, and Keller jumped on that and rode pro-prosecution rhetoric to a seat on what should be an objective forum for hearing appeals. But promising fairness is boring and doesn't get you on television.

Keller — and by extension, the state's justice system — has been the subject of hours of air time, gallons of ink and enough bytes of electronic information to operate a fleet of spaceships as a result of the case that has led to today's proceedings before the State Commission on Judicial Conduct.

A brief background: Lawyers for convicted killer Michael Richard tried to file a last-minute, after-hours appeal in 2007. According to Richard's lawyers, they were having computer problems and asked if they could file motions after 5 p.m. They said they were told "no."

Keller's lawyer disputes that now-famous reply. Furthermore, he claims that defense lawyers are to blame for Richard not getting a hearing.

Only two months after his release from a second prison term in 1986, Richard raped, shot and killed Marguerite Lucille Dixon, 53, a nurse and mother of seven, inside her Harris County home. Richard won a second trial after pleading that he was abused as a child and possessed an IQ well below average. Tried again, he was convicted again in 1995 and sentenced to death.

The last-minute appeal was based on the U.S. Supreme Court's announcement earlier that same day that it would hear a case arguing that death by injection violates the Constitution because it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

Keller's critics say closing the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to the appeal was callous. The state's Commission on Judicial Conduct filed a list of more legal complaints against Keller in connection with the Richard case.

The he-said, she-said nature of the depositions doesn't hold much promise for shedding light on the situation but offers a rare glimpse into the court's inner workings. However repugnant some may find it, the hearing ought to be considered mandatory viewing.

Some commentators predict that the worst that will happen is that Keller will end up with a slap on the wrist once it's all said and done.

If so, that slap on the wrist will result in yet another black eye on a Texas justice system that is supposed to be blind.

Source(www.statesman.com)

Demonstration before Trial of Judge Sharon Keller

Representatives of Peoples' Judicial Complaint Signed by About 1,900 Members of the Public to Participate in Demonstration at Trial of Sharon Keller

A group of people who signed a judicial complaint against Judge Sharon Keller will hold a demonstration at 8 AM in San Antonio at the Bexar County Courthouse before Keller's trial begins on August 17. The trial is expected to begin at 9:30 AM. The demonstration will be held near the entrance of the building in which the trial will take place in the courtroom of David Berchelmann jr, presiding judge of the 37th District Court, at 100 Dolorosa in San Antonio. The group will represent the approximately 1,900 people who signed a judicial complaint against Keller submitted by Texas Moratorium Network to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct in November 2007.

Why: "Keller has damaged the integrity of the Texas judiciary and violated the public trust placed in her by the people of Texas. She has violated several provisions of the Code of Judicial Conduct and denied Michael Richard his constitutional right not to be deprived of life without due process and denied his right to be heard in court. Because of her arbitrary decision not to stay open to accept the appeal of death row prisoner Michael Richard, which she made in violation of her own court's rules and without consulting the other judges on the Court, Keller should be removed from office", said Scott Cobb, president of Texas Moratorium Network.

From the judicial complaint filed by TMN: "It is clear from her actions that Judge Keller can no longer be expected to preside over death penalty cases with the requisite fair, bias-free and even-handed disposition so critical to such serious life and death matters. Justice was not done in the Richard case, and if it was not done because Keller dishonestly said "We close at 5", then there is no question that Keller is unfit to be a judge and should be removed from office".

Date: Monday, August 17, at 8 AM

Place: Outside Bexar County Courthouse
100 Doloroso
San Antonio, Texas

The demonstration is sponsored by Texas Moratorium Network, Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, Texas Students Against the Death Penalty and Campaign to End the Death Penalty - Austin.

A PDF of the judicial complaint filed in November 2006 is here: http://su.pr/2ArO3J

A video of a copy of the judicial complaint being delivered for Sharon Keller to the clerk of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in November 2007 is on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbVd9P3R7MU. The video contains a statement by the sister of Michael Richard outside the CCA.

Source(www.stumbleupon.com)

Savannah Talks Troy Anthony Davis No. 5: Race, Death, and Justice in America

Although not directed specifically at the case of Georgia death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis and slain policeman Mark Allen MacPhail, the state of North Carolina’s new Racial Justice Act, signed into law by Governor Beverly Perdue on August 11, 2009, shines a light on one of the major aspects of the Davis/MacAllen case: that of race and the death penalty.

When reviewing such elements as the lack of physical evidence linked directly to Davis, and the fact that seven out of nine testimonies initially filed against him have since been recanted, various observers have voiced concern over whether the only reason he has not yet been granted a second trial is because Davis is African American and Officer MacPhail was White American.

Significantly, Governor Perdue is in fact a supporter of the death penalty itself. However, she notes in the following statement an important distinction between employing capital punishment and achieving justice:

"I have always been a supporter of [the] death penalty, but I have always believed it must be carried out fairly. The Racial Justice Act ensures that when North Carolina hands down our state’s harshest punishment to our most heinous criminals – the decision is based on the facts and the law, not racial prejudice.”

Simply put, the new law will allow death-row inmates and pre-trial defendants to use statistical studies to challenge racial bias in the death penalty system. This would give prosecutors a chance “to rebut the claim that the statistical disparities indicate racial bias. If proven, a judge could overturn the death sentence or prevent prosecutors from seeking the death penalty.”

Looking at the Numbers

Like Georgia––where Savannah native Davis sits on death row in the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison––North Carolina is one 38 states that still employ capital punishment. According to the NAACP’s “Death Row U.S.A Winter 2009” report, and figures maintained by the Death Penalty Information Center, some 88 Blacks (53%) out of a total of 167 inmates currently occupy death row in North Carolina. In Georgia, Troy Anthony Davis represents 1 of 51 Blacks (47%) on death row out of a total of 109 inmates. The fact that African Americans have consistently made up a disproportionate percentage of inmates on death row nationwide in glaring contrast to the percentage of Blacks that make up the general American public––13.5%––has long disturbed social scientists, law makers, and critics of capital punishment n general.

To Quote Alex Haley

Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, of the NAACP, during the signing of the Racial Justice Act issued a statement in which he observed:

“Today on August 11th, Alex Haley, the author of Roots was born. One of his famous quotes was ‘either we deal with reality or reality will deal with us.’ This Racial Justice Act is not about trying to let criminals go as some have absurdly suggested. It does not open up old wounds for victims because both proponents and opponents support the Racial Justice Act as well as families who have been victims of horrendous murders. Anyone who uses this language to speak against the bill is wrongfully maligning a good piece of legislation which looks squarely at the reality and the empirical data which shows how race impacts the application of the death penalty.”

The signing of the Racial Justice Act comes only a week before the twentieth anniversary of the slaying of Officer MacPhail and a month before the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to reconvene; after which, at some point, it will decide whether or not Davis shall receive a new trial. Perhaps it is safe to say at this point that North Carolina just made the possibility of that trial a little stronger.

Thank you for reading this fifth installment of Savannah Talks Troy Davis, a series of articles examining the ongoing developments and implications of the Troy Anthony Davis/Mark Allen MacPhail case.

Source(www.examiner.com)

Judges’ Dissents for Death Row Inmates Are Rising

It took just 80 words for a federal appeals court to deny Kevin Cooper’s most recent plea to avoid execution. But attached to that order was a forceful 101-page dissent by a judge, all but pleading to spare Mr. Cooper’s life.

“The State of California may be about to execute an innocent man,” it began.

The judge who wrote the dissent, William A. Fletcher of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, argued that the police and prosecutors had withheld and tampered with evidence in the case for decades; Judge Fletcher even accused the district court of having sabotaged the case.

Compared with the dry, mannerly prose found in many opinions, Judge Fletcher’s passion in Cooper v. Brown is startling. But these kinds of fervent, lonely dissents, urging that a prisoner’s life be spared, have noticeably increased in the last decade, compared with previous years, according to a review of death penalty opinions by The New York Times, as confirmed by experts in the field.

In dozens of capital cases in recent years, appeals court judges, some of whom have ruled in favor of the death penalty many times, have complained that Congress and the Supreme Court have raised daunting barriers for death row prisoners to appeal their convictions, and in many cases the judges have taken on their colleagues.

“There is an increasing frustration among federal judges throughout the system,” said Eric M. Freedman, a critic of the death penalty who teaches on the subject at Hofstra Law School.

Mr. Freedman predicted that the level of dissatisfaction would increase. “Judges are likely to have less and less patience for being hogtied by legalistic mumbo-jumbo,” he said, “which prevents them from reaching fair results.”

The law that generates much of the judges’ ire is the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. Since its passage, the act has been cited in a half-dozen to two dozen dissents a year, often in language forceful enough to rival Judge Fletcher’s. The law, championed by legislators who believed prisoners were abusing the federal appeals process, restricts federal court review of state court decisions in death penalty cases and puts strong limits on the ability of condemned prisoners to file habeas corpus petitions to get their cases reconsidered.

In April, Judge Rosemary Barkett of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, complained of the law’s “thicket of procedural brambles.” Dissenting from a decision by her colleagues, Judge Barkett noted that seven of the nine witnesses in the murder trial of Troy Davis, a death row inmate in Georgia, had recanted their testimony. To execute Mr. Davis without fully considering that evidence would be “unconscionable and unconstitutional,” wrote Judge Barkett, who has voted in more than 200 other cases to uphold the death penalty.

Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the Ninth Circuit, a critic of capital punishment, took on the constitutionality of the 1996 death penalty act itself in a dissent in the case of Andrew C. Crater, who had been convicted of taking part in a robbery and shooting spree that killed a Sacramento musician, James Pantages. Judge Reinhardt, appointed by President Jimmy Carter, wrote in 2007 that the act made “a mockery of the careful boundaries between Congress and the courts that our Constitution’s framers believed so essential to the prevention of tyranny.”

The dissents rarely have any practical effect in changing the outcome of the cases they address. But Howard J. Bashman, an appellate lawyer in Philadelphia, said such dissents were often directed toward audiences to come: the next appeals court, lawmakers and academics.

“You have to think that these judges do have some valid reason for putting all this effort into the exercise than just feeling better about it after they’re done,” Mr. Bashman said.

Judge Barkett, whom President Bill Clinton appointed, declined to discuss individual cases but agreed that a dissent tried to persuade many audiences — the first, in her case, being the other judges of her court, who circulate dissents among themselves as they are coming to a decision.

Judge Barkett said she did not see her opinions as “emotive,” adding that dissents were about policy, not feelings. But the feeling that motivates her to write them, she said, is “mostly frustration that I cannot make people see what I see.”

Judge Fletcher’s frustration was on display in the case of Mr. Cooper, who he concluded was “probably innocent” of the 1983 murders of Douglas and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter Jessica and an 11-year-old houseguest, Christopher Hughes, who were hacked to death in the Ryens’ home.

Judge Fletcher argued that the evidence had been tainted by bumbling and misconduct and suggested that blood linking Mr. Cooper to the crime had been planted by overzealous investigators. And while the Ninth Circuit in 2004 ordered new DNA tests, Judge Fletcher wrote that the lower court had set conditions rendering the results useless. “There is no way to say this politely,” he wrote. “The district court failed to provide Cooper a fair hearing and flouted our direction to perform the two tests.”

Judge Fletcher, who declined to be interviewed, was appointed by Mr. Clinton.

Jesse H. Choper, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said the judge was hardly a fierce opponent of capital punishment. “I don’t see him as someone who is unexceptionally opposed,” Mr. Choper said.

In the Cooper case, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, was among 11 of the circuit’s 27 judges who joined dissents.

Elisabeth A. Semel, director of the Death Penalty Clinic at Berkeley, which trains lawyers to defend people facing the death penalty, said many jurists had been shaken by the rise of exonerations due to DNA evidence. “I think it’s been shattering to judges who had a fair amount of confidence in the system,” she said.

The next step in the Cooper case is a long-shot appeal to the Supreme Court, which Mr. Cooper’s lead lawyer, Norman C. Hile, said was likely to be filed this year.

Kent Scheidegger, the legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a group in Sacramento that favors the death penalty, said substantial claims of innocence in such appeals remained rare.

In Mr. Cooper’s case, Mr. Scheidegger said, the defendant has been given ample opportunity to exonerate himself. “It is high time to bring this case to a close,” Mr. Scheidegger said.

Judge Fletcher argued otherwise. “If he is innocent, the real killers have escaped,” he wrote. “They may kill again. They may already have done so.

“We owe it to the victims of this horrible crime, to Kevin Cooper, and to ourselves, to get this one right.”

Source(www.nytimes.com)

New bill aims to remove race from death penalty equation

On July 15th the North Carolina House voted 61-54 to approve the Racial Justice Act, which, if signed into law, would allow death row prisoners in the state to appeal their sentences if racial prejudice played a role in their sentencing. Last night, the North Carolina Senate approved the legislation, which now goes to Governor Bev Perdue for her signature.

The Racial Justice Act could be a very significant step towards ensuring that race does not affect the fate of capital defendants in North Carolina--a state with a history of racial prejudice, where race has been a factor in death penalty cases in the past. A 2001 study conducted by Dr. Isaac Unah and Prof. Jack Boger from the University of North Carolina showed that the probability of a defendant receiving the death penalty in North Carolina is 3.5 time higher if the murder victim was white. In some parts of the state the findings were even more disturbing. For instance, in Durham County, prosecutors were 5 times less likely to seek the death penalty if both the defendant and the murder victim were black than if the defendant was black but the murder victim was white.

A review by the Winston Salem Journal found similar racial discrepancies in the application of North Carolina's death penalty. The Journal discovered that, although the majority of murder victims in North Carolina are black, only 18 percent of the state executions carried out between 1984 and the present were of prisoners whose victims were African-American. In contrast, four fifths of the executions were of prisoners whose victims were white.

Another way race has played a role in death penalty cases in North Carolina (as well as across the country) has been though jury selection. Although African-Americans constitute more than one fifth of North Carolina's total population, between 1977 and the present 35 defendants in the state have received death sentences from all-white juries.

In light of these discrepancies and the unequal application of capital punishment in North Carolina, passage of the Racial Justice Act is a milestone achievement. The legislation has gained the support of clergy and civil rights leaders who have described it as "a clear signal that we are serious about removing any vestiges of racial discrimination in the administration of the death penalty." In a joint statement published on the website of the North Carolina NAACP Chapter, the leaders went on to say that the Racial Justice Act has the potential to "make North Carolina a leader in the southeast on a matter of great importance to anyone who believes justice should be color blind."

All that is needed now is the Governor's signature.

Source(www.huffingtonpost.com)

A Documentary Film Screening Sponsored by the Innocence Project of Florida and Tallahassee Citizens Against the Death Penalty in opposition to the pen

“Juan Meléndez - 6446” tells the incredible, true story of Juan
Meléndez, who was sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit.
Puerto Rican migrant farmer raised in New York City, Meléndez was
accused of murder in the state of Florida. While claiming his innocence,
Juan Meléndez was convicted and put on death row for 17 years, 8 months
1 day. Told by Meléndez, his mother, lawyers and friends, this personal
drama illustrates the legal, political and public policy issues around the
application of the death penalty in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

Film Screening of Juan Melendez - 6446
August 13 @ 7pm
30 minute discussion about the death penalty with Juan Melendez afterward
All Saints Cinema
918 1/2 Railroad Avenue
(located inside the Amtrak Rail Station)

Source (floridainnocence.org)

Study: 88% of criminologists do not believe the death penalty is an effective deterrent

A recent study by Professor Michael Radelet and Traci Lacock of the University of Colorado found that 88% of the nation’s leading criminologists do not believe the death penalty is an effective deterrent to crime. The study, Do Executions Lower Homicide Rates? The Views of Leading Criminologists, published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Crimonology, concluded, “There is overwhelming consensus among America’s top criminologists that the empirical research conducted on the deterrence question fails to support the threat or use of the death penalty.” A previous study in 1996 had come to similar conclusions.

The criminologists surveyed included - 1) Fellows in the American Society of Criminology (ASC), (2) Winners of the ASC’s Sutherland Award, the highest award given by that organization for contributions to criminological theory, or (3) Presidents of the ASC between 1997 and the present. Those presidents before 1997 had been included in the prior survey. Respondents were asked to base their answers on existing empirical research, not their views on capital punishment.

Nearly 78% of those surveyed said that having the death penalty in a state does not lower the murder rate. In addition, 91% of respondents said politicians support the death penalty in order to appear tough on crime – and 75% said that it distracts legislatures on the state and national level from focusing on real solutions to crime problems. Over all, 94% agreed that there was little emperical evidence to support the deterrent effect of the death penalty. And 90% said the death penalty had little effect overall on the committing of murder. Additionally, 91.6% said that increasing the frequency of executions would not add a deterrent effect, and 87.6% said that speeding up executions wouldn't work either.

Public opinion also reflects these findings. In a 2006 Gallup Poll, only 34% of respondents agreed that “the death penalty acts as a deterrent to the commitment of murder, that it lowers the murder rate.” In 2004, 62% of people said the death penalty was not a deterrent. By contrast, in 1985, 62% believed the death penalty acted as a deterrent to murder.(Source: M. Radelet & T. Lacock, "Do Executions Lower Homicide Rates? The Views of Leading Criminologists," 99 Journal of Criminal Law & Crimonology 489, Northwestern University (2009)).

See DPIC's Deterrence page.

Source(deathpenaltyinfo.org)

Texas Strikes Again

We found out this weekend that Earnest Sonnier spent 23 years in a Texas prison for a rape he didn’t commit:

State district Judge Michael McSpadden asked for an expedited release for Ernest Sonnier, 46, who was convicted of a 1985 sexual assault and sentenced to life in prison. The Innocence Project, a national organization working to exonerate wrongfully convicted people, began conducting new tests last year that cast doubt on his guilt, attorneys said. Sonnier was released on his own recognizance. He will wear a GPS monitoring device and be supervised as a condition of his release while attorneys move to have him officially exonerated.

Evidently, the new DNA test results from the victims clothing:

[Y]ielded no trace of Mr. Sonnier, the Harris County district attorney’s office said. Instead, it has implicated two other men. Both are felons and known associates. One is awaiting trial for a different rape.

Given this fact, Grits for Breakfast wonders “how many more victims were racked up in the years since Sonnier’s false conviction?”

Something else got my interest and that is the serology before Sonnier was even convicted. While Sonnier was convicted on a faulty witness identification, it appears that there was a pretty good indication before the trial that he was not the rapist:

Tests showed that semen stains on the woman’s jeans were blood type O, while Sonnier’s blood type is B.

This is another black spot in the woeful history of the Houston Police Crime Lab, where they were more interested in getting a conviction for prosecutors and their department than on protecting the public by getting the true perpetrators through sound science.

Sonnier has been released pending the prosecutors decision on a retrial. We hope that the prosecutor does the right thing and drops the charges soon.

Source(floridainnocence.org)

Florida justice: Tough on youths

TALLAHASSEE - While other young men were heading to college or finding their first jobs, Terrance Graham entered a state prison at the age of 19 where he will spend the rest of his life.

The Jacksonville man, in the words of his own attorney, was "no angel." At 16, he was convicted of armed burglary. He violated his probation at 17 by fleeing police after a home invasion robbery.

Everyone agreed that Graham should be punished. Corrections officials recommended a four-year sentence. Prosecutors demanded a 30-year term. But a judge imposed the harshest sentence a juvenile criminal could face in the United States: life without parole.

Outside of Florida, no other prisoner in the nation is serving a life sentence without parole for a juvenile burglary conviction.

But in Florida, Graham's case is not rare. Records show that Florida has handed out more life sentences to juveniles for non-murder crimes than have all other states combined.

Florida's sentencing raises questions about cruelty as well as concerns about racial bias. While blacks represent about 16 percent of Florida's population, and about half its prison population, 84 percent of juveniles sentenced to life without parole for non-homicide offenses were African-American.

Florida has sentenced 77 young men to spend their lives in prison, without any chance of release, based on non-homicide crimes they committed when they were 17 years old or younger, according to a preliminary study by Florida State University researchers. Six of those prisoners were 13 or 14 at the time of their crimes.

A Herald-Tribune review of state records shows that some juveniles were given life without parole for as few as one or two convictions of non-homicide crimes.

Florida's stance has generated protests from human rights groups and a lawsuit heading to the U.S. Supreme Court, which contends such sentences violate the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

But the state shows little sign of stopping judges from imposing life sentences on juveniles or providing a path to freedom for those already in prison. Lawmakers rejected a bill last spring that would have allowed juveniles in some non-homicide cases to eventually become eligible for parole.

The controversy in Florida stands out because it differs so greatly from policies elsewhere. Florida prisoners represent 69 percent of the 111 inmates reported nationally to be serving life without parole for their non-homicide juvenile crimes. Thirty-six states have no non-homicide juvenile lifers. Researchers are still awaiting data from six states, but they do not expect Florida's standing to change.

Other findings:

• Only Florida has sent juvenile criminals away for life for burglary, battery and carjacking. Graham is among 24 juveniles sentenced to life for burglary.

• Forty-six juveniles in Florida were given life for armed robbery.

"Florida's practice of sentencing juvenile offenders to life without parole for non-homicide cases is unique among American states," said the preliminary research report directed by Paolo Annino, an FSU law professor who heads the school's Public Interest Law Center.

"It stands alone in its willingness to condemn young people for non-homicide offenses to life in prison, without a chance of a reassessment of their lives in some future time," the report said.

Why Florida?

The Florida juveniles have been caught in two converging criminal justice trends.

The state has made it easier to try juveniles as adults at the same time it has increased the potential penalties for many crimes. Currently, Florida judges have the power to impose a life sentence without parole for more than 50 crimes.

Many of the changes came in the 1990s, when Florida was hit with a highly publicized crime wave, including the killings of nine tourists in 1992 and 1993. A British tourist was killed by a group of juveniles at an Interstate 10 rest stop in 1993 in a robbery that drew international press attention.

Since that time, Florida has sentenced 65 of the 77 non-homicide juvenile criminals to life without parole, according to the FSU researchers.

Other states are sending more juveniles into the adult prison system, too, although none of them have embraced the use of life without parole for non-homicide juvenile offenses as aggressively as Florida.

"It's a national problem that has just taken on very dramatic examples in Florida," said Bryan Stevenson, the director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal aid group based in Montgomery, Ala., and a lawyer for one of the juvenile offenders in the court case.

But Stevenson said the imposition of a sentence that should be reserved for unredeemable criminals is highly inappropriate for many minors given the large body of scientific evidence showing that young people are developmentally different from adults.

"Our argument is not that these kids can't be punished, can't be sent to prison for a very long time," Stevenson said. "But to make a judgment that their sentences can never be reviewed for possible release is inconsistent with how we deal with kids in virtually every other context."

Supreme Court fight

Florida's stance against young criminals has become the focal point of a potentially landmark U.S. Supreme Court case.

In November, the country's highest court is scheduled to hear arguments in Graham's case and the case of Joe Sullivan, a Pensacola man convicted of rape as a 13-year-old. The court is being asked whether a life sentence without parole for juvenile offenders not guilty of homicide violates the constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishment.

In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty for juveniles was unconstitutional and that opinion -- which underscored the physical and psychological differences between a juvenile and an adult -- has provided much of the legal basis for the challenge of Florida's life-without-parole sentences for juveniles.

Florida's harsh sentencing for juvenile crimes has drawn criticism from a wide spectrum of groups, including the American Bar Association, Amnesty International, the NAACP and the American Psychiatric Association, which have all filed briefs in the case.

A group of former juvenile criminals, including an actor, writers, a former federal prosecutor, a business executive and former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., have joined the appeal, pointing out that they were able to rehabilitate their lives despite committing serious crimes as teenagers.

"I just can't fathom sentencing juveniles to life without parole," said Charles Dutton, who served prison time for manslaughter but went on to drama school at Yale University and became a successful Broadway and television actor. Dutton said he had talked to some of the Florida juvenile prisoners.

"They were kids and now they're finished. There's a heart-wrenching sadness on their faces and you can see the fight is out of them," Dutton said in the brief. "If they were given a second chance, they'd be changed human beings."

Florida opposes changes

Thus far, Florida's legal establishment has yet to bend to the criticism of its juvenile sentencing, with Attorney General Bill McCollum opposing the appeal by Graham and Sullivan. And legislation to offer parole to some young criminals, who committed their crimes when they were 15 or younger, died in the spring legislative session.

McCollum's office asserted "the facts of the case are straightforward."

Sullivan was convicted in a one-day trial of raping a 72-year-old woman after he and two older friends had burglarized the woman's house earlier in the day in 1989.

The attorney general cited a pre-sentencing report that concluded Sullivan met the guidelines for a life sentence based on his prior record, which said that Sullivan had been found guilty of 17 criminal offenses in the prior two years "including several serious felonies."

But Sullivan's attorney said there remains "a lot of doubt" about whether his then 13-year-old client raped the elderly woman or whether the crime was carried out by one of his accomplices. Sullivan's lawyers had asked for DNA evidence in the case to be reviewed but the state said it had been destroyed in 1993.

"That's been a great frustration," Stevenson said.

In sentencing Terrance Graham to life in prison, Circuit Judge Lance M. Day of Duval County called it "a sad situation," saying Graham had a chance to turn around his life after his initial burglary conviction.

"And I don't understand why you would be given such a great opportunity to do something with your life and why you would throw it away," the judge told him.

Day said Graham, who was accused of leading a home invasion robbery where he held a gun to the head of the homeowner, had exhibited an "escalating pattern of criminal conduct" that did not warrant any leniency.

"It is apparent to the court that you have decided that this is the way you are going to live your life and that the only thing I can do now is to try to protect the community from your actions," Day said, before handing down the life sentence.

Bryan Gowdy, Graham's lawyer, said Florida is alone in imposing such a harsh sentence for a non-homicide crime like burglary.

"If you are anywhere but in Florida, you would not get this sentence," Gowdy said.

He also pointed the disparity in sentencing for many of the others involved in the same crimes as Graham.

A teenager who joined Graham in the restaurant burglary and hit the manager in the head with a steel pipe was later charged with the armed robbery of a gas station. He received a three-year sentence for the restaurant burglary and has since been released from prison, while Graham remains behind bars for the rest of his life.

Further, Gowdy said although Graham came from a troubled background, where his parents had drug problems, he had a relatively clean record before the restaurant burglary.

"This is what makes it, I think, shocking," Gowdy said. "You have a juvenile who had no adjudication of delinquency in the juvenile system, had no prior conviction in the adult system, and for his first offense, which is a non-homicide, he gets life without parole."

And, Gowdy said, as a young felon, Graham has struggled in the prison system, although he has earned a high-school equivalency degree.

"He's no angel," Gowdy said. "And we're not saying he shouldn't be punished. But he should be given a chance to prove he can reform himself."

Judge regrets decision

Even some in the legal community regret the sentencing practices.

One is J. Rogers Padgett, a retired Hillsborough County circuit judge, who says he never intended to sentence a 15-year-old Tampa youth to four consecutive life sentences without parole for participating in armed robberies in the Tampa Bay area in 2000.

"I have always been opposed to mandatory minimum sentences, except in first-degree murder convictions, it being my belief that the Department of Corrections knows best about whether and when an inmate should be released on controlled supervision," Padgett wrote to Gov. Charlie Crist and the other members of the state Clemency Board.

"This is especially true when the inmate was sentenced as a teenager," Padgett said. "It was not my intent at the time of his sentencing that Mr. Young never be considered for release."

Padgett was referring to the case of Kenneth R. Young, who was 14 when he got involved with a 25-year-old crack dealer who Young said coerced him into participating in a string of hotel robberies because the dealer said Young's mother owed him money.

"I believed (the dealer) would harm my mother if I did not obey him and I knew I had to protect my family. So I got into his car," Young said in a statement.

Young, who once dreamed about becoming an astronaut or weatherman but dropped out of school at 13, ended up helping the dealer in five robberies, where the teenager was responsible for grabbing the money while the dealer held a gun on the victims. No one was hurt in the robberies.

Young now says his "biggest regret" was the impact of his crimes on the victims.

"They did not deserve to have this happen to them," said Young, 23, who has served eight years in state prison. "I did this to save my family but I did not think about the pain this would cause other families. I am sorry."

And despite his sentence, Young, who now works as a prison barber in Lake County and has a largely blemish-free prison record, said he still hopes to have his own family.

"My goal is to one day have the opportunity to show the world that I have changed," he said.

source(www.heraldtribune.com)

Syrian Lawyer Faces Prosecution for Defending Human Rights

Amnesty International Media Release
For Immediate Release
Monday, August 3, 2009


Syrian Lawyer Faces Prosecution for Defending Human Rights
Contact: AIUSA media office at 202.544.0200x302

A leading Syrian human rights lawyer was formally charged last Thursday in relation to his legitimate work in defending the rights of political prisoners in Syria. Amnesty International is calling for his immediate release.

Muhannad al-Hassani, who had regularly carried out observations of trials before the Supreme State Security Court, was arrested by Syrian State Security on 28 July and charged with "weakening national sentiments" and "spreading false news."

He was referred to the Justice Palace in Damascus on Thursday, where he was interrogated and formally charged in a closed session in which his lawyer was not allowed access. He could face up to 15 years in prison.

Muhannad al-Hassani had been interrogated on several occasions before the arrest, questioned for his defence of political detainees and for the work of his organization, The Syrian Human Rights Organization (SAWASIYAH).

SAWASIYAH monitors and publicizes human rights violations committed by the Syrian authorities. Muhannad al-Hassani is the Chair of the organization's Board of Directors.

Syrian authorities have previously prevented Muhannad al-Hassani and other human rights lawyers from travelling abroad in order to take part in human rights events and training seminars. This is a well-established pattern used by the Syrian authorities to harass and punish human rights defenders and to suppress political dissent.

"Amnesty International is concerned that Muhannad al-Hassani faces imprisonment because of his legitimate human rights work," said Malcolm Smart from Amnesty International. "Other people imprisoned solely for their human rights work include Anwar al-Bunni, a prominent human rights defender and lawyer in Syria who is serving five years in prison for 'spreading false information harmful to the state'."

Anwar al-Bunni had made a statement to a Qatar-based newspaper in April 2006. In it, he said that the death in custody of Muhammad Shaher Haysa, a political detainee, had been caused by "ill-treatment possibly amounting to torture."

# # #

Senate confirms Sotomayor for high court

Chief Justice John Roberts will swear her in Saturday at Supreme Court.

WASHINGTON - Sonia Sotomayor won confirmation Thursday as the nation's first Hispanic Supreme Court justice in a history-making Senate vote that capped a summer-long debate heavy with politics. According to NBC News, she will be sworn in on Saturday — Chief Justice John Roberts will administer both the constitutional and judicial oaths.

The Senate vote was 68-31 to confirm Sotomayor, President Barack Obama's first Supreme Court nominee.

The 55-year-old daughter of Puerto Rican parents was raised in a South Bronx housing project and educated in the Ivy League before rising to the highest legal echelons, spending the past 17 years as a federal judge.

source(www.msnbc.msn.com)

Gov. Kaine pardons three members of the Norfolk Four

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said today he has granted conditional pardons to three members of the “Norfolk Four,” a group of sailors convicted of raping and killing young Navy wife Michelle Moore-Bosko in 1997 in Ocean View.

Kaine said in a news conference that he has granted pardons to three sailors, still in prison, who were convicted of rape and murder. Kaine declined to pardon another former sailor, Eric Wilson, who was convicted of rape only and was released from prison in 2006 after serving more than eight years.

The conditional pardons mean that Derek Tice, Danial Williams and Joseph Dick Jr. will spend no more time in prison. They each were sentenced to life for the crime. Kaine said he decided there were "grave doubts about at least the level of their complicity in the crime."

A fifth man, Omar Ballard, was later convicted and has said he alone raped and killed Moore-Bosko. His DNA was the only one found at the scene.

In a statement e-mailed to The Virginian-Pilot, Carol and John Moore, the parents of Moore-Bosko, said they are "devastated" by Kaine's decision.

The governor "has chosen to ignore the facts and history of this case by granting a conditional pardon to these confessed and convicted rapists and murderers. There is absolutely zero new evidence or information to justify this decision."

Moore-Bosko, 18, was killed in her apartment in Norfolk. Her husband, William, found her body July 8, 1997, when he returned from a Navy deployment.

The Norfolk Four case had twists and turns from the beginning: First, a single man, Moore-Bosko’s neighbor Danial Williams, was charged with murder. Six months later, Joseph Dick Jr. also was charged.

In the months that followed, a total of eight men were arrested. Charges against three were withdrawn. Four of the five men convicted said their confessions to the crimes were coerced and that they are innocent. Their lawyers say Ballard, the last man to be charged in the crime, committed the killing alone.

Williams, Dick, Tice and Wilson asked the governor for pardons. Their clemency petition was filed in 2005 when then-Gov. Mark Warner was Virginia’s chief executive. Their plight has become a cause celebre in some circles, inspiring a book and a screenplay about the case.

Kaine said an absolute pardon was not appropriate because the sailors had “not conclusively established their innocence.”

But he said they raised substantial doubts about their convictions, warranting a conditional pardon. Their sentences will be reduced to the time served and they will be on unsupervised probation.

In today's statement, the Moores said: "We do not believe it is a coincidence that Governor Kaine granted these pardons just a few weeks after the announcement that John Grisham intends to write a screenplay about this case. Stories about rapists and murderers who confess, then spend the rest of their lives in prison, do not make interesting movies."

Grisham told The Pilot in a recent interview that he didn't believe the four men were guilty.

Since 2000, Grisham has donated more than $390,000 to Virginia Democrats, including $175,000 to Kaine and his political action committee, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, a statewide tracker of campaign donations.

Grisham serves on the board of directors of The Innocence Project, which fights to free wrongfully convicted inmates. The head of the organization said those convicted in 25 percent of the 241 DNA exonerations nationwide gave false confessions.

The case has caught the attention of several former Virginia attorneys general and retired federal agents who each held press conferences last year to proclaim their belief in the innocence of the sailors.

In another twist, a 2006 Norfolk Circuit Court ruling essentially vacated Tice’s earlier conviction on the grounds that he had ineffective trial lawyers. But the state Supreme Court upheld the conviction on appeal in January 2008.

Attorney General Bill Mims released a statement today that said: “The Office of the Attorney General has represented the interests of the Commonwealth and sought justice, as we are bound to do by law, and vigorously defended the multiple convictions of these individuals.

“I have the utmost respect for Governor Kaine and am confident his decision was made with great care."

Information on when the three men will be released from prison will not be released to the public, said Larry Traylor, a spokesman for the state’s Department of Corrections.

Traylor said the information is being withheld for security and privacy reasons.

Source(hamptonroads.com)

4000 Kenyans on death row get life

More than 4,000 prisoners facing execution in Kenya had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment on Monday in the largest commutation in history, news sources reported. There have been no executions carried out in Kenya for 22 years.

In a statement broadcast on the state-owned radio Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, President Mwai Kibaki said that an “extended stay on death row causes undue mental anguish and suffering, psychological trauma, anxiety, while it may as well constitute inhuman treatment.”

He directed government bodies to study whether the death penalty had any impact on the fight against crime. He added that the decision to commute the sentences did not mean the abolishment of the death penalty which remains a lawful punishment under Kenyan law.

The death sentence is still imposed on anyone convicted of armed robbery or murder.

“This is a step forward for human rights in Kenya,” said Piers Bannister, Amnesty International’s expert on the death penalty. “We hope that the government studies ordered by the President will conclude that the death penalty does not have any unique deterrent effect, that it brutalises society and is often inflicted upon the innocent.

"The time has arrived for Kenya to join the majority of the world's countries and abolish the death penalty," he added.

The largest previous mass commutation happened in Pakistan in 1988, when over 2,000 sentences were commuted. In 2003, Kenya commuted 223 death penalty sentences.

In March 2005, the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs declared at the Commission on Human Rights that the Kenyan government was committed to abolishing the death penalty. In August 2007, parliament defeated a motion seeking to abolish the death penalty.

Kenya’s 92 prisons were built for a population of about 17,000 people but have a current inmate population of about 48,000. They are some of the most overcrowded and underfunded prisons in the world.

Source(www.amnesty.org)

NAACP Youth and College Leaders Mobilize In Savannah, Georgia

Troy Davis case galvanizes young people into action

The case of Troy Anthony Davis, a likely innocent man on death row in Savannah, Georgia has inspired young people across the country to take action. Members from the NAACP Youth and College Division are convening in Savannah, this week for a “Savannah Summer Field Experience” to help save Davis’ life and to learn skills that will equip them to organize in their own communities.

Sponsored by the NAACP, the Savannah Summer Field Experience kicked off on July 29 and will continue through August 2. More than 75 young civil rights leaders, ages 14-24, representing NAACP youth councils and college chapters in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina and Ohio will participate in a range of intensive training sessions and events.

Leading the workshops and sessions is the NAACP Field Organizing Department, who will guide the visiting participants through programs focused on strategic organizing and mobilization techniques. After the close of Savannah Summer on Sunday, participants will depart with valuable skills, strategies, and techniques that they can later apply to grassroots social justice campaigns in their home regions.

Stefanie Brown, the NAACP National Field Director, said that today's young people are eager to be politically involved, and determined to be effective leaders in ending racial, economic, educational, and criminal justice disparities that exist in the U.S.

“Savannah Summer is a life changing experience for these energetic young people. Through their involvement in the training and field experiences, they are continuing the tradition of activism within the NAACP,” said Brown, 28.

Participants at the five day Savannah Summer Field Experience will take part in a variety of break-out sessions and field visits, including:

· Developing winning strategies for on-the-ground organizing

· Building and joining coalitions around issues

· Securing and conducting accountability sessions with elected officials

· Organizing and executing door-to-door and electronic petition drives, for the

www.IAMTROY.com campaign.

· Participating in community meetings

· Forming partnerships and speaking with local clergy members and established churches

"The skills these participants learn here will allow them to be more effective organizers and leaders in their own communities and on their college campuses,” said Brown. “They are learning how to analyze problems, create strategies and implement solutions.”

Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization. Its members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, conducting voter mobilization and monitoring equal opportunity in the public and private sectors.

Source(www.naacp.org)

12 and in Prison

The Supreme Court sent an important message when it ruled in Roper v. Simmons in 2005 that children under the age of 18 when their crimes were committed were not eligible for the death penalty. Justice Anthony Kennedy drew on compassion, common sense and the science of the youthful brain when he wrote that it was morally wrong to equate the offenses of emotionally undeveloped adolescents with the offenses of fully formed adults.

The states have followed this logic in death penalty cases. But they have continued to mete out barbaric treatment — including life sentences — to children whose cases should rightly be handled through the juvenile courts.

Congress can help to correct these practices by amending the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, which is up for Congressional reauthorization this year. To get a share of delinquency prevention money, the law requires the states and localities to meet minimum federal protections for youths in the justice system. These protections are intended to keep as many youths as possible out of adult jails and prisons, and to segregate those that are sent to those places from the adult criminal population.

The case for tougher legislative action is laid out in an alarming new study of children 13 and under in the adult criminal justice system, the lead author of which is the juvenile justice scholar, Michele Deitch, of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. According to the study, every state allows juveniles to be tried as adults, and more than 20 states permit preadolescent children as young as 7 to be tried in adult courts.

This is terrible public policy. Children who are convicted and sentenced as adults are much more likely to become violent offenders — and to return to an adult jail later on — than children tried in the juvenile justice system.

Despite these well-known risks, policy makers across the country do not have reliable data on just how many children are being shunted into the adult system by state statutes or prosecutors, who have the discretion to file cases in the adult courts.

But there is reasonably reliable data showing juvenile court judges send about 80 children ages 13 and under into the adult courts each year. These statistics explode the myth that those children have committed especially heinous acts.

The data suggest, for example, that children 13 and under who commit crimes like burglary and theft are just as likely to be sent to adult courts as children who commit serious acts of violence against people. As has been shown in previous studies, minority defendants are more likely to get adult treatment than their white counterparts who commit comparable offenses.

The study’s authors rightly call on lawmakers to enact laws that discourage harsh sentencing for preadolescent children and that enable them to be transferred back into the juvenile system. Beyond that, Congress should amend the juvenile justice act to require the states to simply end these inhumane practices to be eligible for federal juvenile justice funds.

Source(www.nytimes.com)

DPIC & AP look at the death penalty in Pennsylvania

Forty-seven years have past since Pennsylvania last executed someone who hadn’t “dropped their appeals.” Since restoration of the Pennsylvania death penalty in the disco era 21 people on death row have died of natural causes, 3 agreed to drop the appeals and be executed. Two hard hitting recent pieces by AP & DPIC on the death penalty in Pennsylvania. Bottom line, the capital punishment system — no matter what you perspective as a supporter or opponent — in the Keystone state is broke. DPIC notes:

In Pennsylvania, the state goes through the expensive and time-consuming process of trying many death penalty cases and fighting appeals, but almost all cases end with a life sentence. According to a recent Associated Press study of what happens in capital cases in the state, 124 death sentences have been overturned and resentenced. When these cases went through the justice system a second time with the original errors corrected, 95% (118) resulted in life sentences or less. Only 6 inmates were resentenced to death. Pennsylvania has the fourth largest death row in the country, but the only people who have been executed were three inmates who waived their appeals. The last execution in a fully contested case was 47 years ago. Twenty-one inmates on death row have died of natural causes or suicide since 1983. Six inmates have been exonerated when their convictions were reversed and they were freed following acquittals or dismissal of all charges.

and the AP (and here)

Eight inmates sentenced to death have had their sentences vacated and been released, some due to new evidence such as DNA. New trials ordered in 118 cases have resulted in life sentences or lengthy terms short of life. Six inmates granted new trials have been convicted and resentenced to death.

Source(www.capitaldefenseweekly.com)

The Nation: Beer And Sympathy

Taxi drivers provide a perverse service to the racial conversation when they refuse to pick up black people. Clearly it would be better if they stopped, so that we wouldn't be left hailing the night air like fools or relying on white friends to sneak one past the censor like supplicants.

But if anyone is going to experience racial hardship, let it be the cab riders. For if you can afford to take a cab, then it is probably not a bad thing to be reminded that racism brooks no exceptions—up to and including the ability to pay. Racism discriminates against people on the grounds of race. Just like it says on the packet. It can be as arbitrary in its choice of victim as it is systemic in its execution. And while it never works alone (but rather in cahoots with class, gender and a host of other rogue characters), it has political license to operate independently.

It's a basic lesson at relatively low cost. And yet the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, suggests we are doomed to keep repeating the lesson. Barack Obama was right when he referred to the arrest as a "teachable moment," but given the brouhaha that has followed, it seems that even a moment involving the nation's most prominent black intellectual teaches us nothing.

This lesson should come in two parts.

First, all such tales attempt to stage racism as a crude morality play, with individuals as absolute victims and absolute villains, rather than as a system of oppression that works primarily through institutions. The victim must have no priors and no drugs. And unless the perpetrator is photographed with a billy club in hand and uses racial slurs that are recorded on tape, we are supposed to give him the benefit of the doubt.

For an individual, that is fair. For a system, it is farcical. While it may be intriguing to speculate about what two people may or may not have been thinking, feeling and intending at any given moment, the proof of racism is in the odds. Black people in America fall foul of not just the law of the land but the law of probabilities as well. They are more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested, convicted and executed. A ridiculous black man and a ridiculous white man do not stand the same chances when put before a man with a badge, gun or gavel. The figures bear this out, and at the end of the day, nooses and burning crosses shouldn't be necessary to demonstrate racism's reach.

Second, the fact that racism might affect a Harvard professor is amazing only if one buys into the idea that black people who have reached a certain status should be exempt from racism. If you believe that, then the problem with Gates's arrest is not racism. It's that he was treated like a regular black person. The issue moves from "If it happened to him it really can happen to anybody" to "It shouldn't have happened to him because he is a somebody."

Which brings us back to Obama, who first said the Cambridge police acted "stupidly," only to then "recalibrate" his remarks before inviting the arresting officer, James Crowley, and Gates to the White House for beers and reconciliation. This was primarily remarkable because, for reasons both pragmatic and strategic, Obama's interventions in matters of race are so very rare.

So it is curious that he would use the considerable influence he has in this area to defend a tenured Harvard professor who was detained for a few hours. Indeed, the only other public pronouncement Obama has made about race since his election was delivered just a week before Gates's arrest, at the NAACP conference. On the organization's centenary he paid homage to the civil rights movement and, recognizing the inequalities bequeathed by segregation, he started talking about parenting.

"We've got to say to our children, Yes, if you're African-American, the odds of growing up amid crime and gangs are higher," Obama said. "Yes, if you live in a poor neighborhood, you will face challenges that somebody in a wealthy suburb does not have to face. But that's not a reason to get bad grades. That's not a reason to cut class.... No one has written your destiny for you.... That's what we have to teach all of our children. No excuses. No excuses."

These two interventions feel like the Talented Tenth circling the wagons. There are a huge number of explanations for black underachievement in this country, none of which are merely "excuses." But Gates's experience also gave the lie to Obama's exhortations. Gates got good grades, probably never cut school and does not live amid crime and gangs. If he had, the incident might have ended up in anything from a police record to his death while never even making the local paper. Not that Gates didn't have a legitimate grievance. But he probably could have handled the matter without the help of the commander in chief.

The same cannot be said for, say, Troy Davis, who sits on death row in Georgia for the murder of an off-duty police officer, which he insists he did not commit. Seven of the nine witnesses who identified Davis have recanted or contradicted their original testimony, which they claim was made under police coercion. One of the remaining two is also a suspect in the crime. Desmond Tutu, the pope and Jimmy Carter (all conspicuously silent on the Gates saga) have called for a new trial or evidentiary hearing. This is a matter where Obama's involvement could tip the balance between life and death.

As I write, the beers are in the presidential fridge. After their drink, Gates will go back to Harvard, Crowley will return to the force, Obama will stay in the White House. Nothing about law or race, not even the national conversation, will have changed. And Troy Davis will remain on death row. For now the only beer he can expect will be with his last meal. And he will be drinking alone.

Source(www.npr.org)

Troy Davis, A Man Without a Voice, Speaks for Too Many

There is an entire group of citizens in the United States who are largely ignored by liberals and conservatives alike. They are the people on Death Row whose guilt contains "reasonable doubt." For better or for worse, Mr. Troy Anthony Davis is their poster child.

Mr. Davis' case is well known -- accused of killing a police officer based solely on nine eyewitness accounts where seven have recanted (unprompted), conviction within four days, and no DNA or any physical evidence found at all. His case has brought together the unlikely, both proponents and opponents of the death penalty, and inspired a NAACP-sponsored campaign, IamTroy.com, that includes National Days for Troy Davis around the world. But who is Troy Davis? Who is this man, who has stirred many to action, yet is unable to speak to directly to the media himself? And how can all of us come to see his plight as our own?

I could use the many adjectives one does when describing someone special such as kind, faithful, friendly, etc. ... yet this would hardly be enough. The best way to introduce you to Mr. Davis is by recounting the time my sister and I visited him in a Jackson, Georgia prison. My sister and I are staunch advocates against the death penalty and his case exemplifies why. Through written correspondence, we realized that we wanted to meet the man who had inspired us and our family members to go to rallies and vigils on his behalf.

Meeting Troy was like seeing your child run out of the front door of school on their first-ever day there. Even between the two sets of locked bars, we could see his smile light up the room and his eyes say "Thank you for visiting." We saw the staff and other inmates interact with him almost as if he were family, and it was evident that they all liked him.

What was most remarkable about the visitation was its lack of being "remarkable." There were no awkward silences, no uncomfortable moments of "What do I say? What do I do?" It was like meeting a childhood friend; reconnecting as if time had stood still. Never did we feel as though we were visiting Death Row. Never did we feel that we were in the company of a man who was accused of killing someone or who had faced--and avoided--execution three times. There were others in the same room who we could not say the same, but Mr. Davis, he was different.

We spoke for hours on matters of his case and about our family, husbands, and employment. He was far more interested in finding out about our lives than in discussing his own situation. Oddly enough, he had such a serenity about his circumstances, trusting in our legal system, his supporters and his God.

He expressed sorrow for the officer's death, felt no malice towards those who wished him dead and questioned the toll it was all taking on his family. When we asked him how he was feeling, he said, "I am often surprised by the fact that I am not depressed or have never lost faith in my being set free. I have never felt imprisoned in my mind and because of that, I always remain hopeful. God has gotten me this far, He will carry me through, regardless of the outcome." It was here that I saw true faith: not found in prison, but a faith rooted in childhood. He lived it daily. He walks it out as opposed to speaking it out. His soft-spoken manner would have it no other way.

Mr. Davis humbly carries the torch for those in similar circumstances. He is mindful of his behavior and because of this, the only time he expressed any displeasure was when he spoke of being misrepresented: on execution days, Mr. Davis does not "refuse a meal," instead he is fasting.

I ask you to join me in speaking out on behalf of Troy Davis, and to pass the message along to your friends. We will ask the justice system to reopen his case to prove his innocence, or disprove it. Right now, too many questions still remain. Please join the I am Troy Davis campaign so that one day we can ensure that no one is sentenced to die when their guilt is uncertain. It is a legacy our children deserve. I am Troy Davis. I am Troy Davis.

Source(www.huffingtonpost.com)

Uphold the rule of law on torture

According to the Washington Post and recent articles in Newsweek the Attorney General is on the verge of making a decision on the appointment of a special prosecutor. We need for Holder to follow the facts and support the establishment of a commission of inquiry to look into the facts and the alleged abused associated with counterterrorism policies in the war on terror.

Tell your member of Congress to forward this open letter to Attorney General Holder asking him to commit to establishing an independent commission on torture.

» Background Information

Download the printable version PDF | RTF

Source(takeaction.amnestyusa.org)

Texas Reform Creates Office for Capital Appeals

A new law in Texas will create a state ohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifffice to handle the appeals of death row inmates. The office was created in response to a series of well publicized scandals which brought international attention to the subpar representation of capital offense appeals. Texas, unlike other states with capital punishment, had not used the public defender's office to handle the habeus corpus writs for their capital offenders, but instead had hired outside attorneys who often missed deadlines or wrote "skeletal writs". The new office will have a budget of a million dollars and a staff of nine, but its services will not be available to those capital inmates who have already used up their appeals. The Office of Capital Writs is expected to handle approximately ten appeals a year.

The Houston Chronicle: State to handle capital appeals

Source(newenglandinnocenceproject.blogspot.com)

Texas reporter's seen unrivaled number of U.S. executions

(CNN) -- It takes seven minutes to execute a death row inmate, according to the state of Texas.

Mike Graczyk poses outside the Texas death chamber prior to an execution in January.

At that rate, Mike Graczyk has spent about 40 hours of his life watching men -- and a few women -- die.

Graczyk, a correspondent for The Associated Press, is believed to hold a macabre record. He's almost certainly watched more executions than anyone else in the United States.

"I can't possibly imagine there's been someone present at more than Mike," said Michelle Lyons, the spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which uses lethal injection at its execution chamber in Huntsville.

Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, no state has executed more inmates than Texas. And no one has witnessed more of them than Graczyk.

He's on the witness list for 315 of the state's 439 executions -- more than any other reporter, prison employee or chaplain -- and no records were kept for another 80.

In his early days, he kept count. But he eventually stopped. He didn't want to know.

"In one circle, I was perceived as putting notches on my gun belt," the 59-year-old reporter said. "I didn't like that."

Prison regulations in Texas require The Associated Press to be given one of the five designated media witness passes for each execution.

Texas execution facts

Texas executions since death penalty was reinstated: 439

Cost per execution for drugs used : $86.08

Average time on death row before execution: 10.26 years

Youngest inmate executed: Three at 24

Oldest inmate executed: 66

Women executed: 3

Source: Texas Department of Criminal Justice

Graczyk works in the AP's Houston bureau -- it's closest to the state's execution chamber in Huntsville. Since the early 1980s, he's made the hourlong drive north almost every time an inmate has faced the needle.

The first was March 13, 1984, for the execution of James "Cowboy" Autry, convicted of shooting a female store clerk between the eyes with a .38-caliber revolver while arguing over a six-pack of beer.

She died, along with a former Catholic priest that Autry killed at the crime scene.

"The first time definitely leaves an impression on you," Graczyk said.

There are others that stand out along the way.

Graczyk remembers Bob Black, convicted of killing his wife and trying to collect the insurance money.

"I walked into the death house, and he was strapped to the table and he said, 'Hey Mike, how are you doing?' It threw me for a loop."

Graczyk said it's normal for him to know the name of the condemned and not uncommon for the reverse to be true. There have been others who greeted Graczyk by name with a needle in their arm.

Once, while waiting to be let into the death house, a prisoner phoned him in the media holding area.

It was the inmate whose execution Graczyk was about to witness.

"He said, 'I just wanted to call and make sure you were OK.' I was flabbergasted."

Don't Miss

• Texas Department of Criminal Justice: Official Web site

Over the years, the inmate's name has slipped from Graczyk's memory, but not the unexpected phone conversation.

"I don't think he had any family to call," he said.

There was Ponchai Wilkerson, who once nearly escaped from death row and, years later, coughed up a handcuff key as he lay dying from his injection.

There was the "Candy Man," Ronald Clark O'Bryan -- convicted of poisoning his child's Halloween candy with cyanide -- and the gauntlet of college students wearing Halloween masks who showed up to cheer.

And Karla Faye Tucker, the first woman executed in Texas since the 1800s. He remembers a network correspondent crying after her death -- and another blow-drying his hair.

Of the entire death chamber ritual, Graczyk said, it's the final statements that stick in his mind. Some have been confessions. Others were denials.

Poetry. Prayers. Bible verses. Curses. Emotions ranging from defiance to resignation.

There was Jonathan Nobles, an electrician who stabbed two people to death. He sang "Silent Night."

"Ever since then, I think of him on Christmas or Christmas Eve when I'm in church," Graczyk said. "That's the kind of thing that haunts you."

The person who may come closest to Graczyk's status also felt things that haunted him.

Don Reid, a writer for the AP and, before that, a Texas newspaper, witnessed 189 executions in the 1960s, when Texas still strapped inmates to "Old Sparky," the nickname for the state's electric chair.

The experience changed Reid, who died in 1981, from a supporter of the death penalty to an opponent. He wrote a book, "Have a Seat, Please," chronicling that transformation.

Graczyk said he doesn't worry about the mental toll of watching so many deaths. His bosses with the AP have offered counseling. He's declined.

"To see someone go to sleep -- not to sound insensitive -- but the carnage at the murder scene is harder than what you see in the death house in Huntsville," he said.

Over a 25-year career, Graczyk said, the executions have only been a small portion of his work. He finds balance in those other stories.

As a journalist, Graczyk never answers the question when friends ask his own views on the death penalty.

"I'm not sure I really know," he said.

But as long as Texas keeps executing people, Graczyk said, it's important that he keep showing up.

The next execution in Huntsville was scheduled for Thursday before the condemned, convicted murderer Kenneth Mosley, was granted a reprieve until September.

If the execution goes ahead then, Graczyk plans to make the drive. "I would hate for the state of Texas to take someone's life and no one be there," he said.

Source(www.cnn.com)