California Prisoners Sentenced to Death by Water

The water at Kern Valley State Prison contains twice the federally accepted level of arsenic, a known carcinogen. But the 4,800 men imprisoned at the “state-of-the-art” Central California facility have no choice: they have to drink it.

And it's not as if prison officials just learned about the issue last week. In fact, tests on the water discovered the problem soon after the prison opened in 2005. The powers that be have just chosen to do nothing about it.

Not that there haven’t been promises. In a 2008 memoinforming both incarcererated men and prison employees of the problem, then-warden Anthony Hedgpeth said that “[w]e anticipate resolving the problem by June 2009.” Notice that ambiguous phrasing --“anticipate resolving” -- instead of a simple declarative sentence like, say, “we will resolve the problem.”

Tellingly, the same memo declares: “This is not an emergency,” never mind the fact that arsenic is known to damage the circulatory system and to cause “cancer of the bladder, lungs, skin, kidneys, nasal passages, liver and prostate,” according to the EPA. And promises aside, nothing has been done to address the problem of the prison poisoning its prisoners. In the meantime, prison officials have pressed for a massive expansion of Kern Valley State Prison, at an annual cost to taxpayers of $86 million.

Priorities.

Clearly, officials at Kern Valley State Prison just don’t care about the health and well-being of those they are charged with overseeing. But don’t take my word for it. "It's not that major of an issue," says Hedgepeth’s successor, Kelly Harrington, of his prison’s poison problem. Not to him, maybe (I have a hunch he brings in his own bottled water).

It is a problem to those forced to drink water that, according to Bertha Nava, the mother of a man incarcerated there for the last five years, only looks like “part water” -- the other part being urine. In an interview, she says her son has been denied not just clean drinking water, but medication for the nerve damage in his left leg. He’s also lost 20 pounds because the food at the prison is inadequate to meet an adult man’s needs. And because of a perpetual state of “lock down,” Nava says she’s been unable to so much as seen her son for the past six months.

Part of the problem is California’s budget woes; in a time of economic crisis, the most affected or those who are already the most neglected by society: prisoners and the poor. But that’s not all of it, as folks like Warden Harrington have made clear.

“They really don't care,” Nava says, her pain evident as she talks. “They don't care about the prisoners in there. They really, really neglect them.” And the consequences of that neglect will be felt for years to come -- by prisoners, their families and the members of society they will someday rejoin.

“My son is supposed to be released in 13 years,” says Nava. “Well, what medical problems is he going to have when he's released? Will he be able to function normally? Or is he going to be released just to die from cancer because of the water?” And for the heartless, to-hell-with-them types out there: who do you think is going to pick up the medical bill?

Nava's not the only one wondering what the long-term effects of drinking arsenic-laced water will have on her child. Blanca Gonzalez is another mother whose son did time at Kern Valley State Prison, where she says he became incredibly ill because of the foul water he was forced to drink. Speaking to Change.org, she explains why she’s now launched a campaign targeting California state lawmakers urging them to do something about the long, drawn out death sentence to which many of the prison’s nearly 5,000 inmates have been extra-judicially sentenced.

“Prior to my son being incarcerated, prison issues did not interest me,” Gonzalez says. “I was not interested in them because my kids were all doing good, I had a good job, had money in the bank, lived in a good neighborhood without gangs. So why worry?”

Only after her son was imprisoned -- when she was personally affected by the U.S.’s over-reliance on incarceration -- did her thinking change. “And I must tell you,” she says, “I am appalled at the treatment in prison, the conditions of confinement. And I pray that this does not happen to other people.”

Unfortunately, as Gonzalez is well aware, it’s all too easy to dismiss the suffering of people in prison -- of those who are physically separated from society, easily demonized and usually forgotten.

However, as Nava explains, it’s not just the prisoners who are suffering from their ill treatment. “We’re suffering along with them,” shey says, “they’re not suffering by themselves.” And though those behind bars may very well have made mistakes, “they have families. They have people who care for them. They are not to be forgotten, because they are human.”

But you wouldn’t know it from the way they are treated.

Charles Davis

4 Prisoners Facing Executions or Serving Extreme Jail Sentences Who Very Well May Be Innocent

This is an old article, but the points made are still valid so worth another airing! R2J

Recent evidence shows that an executed Texas man was innocent. There are others who still might avoid that fate.

October 26, 2009  |  

 a Petition �

The tragic unraveling of the case against Cameron Todd Willingham -- the Texas man executed in 2004 for killing his own daughters by supposedly setting fire to his house -- seems to have crossed a major threshold in the debate over the death penalty in the past several weeks. For the first time in recent memory, there is devastating proof that an innocent man was put to death in this country.

Such a revelation, one might think, would give pause to even the most enthusiastic death penalty supporter. Yet Texas Governor Rick Perry, who has signed off on more than 200 executions, including Willingham's, is only focused on protecting his political career. The governor, who faces a hotly contested primary race against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson next year, is going to great lengths to cover up evidence of Willingham's innocence -- particularly proof that he had this evidence in his hands before he signed off on his murder. At the same time, he continues to defend the death penalty in Texas as perfectly fine: "Our process works and I don’t see anything out there that would merit calling for a moratorium on the Texas death penalty,” hesaid last week.

Meanwhile, Texas is gearing up to execute another prisoner tomorrow, a man named Reginald Blanton, who has a very strong innocence claim of his own. (Read about his case here.)

Cruel and unusual though it might seem, for a person to be sentenced to die for a crime he or she did not commit is hardly a unique phenomenon in this country. In the past 35 years, no fewer than 138 people have been released from death row after proof of their innocence was discovered -- including eight this year alone. How many may have been executed before their innocence was known is unclear. As Adam Liptak wrote in the New York Times last year, "we know almost nothing about the number of innocent people in prison." Beyond death row, innocent men and women have languished in prison for decades, serving life sentences for crimes they didn't commit. Some have been exonerated. But many remain scattered in prison cells across the country, insisting on their innocence. These are prisoners whose cases, when examined up close, are often full of holes: a lack of physical evidence, unreliable -- or recanted -- witness testimony, false confessions, and more. Racism, crooked and lazy cops, untrustworthy jailhouse snitches, and the political aspirations of prosecutors who use them are just a few factors fueling wrongful convictions.

The list below could be much, much longer. But here are just four cases where innocent people appear to have been wrongfully convicted of terrible crimes. Some of them were sentenced to multiple life sentences. Others were sentenced to death. All of them remain behind bars.

Rodney Reed

In April of 1996, a 19-year-old woman named Stacey Stites was murdered in Texas, her body discovered in a wooded area just outside the city of Bastrop. Stites's body was partly clothed; she had evidently been strangled to death. DNA taken from semen found inside her body was matched to an African American man from Bastrop. His name was Rodney Reed.

At trial, the prosecution accused Reed of assaulting Stites while she was on her way to work, early in the morning. According to a 2002 report in the Austin Chronicle, "Prosecutors successfully argued that at some point on Stites' early morning drive ... Reed accosted Stites and forced his way into the truck -- while apparently on foot and without the aid of any weapon -- and raped, sodomized, and strangled her with the braided leather belt she was wearing, then dumped her body and abandoned the truck "

"This theory of the crime was deduced, theorized, and then presented at trial from a single piece of evidence: the match of Reed's DNA."

There was no other physical evidence linking him to the crime. Nevertheless, Reed was found guilty and sentenced to death.

Yet there was one critical twist in the case: Rodney Reed, many said, was having an affair with the engaged Stites. That would make their sexual relationship consensual, explaining the semen found in her body.

Stites's fiancee, Jimmy Fennell, was a police officer in Giddings. At trial, Reed's defense attorneys tried, unsuccessfully, to show that it was Fennell who killed Stites, in a fit of rage over her affair with Reed. According to the Chronicle, "Court records show 10 other people were publicly identified as witnesses to the affair either during the trial or by affidavit." 'Everyone knew,' [Austin attorney Jimmy Brown] said. 'The people who worked with her knew; they confirmed it unofficially. None would come out with it, because we are talking about a white woman who was having sex with a black man in Bastrop -- and then she's dead. But there is no question they knew about it.'"

There were other reasons to suspect Jimmy Fennell. Not the least of which was the fact that, upon being brought in to answer questions about his murdered fiance, he failed two polygraph tests when asked question: "Did you strangle Stacey Stites?" Yet no further investigation into him ever went forward. The pickup truck that Stites was driving was returned to him soon after the murder, after an incomplete forensics investigation. Fennell then sold the truck, the very next day.

Over the years, alarming new pieces of evidence have surfaced. In March 2006, with Reed on death row, a former police academy classmate of Fennell's testified in District Court that Fennell once told him he would choke his girlfriend to death with a belt if she cheated on him.

Fennell had a reputation for his explosive anger and violence against women, one that would culminate in an indictment against him, in December 2007, for the rape and kidnapping of a woman who he took into custody while on duty with the Georgetown Police Department.. Last September, he pled guilty to the charges rather than facing trial and was sentenced to ten years.

That same month, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Reed's latest appeal. As the Austin Chronicle pointed out, the ruling affirmed an earlier decision by Bastrop County Judge Reva Towslee Corbett, who happened to be the daughter of the judge in Reed's original trial. Not surprisingly, Corbett saw no proof that that state had done anything wrong in sentencing him to death.

Rodney Reed has been waiting to die for almost ten years. If the courts continue to rubber stamp his conviction, it will only be a matter of time before he finds himself facing an execution date for a crime he almost certainly did not commit.

To learn more about the case of Rodney Reed, go here.

Efrén Paredes, Jr.

In 1989, Efrén Paredes, Jr was just 15, a Latino honors student in a small Michigan town, when he was accused of an unlikely murder: the killing of his boss, Rick Tetzlaff, the 28-year-old assistant manager at Roger's Vineland Foodland in St. Joseph, Michigan. Paredes worked part time bagging groceries; that night, he had been asked to cover a shift and then agreed to stay late to help Tetzlaff with some chores. Tetzlaff offered to give Paredes a ride home so that he would be home by 9:30, at his mother's request. Later that night, Tetzlaff was shot dead in the store, the victim of a robbery and grisly "thrill kill," according to prosecutors, who singled out Paredes as the murderer.

But Paredes's mother, Velia Koppenhoefer, a former Foodland employee, insists that Efren had already been dropped off at home when the murder took place, having eaten pizza with her and his stepfather, Hans, before going to bed. "We know he is innocent because he was with us, not because he told us he didn't do the crime," his mother told AlterNet. "It was physically impossible for him to have done it." There was no physical evidence linking Efren to the crime -- except for fingerprints on the store's cash register, which would seem to make sense, given that he worked there.

Nevertheless, police came and arrested Paredes, accusing him of robbery and murder.

Soon thereafter, the father of a local teenager named Steve Miller called the police, saying he had information about who planned and carried out deadly crime. He named four people: Chinese-American brothers Alex and Eric Mui (ages 17 and 16), a white teenager named Jason Williamson (16), and Paredes. His own son, Steve, later admitted to having a role. He was granted immunity and not charged with a single crime.

The Muis and Williamson told wildly contradictory stories about the plot to rob the grocery store, accounts that "not only conflict(ed) with each other but also with what some witnesses told police," according to the South Bend Tribune, which recently ran an investigative series on the case, But all the teenagers pointed at Paredes as the ringleader. "He said that he had did it," Alex Mui told police.

The case became a media circus; it was the first murder in ten years in the small town of St. Joseph, and the Paredes's one-week trial was covered heavily. The judge issued daily admonishments to the jurors to try to insulate themselves from the constant bombardment of news coverage. "I have seen in some of the newspaper reports, some things that are inaccurate, and that could be very misleading and be prejudicial to either side," he told jurors on the fourth day of the trial. "Therefore, again, I'm going to emphasize ... to keep yourself apart and separate and free from any outside influence."

This would prove difficult -- and not just because of local coverage of the case. The trial took place at the height over the hysteria over the famous Central Park Jogger case in New York, in which Black and Latino youths were falsely accused of brutally raping a white investment banker in Manhattan. (Many of them gavefalse confessions; all of them have since been exonerated.) The case drew ugly, racist imagery in the media, with the youths portrayed as animalistic urban predators. "Efren's case was right in the midst of that," recalls Koppenhoefer.

As in the Central Park jogger case, she says, "racism played a large role in how the media covered Efren's case." What's more, "the jury had 11 whites on it and one black male. All the police who investigated the case were white, the prosecutor was white, the victim was white. Additionally, the county (Berrien County) has never had a non-white sheriff or chief prosecutor in its history. The county is also very Republican," she added.

Race seems to have played a role in the sentencing of the four boys as well: In the end, Eric Mui pled guilty to armed robbery and murder and received two life sentences. Alex, his brother, pled guilty to armed robbery, and given a similar sentence. Both had the possibility of parole and both of them were released in the past few years. Meanwhile, Jason Williamson was tried in juvenile court. He pled guilty to conspiracy to commit armed robbery and got out after just six months in juvenile detention.

Of all of the teenagers, Paredes was the youngest, the first 15-year-old defendant in the county ever to be tried as an adult. He was also the only one who refused tp plead guilty. "If they said they would release me tomorrow if I would plead guilty, I wouldn't do it," he said. He was given three life sentences, with no possibility of parole, a virtual in-house death sentence.

(Later it was discovered that the jury had been overwhelmingly in favor of acquitting Paredes, but the jury foreman, a man named Brian Marsh, argued forcefully for him to be found guilty. Marsh, it turned out, was a co-worker of a relative of Rick Tetzlaff.)

For the past two decades, activists led by Paredes's family have been fighting for a re-examination of his case. In December 2008, he was granted a public hearing by the Michigan Parole and Commutation Board; nearly 200 people attended.

Paredes is now 36 years old. After the U.S.Supreme Court declined to hear his case, a commutation request on his behalf was sent to Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm. This past April, members of the Parole Board sent their recommendation on the case to Granholm's office. They will not publicly announce what the recommendation was. "Now the Governor will issue a final decision which could be rendered any day now," Paredes's mother says. In an article in the Detroit Free Press, Jeff Gerritt wrote that Paredes is "probably innocent." But, like other innocent prisoners who refuse to express remorse for a crime they did not commit, this lack of remorse could convince the Board to deny his commutation request.

"Granholm should seriously consider the recommendations of the Parole Board, but the power of commutation is hers alone," wrote Gerritt. "In the Paredes case and others, the Parole Board should not keep her from doing the right thing."

To learn more about this case, and to sign a petition on behalf of Paredes, go here.

Timothy McKinney

On Christmas night, 1997, Timothy McKinney was one of hundreds of revelers at a comedy club in Memphis, Tennessee, when an off-duty police officer moonlighting as a security guard was shot, later dying from his injuries.

McKinney had argued with the officer, a man named Donald Williams, earlier that night -- he was upset because he could not find his car and he thought it had been stolen or towed -- but upon being accused of the murder, he swore he was innocent.

He had a case: According to an official police statement by Williams' colleague, Frank Lee, who heard the gunshot and ran after the shooter, the assailant was an African American male wearing a "black t-shirt, black pants, orange or gold hushpuppy like shoes, orange bandana around his mouth, no hat."

This hardly matched the outfit McKinney had on that night, an outfit described by Lee himself, in the same statement, as a "multi-color sweater" with "circular designs around the arm, and around the body of the shirt -- they were gold, yellow, red," and "a gold sleeveless leather vest." McKinney’s pants were described as "black or navy blue trousers." The one similarity were his shows, hushpuppies described as "orange or orange gold."

This contradiction -- within the same police document, no less -- didn't seem to faze the cops. Neither did a different description of the shooter from another eyewitness, a 24-year-old woman named Joyce Jeltz, who was leaving the club when Williams was shot. In her initial statement to police, she described the killer as wearing "a dark color knit turtle neck sweater pulled over his nose and mouth" and "brown pants." She also described his hair -- no mention of a hat -- as "dark brown," with a "low fade hair cut."

Jeltz was shown a photo array of six black men and asked: "After viewing the photographs did you recognize an individual that was responsible for this crime?" Jeltz said, "No."

"I cannot identify the suspect at this time," she said, signing her statement at 11:26 AM.

(Jeltz's friend, 23-year-old Karen Thornton, also described the shooter as wearing a "black turtle neck sweater and dark pants or stone wash jeans." According to her, though, he was also wearing a skull cap. Thorton's statement did not make it into the courtroom, however.)

Yet, when it came time for the trial, the case against McKinney hinged almost entirely on eyewitness testimony from the same people whose descriptions of the killer didn't match McKinney: Lee and Jeltz. It helped that during the trial, Jeltz's story changed: Not only did she identify him as the shooter, she also described his outfit -- specifically, the gold vest -- from the photograph. (Later, upon being cross-examined, she admitted that the prosecutors had shown her the vest that morning.)

Timothy McKinney's trial began on his 25th birthday. It lasted just two days. According to court documents, "the defense presented no evidence at trial" -- an incredible statement, given its implications. As attorneys working on McKinney's appeal later argued, "the decision to put on no defense cannot conceivably be characterized as a reasonable strategic choice in this case." Perhaps one of the defense team's most important efforts -- the introduction of an expert witness on wrongful identifications, the leading factor behind wrongful convictions -- was denied by the court.

 On July 14, 1999, McKinney was convicted of premeditated, first-degree murder, and of attempted second degree murder. He was sentenced to death.

In the years since his trial, evidence that never made it into court has raised alarming -- and long overdue -- questions about McKinney's death sentence. In addition to the absurdly contradictory eyewitness statements, according to recent appellate briefs, "police dispatch logs … not produced until long after the trial confirmed that, for Mr. McKinney to have been responsible for the shooting, a lengthy series of events must have all occurred between 2:01 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. (when the crime was committed), rather than between 12:30 am. and 2:35 a.m., as the prosecution asserted at trial." Among them: driving to his girlfriend's house, four miles away, arguing with her for 20 minutes, and driving back. Officer Lee's claim that McKinney was the only patron who clashed with the guards that night has also been proven false: Seven other people who were there have since testified that multiple confrontations had occurred that night between patrons and the officers.

Hundreds of people were said to have been at the club that night. 150 have been identified. Of those, a third reportedly have police records. Attorneys for McKinney believe they know the true identity of the person who killed Williams that night. But above all, they argue that McKinney did not get a fair trial, that he was railroaded to the death house on false and circumstantial evidence.

McKinney has been on death row for ten years. He still insists upon his innocence.

To learn more about Timothy McKinney, go here.

Anthony McKinney

Anthony McKinney (no relation to Timothy McKinney) has spent 31 years in prison for the killing of a security guard in 1978, when he was 18 years old. In the past few years, journalism students at Northwestern University have re-investigated his case, uncovering incontrovertible proof of his innocence. "After more than three years of reporting, involving nine reporting teams, we became convinced that Anthony had been wrongly convicted and that several other men were responsible for the crime," according to David Protess, director of the Medill Innocence Project, who calls the McKinney case "about the most tragic I've ever seen."

According to Protess:

Around 9:30 p.m. on September 15, 1978, Donald Lundahl, a white security guard, was sitting in his car in the far south Chicago suburb of Harvey when he was murdered at close range by a shotgun blast. Later that evening, one of the Harvey police officers who was called to investigate the murder noticed an African-American youth, Anthony McKinney, running down the street near the crime scene. The officer arrested Anthony, even though he possessed no weapon, signs of blood spatter or other physical evidence that would have predictably linked him to the brutal homicide.

Anthony, an 18-year-old Harvey resident with no history of violent crime, professed his innocence and explained that he was running from gang-bangers when the officer saw him. Lacking any direct evidence against Anthony, the Harvey police released him, though he remained a prime suspect. The authorities soon began questioning others about the crime, including another Harvey teenager, Wayne Phillips. Phillips eventually told police that he was an eyewitness to the murder, claiming that -- from 50 yards away -- he saw Anthony point the shotgun at Lundahl and declare, "Your money or your life." Anthony then was re-arrested, and, after a lengthy interrogation, signed a confession (typed by police) admitting the crime and saying the motive was robbery.

Prosecutors in the case sought the death penalty, but McKinney was sentenced to natural life in prison.

Decades later, McKinney's brother, Michael, got in touch with Northwester's Innocence Project, convincing them to take up the case. Journalism students re-interviewed original witnesses, discovering that they had been beaten and coerced by the police into giving false testimony. One man, Dennis Pettis, was 15 years old the night he and Wayne Phillips were picked up for questioning by two police officers, who he identified as McCarthy and Morrison.

In a sworn affidavit dated October 2005, Pettis said that the officers put the two boys in separate rooms. "I told them that I did not see the murder and did not know anything about it," he said. "But they told me that Wayne said that he had seen the murder and that I was with him and saw the murder, too."

The officers tried to get Pettis to implicate Anthony McKinney, telling him that his friend already had. "McCarthy and Morrison also told me that if I didn't give Anthony McKinney up, Anthony would give me up." The officers also also implied that "if I went along with their story, I would get the reward money that the police department was offering for information on the murder." When he still did not say what they wanted him to say, Pettis says "McCarty and Morrison started to beat me up."

"They hit me, punched me, kicked me, and tried to intimidate me They implied that they were going to kill me if I said anything different from what they were telling me to say."

Pettis finally said he wrote down what he was told "because I wanted to leave that room alive."

"What I wrote down was not true, but I signed it because I wanted to go home."

Pettit testified before the grand jury -- "I was scared of what McCarthy and Morrison would do to me if I didn't go along with their story" -- but he skipped town before the trial. ("I did not want to lie again and I was scared of what McCarty and Morrison would do to me if I told the truth.") Three weeks after his interrogation, Pettis left home to live with an aunt on the West side of Chicago. He stayed for seven years.

"I am coming forward with the truth now because I am no longer afraid that McCarthy and Morrison will hurt me," Pettis said on October 8, 2005. He was 42 years old.

Like Pettis, Phillips, too says today that he was beaten up by the police. Both men have recanted their original testimony, on tape.

Most recently, the McKinney case has been at the center of a controversy between the Cook County States Attorney's office and Northwestern. With a new hearing on the case coming up, prosecutors are now going after the journalism students and their investigation. According to the Chicago Tribune, the Cook County state's attorney has "subpoenaed the students' grades, notes and recordings of witness interviews, the class syllabus and even e-mails they sent to each other and to professor David Protess of the university's Medill School of Journalism."

The school has turned over documents relating to the new evidence in the case, but it is putting up a fight when it comes to grades and other academic records.  As Protess recently told the Tribune. “Prosecutors should be more concerned with the wrongful conviction of Anthony McKinney than with my students' grades."

Liliana Segura 

Trinidad & Tobago's death penalty push is not about sovereignty

The nation's PM wants to break the link with the UK privy council – but doesn't engage with the Caribbean court of appeal either

Anthony Briggs, who went to the gallows in July 1999, is the last person to have been executed by the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. He had battered a taxi driver to death in a row over car parts. A month earlier,Dole Chadee, a drug baron who maintained a criminal syndicate through the patronage of communities and government agents, also received the death penalty, along with eight of his minions. Chadee and his gang had been convicted of gunning down an entire family.

Today Trinidad and Tobago has 42 prisoners on death row who are awaiting execution. Between 2002 and 2010, there were 3,335 murders, an average of 416 a year in this nation of 1.3 million people. The prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, asserts that the death penalty is a "weapon in [our] arsenal" to fight this horrendous murder rate. Through a proposed amendment to the constitution, she has made a case to "overcome the hindrances to the implementation of the death penalty arising out of various privy council decisions". If the bill passes, death row inmates could not escape the gallows by complaining of inhumane prison conditions. Nor could they argue they are entitled to have their cases disposed of by international human rights bodies, before the last-ditch hearings by the local mercy committee, an advisory body on pardons.

Capital punishment enjoys widespread public support in Trinidad and Tobago, as it does in many Commonwealth countries in the Caribbean. In an effort to play to populist sentiment, the drive to hang convicted murderers is cast throughout the Caribbean as a matter of national sovereignty. But its opponents believe that Persad-Bissessar's measure is a vast over-reach, and legally unnecessary. They argue that her initiative is fundamentally symbolic and intended to create the perception that she is being tough on crime.

Abolitionists hail the fact that there has been no execution in Trinidad and Tobago since 1999 as a massive victory of public interest legal advocacy. Campaigns such as the Death Penalty Project, an initiative of the London firm of Simons, Muirhead and Burton, have worked with Caribbean lawyers for nearly two decades. As a private lawyer (and working pro bono) the present UK director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, helped argue privy council cases that struck down mandatory death sentences for murder in Jamaica and the Bahamas.

Despite talk of sovereignty in discussions on the death penalty, the London-based privy council is still Trinidad and Tobago's final court of appeal. This arrangement is a throwback to the days when the country was a British colony. The judicial committee of the privy council is essentially comprised of the judges of the UK supreme court, reconstituting themselves as the privy council. Though UK judges ordinarily work in a domestic system that has long abolished the death penalty, they have shown remarkable restraint and fidelity to the laws of Caribbean countries. Trinidad and Tobago's engagement of the privy council persists, even as the Caribbean court of justice (CCJ) – intended as a final court of appeal for Caricom member countries – is situated in its capital, Port of Spain. Yet neither it nor Jamaica sends cases to the CCJ, as their final appellate court.

Persad-Bissessar's attempts to challenge the drive towards abolition must be resisted. Her government's failure to fully engage with the CCJ and subject death penalty questions to a homegrown final court, suggests an abiding suspicion of judicial review and the influence of international human rights. The CCJ has earned kudos for its choice of judges and the rigour of its decisions. The PM should submit to the court, and thereby signal her acceptance of its role as the ultimate judge of law in Caribbean society.

Philip Dayle

The Justice Department has a way to go on ending prison rape

THE LATE SEN. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) did not agree on much. So it was remarkable when they joined to champion the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA).

Enacted in 2003, the landmark law was meant to address the scourge of sexual abuse behind bars that for too long had been accepted as an unavoidable byproduct of incarceration. It is not. Incidences of sexual abuse represent egregious lapses in institutional order and security. They are inhumane and inexcusable violations that scar tens of thousands of adult and juvenile inmates each year, often complicating their ability to reintegrate into society.


Last week, the Justice Department took an important, long-overdue but still inadequate step toward fulfilling PREA's promise. In releasing draft regulations to implement the landmark legislation, the department closely tracked many of the recommendations of the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission, the congressionally created panel that spent some six years studying the problem. The department concluded, for instance, that PREA addresses not just rape but all manner of sexual abuse in correctional facilities - an interpretation resisted by some corrections officials. It calls for the adoption of a zero-tolerance policy for sexual abuse; maintains prohibitions on cross-gender pat and strip searches of juveniles; requires a facility to designate an on-site PREA coordinator; and calls for background checks of prospective corrections officers to screen for past incidents of inmate abuse.


But the department punted on several crucial issues - a particularly frustrating development given that it had the benefit of a thorough and credible report from the commission. The department failed to articulate rules for independent audits of facilities and did not come to any conclusions about how often such audits should take place. (The commission recommendation: every three years.) Such evaluations are crucial in determining whether facilities are complying with the law's mandate. Perhaps one reason the Justice Department had a hard time with audits is that it also failed to specify what criteria should be used to determine whether an institution is in compliance with the law.



Administration officials argue that the draft regulations are just that - preliminary proposals to be fleshed out once more information is gathered; the department will be accepting public comments for approximately two months. Some delay and duplication are beyond the administration's control. But it is perturbing that the department has not made more progress in answering these critical questions. Didn't it miss a congressional deadline in 2010 because of protracted "listening sessions" in which it tilled much of the same ground already worked by the commission? As it now stands, the department will probably not finalize its rules until the end of the year.


If there is a silver lining, it is that the Justice Department can reconsider some of its initial determinations; one of the decisions it should rethink is its exclusion of immigration detention centers from PREA's reach. Everyone in government custody - regardless of the type of institution - should be assured of an environment free from abuse.


WP editorial

Ending the death penalty: It can't be contained!

New campaigns to end the death penalty have just kicked off in Connecticut and Maryland! A bill to repeal the death penalty already rocketed through the legislature in Illinois this month. And Montana kicked off their repeal campaign last week!

I guess this justice thing is kinda contagious.

But why are we so excited about these states?

In 2009 the Connecticut legislature voted to repeal the death penalty and it would be law today if it hadn't been vetoed by the Governor. But now Connecticut has a new governor who promises he will sign a repeal bill if it gets to his desk. If you live in Connecticut, act now athttp://ejusa.org/act/CT

In Maryland, a study commission found the death penalty was broken beyond repair and recommended ending the death penalty. The Governor agrees, along with dozens of members of law enforcement, families of murder victims, and religious leaders. If you live in Maryland, act now athttp://ejusa.org/act/MD

Now is our moment. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for your support. Don't forget to get your friends in Maryland and Connecticut in on the action by asking them to sign up with us athttp://ejusa.org/signup for breaking news and action opportunities in their home state!

Emma Weisfeld-Adams

Justice system can be improved by removing ultimate penalty

For more than 32 years I had the honor of working at the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. During my career I held various positions, including warden, regional director, assistant director and then director. In carrying out the responsibilities of my positions and the law of this great state, I personally observed the execution of 33 men from 2001 to 2010.

All 33 times, in the back of my mind I questioned: Had all the reviews and appeals got this case right? Did the process make certain, absolutely, there was no mistake or error? I wondered that because I had previously walked people out of prison who were found not guilty after years of incarceration. What if we got it wrong for those we executed?

Our judicial and corrections system is among the finest in the world. We provide some of the best attorneys, judges and corrections personnel anywhere. I know, have met and have worked closely with so many of them. Our judicial system is the envy of nations. Yet, we continue to be one of the few industrialized nations to carry out the death penalty when we know mistakes happen.

I respect Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul E. Pfeifer's concerns about the death penalty. He wrote the law as a legislator and observed its implementation in the state's highest court. His conclusion that it is exceedingly difficult for the death penalty to be administered in a fair and just way is worthy of public debate and scrutiny.

The death penalty is expensive, often inefficient and always time-consuming. Too often our justice system does not place the worst of the worst on Death Row. I saw some of the worst offenders in our prison system, and often they were not on Death Row. It surprised me, at times, to see who did end up on Death Row. I think this disparity is important for state leaders to address.

I am convinced that the death penalty is not a fiscally responsible policy for Ohio. It costs millions of dollars to execute people in Ohio, more than life imprisonment. Those costs begin at the trial phases and continue through appeals to pay for lawyers, judges and prisons. The expense of county and state resources that go into two separate trials in death penalty cases (one to decide innocence or guilt and the second to decide life or death) adds up quickly before anyone spends a single day on Death Row. Then the appeals begin, compounding these enormous costs. It is also expensive to maintain Death Rows once offenders begin to serve their time there. Costs related to the death penalty should be of serious concern, given our state's need for cost-effective judicial reform.

There is another cost that we do not always consider: that borne by victims' families. It is emotionally traumatic for the families of victims to be recalled into courts year after year because of so many death-penalty appeals. I observed firsthand the emotions of the victims' families. An increasing number of families ask the state not to pursue the death penalty so that they are not faced with the painful task of attending appeals hearings, and so they can achieve closure. Life imprisonment without parole offers justice that is swift, certain, effectively severe and perhaps more sensitive to the needs of healing victims' families.

Since life without parole became an option in Ohio, the number of death sentences has been drastically reduced. Many in our society have deemed this alternative to be a reasonable measure and a way to keep Ohio communities safe, something every member of the law-enforcement community values. We can have confidence knowing that when necessary, we can safely incarcerate offenders for life.

Ohioans, whether they support or oppose the death penalty, should take notice that one of the greatest critics of capital punishment is the same man who once supported it and worked to make it law.

The reasonable course of action for state officials is to begin to have serious and thoughtful conversations about whether Ohio's death penalty remains necessary, fair and effective. My experience tells me that our justice system can be even more effective and fair without Death Rows and the death penalty.

Terry Collins

Calif. gang member faces death penalty trial

One woman died, several injured in attack on Cypress cafe in 2004. 
A reputed member of an Asian street gang nicknamed "dragon" faces a death penalty trial beginning today for allegedly gunning down one woman and shooting at six other people in an unprovoked attack at a Cypress cafe in 2004.

Stephenson Choi Kim, 31, of San Gabriel is charged with murder, six felony counts of attempted murder and street terrorism, plus several sentencing enhancements. He is also accused of the special circumstances of committing a murder for the benefit of his gang, which qualifies him for a potential death sentence.

It is the first death penalty trial in Orange County this year. Opening statements are expected today before Superior Court Judge John D. Conley in the Central Justice Center.

Six co-defendants are also charged with similar crimes, but they face maximum sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted.

The co-defendants are Robin Kim, 28, of Cerritos; Christopher Ung, 27, of Lakewood; Wilson Sun, 28, of Lakewood; Chakris Kanchanapoomi, 27, of Long Beach; Ashil Manek Nair, 26, of Cerritos; and Glenn Lamuel Watkins, 24, of Lakewood.

Prosecutors say Stephenson Kim was drinking at a home March 14, 2004, with several members of his gang, including Robin Kim, Nair, Sun, Watkins, Kanchanapoomi, and Ung, when they decided to drive around looking for rival gang members to fight.

The defendants are accused of driving to 5th Wave Café in Cypress, where Venus Hyun, 22, was having dinner with six friends. Two of the co-defendants approached the table and asked if any of Hyun's friends were gang members, prosecutors said.

Richard Woodhead tried to explain that he had been connected to a gang, but that he "didn't bang anymore," and that the two gangs were not enemies anyway, says a news release from the Orange County District Attorney's Office.

Stephenson Kim, who had been waiting outside, then took out a handgun, entered the crowded cafe, walked up to the table where Hyun and Woodhead were sitting with other friends, and started shooting, prosecutors said.

A bullet struck Hyun in the back, bounced off her shoulder blade and lodged in her brain, prosecutors said. She collapsed and died later at the hospital.

Four others at Hyun's table were wounded, including Jean Lee and Ronald Woodhead. Two others escaped the shooting spree unscathed.

Orange county register

Court In SF Upholds Death Penalty For Man Convicted Of Killing 11-Year-Old Girl

The California Supreme Court in San Francisco today upheld the death penalty of a Salinas man who killed an 11-year-old girl while burglarizing her home in 1998

Ronald Wayne Moore, now 58, was convicted in Monterey County Superior Court in 1999 of the first-degree murder of Nicole Carnahan on March 4, 1998.

The jury also found a special circumstance of murder committed during a burglary and robbery, which provided the foundation for the death sentence given to Moore.

Moore, a heroin addict who was in a methadone program, lived in a trailer on property behind the back pasture of the Salinas house in which Nicole and her mother lived.

The mother, Rebecca Carnahan, arrived home from work on March 4 to find the house ransacked and her daughter missing. Nicole normally arrived home on a school bus at 3 p.m., fed the farm animals in the pasture, and did homework until her mother got home, according to testimony at the trial.

Sheriff's deputies found the girl's body stuffed between her bed and a wall. The room was splattered with blood, and she had a knife blade lodged in her neck. She had also been beaten on the head with a blunt object.

Jewelry, a stereo and other items taken from the house were found in Moore's trailer along with a cane, a metal pipe and clothing stained with blood that was linked to Nicole by DNA analysis.

Moore told deputies who interviewed him that day that he had been to the house to ask Nicole for a drink of water, but he denied killing her and said he had seen an unknown Hispanic man in the back yard.

The state high court unanimously rejected a series of arguments Moore raised on appeal, including his claim that the jury should not have been allowed to hear evidence about three interviews with detectives on March 4.

Moore was not told of his right to have a lawyer present until the end of the third interview, which took place at the sheriff's station. After the detective interviewing him learned that stolen items had been found in his trailer, the detective arrested him, informed him of his rights and ended the questioning when Moore asked for a lawyer.

The court said Moore was not under arrest and was free to leave until that point, and was initially questioned because he was the last person known to have seen Nicole.

"Obviously an important witness, defendant was asked to go to the station voluntarily to give a statement," Justice Kathryn Werdegar wrote.

The panel also turned down Moore's argument that prosecutors hadn't proved the special circumstance that he went to the house intending to commit a first-degree burglary and robbery.

"From the prosecution evidence, the jury could reasonably infer that defendant, a heroin addict without the money to pay his electricity bill, prearranged a passage to and from his neighbor's back yard by removing the fence boards, armed himself with a knife and metal pipe, and donned gloves before going to Carnahan's house," Werdegar wrote.

"He then used the weapons he had brought to attack Nicole, ransacked the Carnahan home, taking numerous items large and small, and began moving that property through the fence opening he had made, a process Carnahan interrupted when she came home."

Moore could continue appeals by filing habeas corpus petitions in state and federal courts.

His attorney in the appeal, Deputy State Public Defender Arnold Erikson, declined to comment on the case. Erikson said a different lawyer would be appointed to handle possible habeas corpus appeals.

In a second death penalty affirmance today, the court upheld the conviction and death sentence of Albert Jones for the murder of an elderly couple, James and Madalynne Florville, during a robbery of their home in Riverside County in 1993.

Julia Cheever