NC Death Penalty Lawyer, Lisa Dubs, Profiled

Dubs reacts to a jury verdict acquitting Michael Mead

The Charlotte Observer profiles death penalty defense attorney Lisa Dubs.  Here's another great attorney doing remarkable work.  The story needs nothing more from me apart from my admiration and respect.

Court: Don't Get Hung Up on the Details, "Worrisome"...Kill Him Anyway

Cleveland.com reported last week on the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding the death penalty in the case of Tyrone Noling, (pic.) 

According to the Court's decision, there are some real concerns about whether Mr. Noling did the deed.  Regardless the Court says under existing law there is no way to stop this freight train....scary.  This is reporter Andrea Simakis' summary of the decision and implications for Noling:

Though two federal judges described his case as "worrisome" and questioned whether the state would be killing an innocent man, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided to let Tyrone Noling's 1996 death sentence stand.

The ruling by the Cincinnati-based court Wednesday also bars Noling from presenting new evidence that others might have committed the double murder that put him on Ohio's death row.

Kelly Schneider, Noling's longtime attorney, called the decision "heartbreaking."

"Basically, they see problems in Tyrone's case but [write that] their hands are tied by the rules that govern their ability to grant relief," Schneider said. "Literally, we've got a man I believe to be innocent who's just a few steps away from death and [they say] their hands are tied. It's horrifying."

Noling was sentenced to death six years after the bodies of Bearnhardt and Cora Hartig were found dead of gunshot wounds on the floor of their kitchen in Portage County's Atwater Township.

He was largely convicted on the word of three men, one of whom admitted during the trial that he'd been coerced by prosecutors and police to implicate Noling to save his own skin. The other two men also later recanted, saying they lied on the stand to avoid a death sentence.

Earlier this year, another man claimed that his foster brother, Daniel Wilson, admitted to killing the Hartigs. Wilson was executed for an unrelated murder in 2009.

Those questions about Noling's guilt plagued at least two members of the three-judge panel.

Citing the "worrisome scenario" of possible witness coercion, "absolutely no physical evidence linking Noling to the murders" and the existence of "other viable suspects that the prosecutor chose not to investigate or did not know of at the time," the panel said nonetheless that the lower courts had not acted unreasonably.

A legal expert said the judges had to abide by a sweeping antiterrorism law passed after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that severely restricts the ability of federal courts to overturn state court decisions.

Federal judges who look at a state case and think "the state got it absolutely, totally wrong cannot reverse that case unless they find that . . . the state was unreasonable in being wrong," said Michael Benza, visiting associate professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

"It really has created this bizarre situation, as in the Noling case, where you have a court saying, 'this conviction or this sentence is, in fact, unconstitutional in our opinion, but we are not authorized to do anything about it.' "

Though Noling has appeals pending in state court, his federal appeals are all but exhausted. His defense team will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his case, but the odds are long.   Of 10,000 to 20,000 petitions each year, the nation's most powerful jurists agree to hear "like 75," said Benza.

The First Innocent Man

The man in the mugshot is Randall Dale Adams, the subject of Eroll Morris' great documentary The Thin Blue Line.  Randall Dale Adams was one of the first Texas death row inmates to be exonerated.  Adams' exoneration for killing a police officer during a traffic stop predated the innocence project and the advent of DNA technology.  It was based on the astonishing efforts of a handful of people including Morris who questioned the illogical sequence of facts and proffered testimony in the case.  In exonerating Adams, Morris et al. demonstrated that highly motivated law enforcement will massage the evidence and testimony to put an innocent man on death row when the underlying crime involves a cop killing.  Big surprise, right?  The following is an excerpt from the Dallas Observer's obituary notice: 

"It's an Everyman's story. It's the story of someone slipping through the cracks -- if you like, a nonfiction Twilight Zone episode." That was filmmaker Errol Morris talking, in 1988, about his documentary The Thin Blue Line -- otherwise known as the film that proved Randall Dale Adams did not kill Dallas Police officer Robert Wood in 1976, despite his having been convicted of the crime and sentenced to die in '77.

Errol Morris did not come to Dallas in 1985 to spring Adams; he didn't even know who he was. The filmmaker had arrived instead to profile Dr. James Grigson, the local psychiatrist known as "Dr. Death," because his expert testimony on behalf of the District Attorney's Office all but guaranteed a death sentence. That's what Adams received, thanks to Grigson, who told the jury he'd kill again if ever released. But Randall told the director: "I'm innocent." Well, of course he was; who on Death Row isn't? But Morris looked into it: "History, properly considered, is a mystery," the director told me in '04 when speaking about The Thin Blue Line. And he discovered: Adams wasn't lying. This is what we wrote in 2007 in summation:

The documentary alleged that [Dallas County District Attorney Henry] Wade's first assistant, Doug Mulder, withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense. Adams' attorney maintained Mulder manipulated key witnesses. Mulder denied that and said he'd simply "forgotten" to turn over a witness statement pointing to another man. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ordered Dallas County to grant a new trial, and then-District Attorney John Vance dropped the charges.

The real cop-killer, David Harris, told the Dallas Times Herald and District Court Judge Larry Baraka shortly after the film's release that he'd lied about Adams's involvement in the shooting. It took a while for D.A. John Vance to come around, but, finally, Adams was released in the spring of '89. Two years later Adams wrote a book about his case in 1991, but finally left Texas a few years later to lead "a quiet life in Columbus, Ohio." And that is where he died in October, at the age of 61. Few knew of his quiet farewell till an obit appeared in yesterday's paper, buried in the Metro section; the Associated Press picks up the tale today.

Adams wasn't the first whose wrongful conviction in Dallas County became national news; before Randall Dale Adams, Errol Morris and The Thin Blue Line, there was Lenell Jeter, Morley Safer and 60 Minutes. And God know he wouldn't be the last, as the parade of exonerees from the Dallas County courthouse reminds every few months. But as Adams's longtime attorney -- Randy Schaffer of Houston, who took the case pro bono in '82 -- tells the AP: "Within the context of the modern criminal justice system as we know it, he was the first innocent man, the first death row inmate exonerated based on innocence, even though in the court's opinion he was exonerated on the state's use of false testimony."
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I vividly remember watching Morris' documentary and being awe struck by the horror story at the heart of Morris' film.  It forever changed my view of the death penalty.

For proof that innocent men die in Texas (and elsewhere) look no further than the Bad Lawyer posts on the Cameron Todd Willingham case.  Willingham was murdered by Texas.  Governor Rick Perry, an assessory to the official killing, will be haunted by the spectre of the execution of Willingham, an Op-Ed at the New York Times claimed over the weekend.  Good.

Fla Death Penalty is Unconstitutional, Fla Taxpayers--Tell Us Again Why Were Paying for this Case Anthony Carnival?

At least that's the question Florida taxpayers should be screaming at prosecutors in the wake of the 94-page ruling by U.S. District Judge Jose Martinez striking down Florida's death penalty.  Judge Martinez repeatedly cited a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision as a basis for his finding that Florida's law is fatally flawed.

So Florida prosecutors are proceeding with a media circus in nearby Orlando in a declared effort to kill that idiot-child, Casey Anthony.  At the cost of how many millions?  And does Florida have so much revenue that they can feed and house all the abused and neglected children?

Georgia Activists Attack Licensure of Death Drug Doctor

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that activists in an attempt to save the life of Roy Blankenship who is scheduled to be killed Thursday, are attacking the licensure of a doctor who helped procure drugs for other states which were used in the so-called lethal cocktail to execute the condemned.  This is an excerpt from Rhonda Cook's article:

Four days before Georgia is to execute a Savannah man in the murder of a 78-year-old woman, a human rights group is asking the state to revoke the license of a doctor who sometimes participates in lethal injections.

Roy Blankenship is scheduled to die by lethal injection Thursday for the 1978 murder of Sarah Mims Bowen, who was beaten to death. She was found in the bedroom in her house just a block away from where Blankenship lived. Police followed bloody footprints to Blankenship's house.

On Monday, the Southern Center for Human Rights filed a complaint with the Georgia Composite Medical Board alleging that Dr. Carlo Anthony Musso illegally helped Kentucky and Tennessee secure a scarce sedative used in a three-drug cocktail for executions, sodium thiopental. The only U.S.-based manufacturer of the sedative announced in January that it was no longer making the drug.

The group said in its filing that Musso, who owns CorrectHealth and Rainbow Medical Associates, secured some of the drug and then sold it to at least two other states even though he was not registered with the Georgia Board of Pharmacy or the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to ship sodium thiopental across state lines.

“Dr. Musso violated a host of state and federal criminal laws,” the Southern Center for Human Rights wrote.

Musso, who could not be reached Monday, has denied selling drugs to Kentucky or Tennessee.

The filing says Musso secured the drug from a company in London at the same time Georgia went to the same source: Dream Pharma, which operated out of the back of a driving school. The DEA subsequently seized the drugs that the Georgia Department of Corrections had bought from Dream Pharma because the department was not registered to buy the sedative from the manufacturer or to ship it to the United States.

At the same time that the Southern Center for Human Rights was trying to block Musso or any doctors associated with his business from participating in any executions, Blankenship’s lawyer filed an appeal in Fulton Superior Court. Judge Wendy Shoob has scheduled a hearing for Tuesday.

Blankenship could be the first inmate in Georgia executed with a new three-drug combination that swapped sodium thiopental for pentobarbital.
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Like that?  Dream Pharma.  Wow, the euphemisms used in the Death Penalty game are astounding.  The Bad Lawyer tries to be a euphemism-free zone as it relates to official killing of citizens.

The Chief Justice Thinks Death Row Briefing is "Perverse," Imagine that?!

Nathan Gorenstein at Philly.com has the story of a honked-off Pa. Supreme Court Chief Justice.  This is an excerpt from Gorenstein's story about the death row appeal of Mark Spotz:

"After reading the appeal from prison inmate Mark Spotz, incarcerated on four murder convictions, an angry Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille (pic) unleashed perhaps the most scathing language ever from the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court.  His target was not the killer; it was the highly specialized Capital Habeas Unit, 35 mostly federally funded defense lawyers who handle death-case appeals and whom Castille accused of legal 'sabotage.'.[ . . . ]

To Castille, the massive legal document, and the government-funded work it represented, 'bordered on the perverse.'  It was an example, he wrote last month, of federal defense attorneys using an intentionally 'abusive' strategy intended 'exhaust as much of this court's time and resources as possible' and frustrate the legitimate exercise of the death penalty.

[The Chief Justice] called it, 'The zealous pursuit of what is difficult to view as anything but a political cause: to impede and sabotage the death penalty in Pennsylvania.' 

On Friday, the federal defenders responded with their own lengthy written blast, calling the former Philadelphia district attorney's accusations 'unwarranted" and "unfounded.' They also denied a 'suggestion' from Castille that using federal lawyers in state courts was a misuse of federal money.

Behind the unusual dispute is the fact that, although the death penalty is on the books, it is not used in Pennsylvania. There are 215 people on death row in the state, but no one has been involuntarily executed in about three decades. The last execution was in 1999, when torture-murderer Gary Heidnik voluntarily halted his appeals.


Long-running litigation in death-penalty cases has long angered prosecutors and some victims' relatives - particularly the spouses of police officers killed on duty - even as law enforcement officials concede there is a need for review. Most of the cases on appeal are more than a decade old, as Pennsylvania juries have become more reluctant to impose death in first-degree murder cases.

The federal defenders say they are merely doing what they are paid to do: provide the best representation possible. They cannot choose who deserves the best effort, said Leigh M. Skipper, the chief federal defender based in Philadelphia. 'We take the cases as we find them. We can't differentiate between 'good murderers' and 'bad murderers.' A lawyer has an ethical obligation.'

The lawyers also sharply rejected Castille's complaints that they nitpick to deliberately clog the court.

'As a lawyer who is appointed to represent someone, we don't have the luxury of saying, 'Well, it's close; we don't make this argument,' ' said David Rudovsky, president of the Defender Association of Philadelphia, which oversees public defenders in state and federal courts. 'Frivolous claims are in the eye of the beholder,' he said."
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What's perverse is the false allure of the death penalty as a path to justice. 

Chief Justice Castille is drunk on his own spiked-Koolaid. Perhaps he's forgetting the ethical obligation of lawyers to zealously represent their client, perhaps even save a human life, loathsome as that might seem.

Cameron Todd Willingham Update--Texas Angels of Death

The Dallas Morning News updates its reports on Cameron Todd Willingham the Texas man wrongly convicted and executed for arson murder of his children.  The District Attorney and Governor Rick Perry's continue their machinations in this appalling case of Texas Republic-sanctioned murder.

Let's Kill These Women

Reporter Frank Green at the Ricmond Times-Dispatch has this fascinating look at the pending Virginia execution of Teresa Lewis (pic, right) a woman who arranged the brutal murder of her husband and step son to collect the step son's military life insurance.  Green compares and contrasts the Lewis case with the execution of Marilyn Kay Plantz (pic, left) in 2001, for a similar crime.

This is reporter Green's account:

Marilyn Kay Plantz, executed in 2001 by the state of Oklahoma, persuaded her younger lover and his pal to kill her husband for insurance money and stood by as they brutally did so.  Two years later, Teresa Lewis of Pittsylvania County wound up on Virginia's death row for a strikingly similar crime.

More than 1,200 men [BL:  national statistics at the link] have been executed in the U.S. since the death penalty resumed in 1977. If she is put to death as scheduled Sept. 23, Lewis will be just the 12th woman and the first in Virginia in almost a century.  It is a gender gap that largely, if not entirely, can be explained by the relatively few capital crimes committed by women.

The accompanying acts that frequently qualify murders as death-eligible crimes -- such as rape and armed robbery -- overwhelmingly are committed by men.

Mary Atwell, a professor of criminal justice at Radford University and author of "Wretched Sisters: Gender and Capital Punishment," says it is no accident that Lewis, Plantz and their crimes have much in common. Like many of their male counterparts, females sentenced to death often have histories of substance abuse and mental-health issues.  Unlike men, women usually kill intimates, not strangers. So, too, did Plantz and Lewis.

'There are so many similarities it's almost uncanny,'  Atwell said. Among other things, she said, 'both of these women had borderline mental retardation and yet they were accused of being the mastermind in the case. Masterminds or not, the murders were savage.

Plantz's husband, James, 33, had $300,000 in life insurance. Court records show that when he returned home early one morning, he was beaten with baseball bats by his wife's lover, William Bryson, and his friend Clinton McKimble, both 18.  Plantz, in her late 20s, was in a bedroom. Her husband still was alive when Bryson and McKimble later set him on fire in his pickup truck.

In Lewis' case, the court records show she persuaded Matthew Shallenberger, with whom she had a sexual relationship, and his friend, Rodney Fuller, to murder her husband, Julian Clifton Lewis Jr., 51. Her husband's son from a prior marriage, Charles J. Lewis, a soldier visiting home, had a $250,000 life insurance policy that Teresa Lewis would receive if the two men died.  It took repeated shotgun blasts to kill the father and son in their beds early on the morning of Oct. 30, 2002, while Lewis waited in the kitchen of the family's Pittsylvania trailer. She provided the $1,200 to buy the murder weapons and left the trailer door unlocked so the killers could enter.

Atwell said insurance money often is the motive in cases where women face the death penalty, and it appears to be one of the things that courts consider a vile aspect of such crimes, she said.  'Maybe because it's a sort of betrayal of trust,' she said.

In Virginia, before imposing a death sentence, a judge or jury must decide if a killer remains so dangerous that he or she requires execution, or that the crime was so vile that it warrants execution.  Lewis, Shallenberger and Fuller all pleaded guilty, Fuller with the understanding he would receive life in exchange for his cooperation.

Before sentencing Shallenberger on July 11, 2003, Judge Charles Strauss said, 'This is a murder for hire which, just the thought of that, sends chills through most of us.'  But, [Judge] Strauss said, 'it's not just a business killing. This is a murder that involves so many other things. . . . It's laced with nightmarish violations of trust, respect, love, the bonds of matrimony that existed between Mr. and Mrs. Lewis for a man she vowed to love and cherish.  There is no question in the court's eyes that she is clearly the head of this serpent.'

[Judge] Strauss said he could not sentence Shallenberger to death if the other shooter received life. Lewis, said Strauss, 'was in a league all her own.'  The judge said of the crime, 'Unfortunately it reminds us of what man is capable of doing, even to ones they're intimate with.'

Atwell said that if there is sometimes a reluctance to sentence women to death, 'the other side of that issue is that when a woman is perceived by a court -- judge, jury, prosecutors, whoever -- as having really violated what I call 'gender expectations,' that that makes her more worthy of death.'  Among other things, Plantz and Lewis both were cheating on their husbands with younger men.  'The vileness standard is subjective,' Atwell said. If a murder is particularly vile, she contends, 'it could be more of an argument for punishing the actual killer. In these cases, the 'vileness' was connected to the idea of being a 'mastermind' of a merciless killing, and it is doubtful that either woman could be a mastermind.'

David N. Grimes, the Pittsylvania commonwealth's attorney, strongly disagrees where Lewis is concerned. 'If there's a hierarchy of evil among the three, I had no question that she was at the top, with Shallenberger fairly close behind,' he said. Grimes also sought the death penalty for Shallenberger. 'She manipulated them and manipulated the whole works. She is the one who determined how they would be killed and when they would be killed.'

Shallenberger was 22 at the time, Fuller was 19, and neither had much of a criminal record. Lewis was 33 and had been convicted of forging a prescription.  If nothing else, Lewis might have saved her wounded husband's life by promptly reporting the shootings, which were staged to look like a robbery, Grimes said.

'It was the better part of an hour before she even called,' he said. 'She was calling it in like there was an intruder who had done all this and didn't mention to anybody that the husband was still alive and that he might need medical help,'  [the prosecutor] said. 'We believe he was conscious throughout and horribly wounded and possibly could have been saved. He died from blood loss; he didn't die from any particular organ being damaged.'

[Defense lawyers] argue that Lewis, who has a low IQ and a personality disorder, could not have been the mastermind, and an affidavit from Fuller says Shallenberger [who committed suicide in prison] was in charge of Lewis.  Her lawyers cite the cases of two Virginia women who committed similar crimes and received life sentences.

After her husband was shot but still was alive, Lewis entered the bedroom, retrieved his pants and wallet, and divided the money with Shallenberger and Fuller.

'The women who are executed, in every case, they've been portrayed in the court and in the press usually as not real women -- they were promiscuous, they were bad mothers, they violated the norms that were expected of women. Not only did they kill . . . but they did something that was beyond what a normal woman would do,' Atwell said.  'It's not just that she killed her husband, but she violated all these other rules of behavior as well,'  Atwell said of Lewis.
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Do you hear, what I hear in the statements of the prosecutor Grimes?  An effort at justifying the state's execution of this woman, an actual expressed attempt to dehumanize her, and his implicit rationalization of his role her death sentence? 

It's not enough that the law has operated, a jury and judge have spoken, something makes Mr. Grimes uneasy.  Its interesting that Mr. Grimes points to Lewis' failure to call for medical assistance as a factor in her sentencing--why?  If you believe the State's case murder of her husband was what was intended, doesn't it seem slightly absurd to point out that after he was shotgunned to the brink of death, she didn't call 911 for medical assistance? 

This Day In Death Penalty History

According to the Chicago Sun-Times:

"On this date in 1966, murderer James D. French was executed by electric chair in Oklahoma. French had been serving a life sentence for murder and wanted to die, so he murdered his cellmate.  When asked if he had any last words before his execution, French replied: 'How about this for a headline for tomorrow's paper? French fries.'"

Iran to Execute 18 Year Old on "Judge's Knowlege" of Sodomy

The Guardian UK reports that Iran is scheduled to execute an 18 year old on a now-debunked charge of sodomy.  According to a report in the  Guardian: 

"The client of human rights lawyer Mohammad Mostafaei has been sentenced to death in spite of retracted testimony

Lawyer Mohammad Mostafaei (pic) fled into exile after his wife was arrested in Iran two weeks ago.

An 18-year-old Iranian is facing imminent execution on charges of homosexuality, even though he has no legal representation. Ebrahim Hamidi, who is not gay, was sentenced to death for lavat, or sodomy, on the basis of 'judge's knowledge,' a legal loophole that allows for subjective judicial rulings where there is no conclusive evidence.

Hamidi had been represented by human rights lawyer Mohammad Mostafaei, who has since been forced to flee Iran after bringing to international attention the case of another of his clients, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43-year-old Iranian mother of two who has been sentenced to death by stoning for adultery. Mostafaei was due to arrive in Norway yesterday to begin a life in exile while continuing his campaigns on behalf of his clients, including Hamidi.

At the same time, human rights activist Peter Tatchell has written to the foreign secretary, William Hague, urging him to contact the chief justice of Iran and ask that the execution be halted.

'Ebrahim's case is evidence that innocent heterosexual people can be sentenced to death on false charges of homosexuality [in Iran],'  said Tatchell, co-founder of the London-based gay rights group OutRage. Hamidi was arrested two years ago in the suburbs of the western city of Tabriz in the East Azerbaijan province after a fight with members of another family. Three of his friends were also involved in the incident and were subsequently arrested. Later, the four were accused of homosexual assault on a man and of attempting to abuse him sexually.

A person convicted of homosexuality in Iran can be lashed, hanged or stoned to death. The law includes a variety of penalties for different acts: 99 lashes if two unrelated males sleep "unnecessarily" under the same blanket – even without any sexual contact. A boy raped by an adult man would also be lashed if the court decided that he had "enjoyed" the experience.

After three days in detention, Hamidi confessed to the crime, allegedly under torture. The other three were cleared of all charges when promised by officials that they would be freed if they testified against Hamidi. However, last month Hamidi's alleged victim admitted that he had been under pressure from his parents to make false accusations. Nevertheless the local judiciary has insisted that Hamidi should be executed. "
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When you read about such barbarism, think carefully before you leap to judgment.  Remember, we did precisely the same sort of thing in this country during all of our history. In Texas we're still doing this sort of thing.  Read the links in this blawg about juvenile sentencing, false imprisonment and the death penalty.  It's only been a matter of a few years since killing children and the retarded was barred in this country.  In Texas there is very good reason to believe than innocent men were put to death, and all throughout our great country DNA evidence has exonerated many men and women, some sitting on death rows.

The Homicidal Hitchhiker Didn't Go Quietly--He Prayed

The Homicidal Hitchhiker didn't go quietly according to the Columbus Dispatch.  This is Alan Johnson's report:

"[Michael Beuke] held death at bay for [seventeen minutes.]

From 10:27 to 10:44 a.m., Beuke recited the rosary of the Roman Catholic Church while strapped to the lethal-injection table at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville. Warden Donald R. Morgan held a microphone inches from Beuke's face so witnesses in a nearby room could hear his last words. Family members of two of his victims watched in silent frustration as Beuke, crying and clutching rosary beads in one hand, went through the five Glorious Mysteries, the Apostles' Creed, several accompanying prayers and  'Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee...' repeated 53 times.  A Catholic priest sat nearby, silently saying the devotion along with Beuke. After Beuke finished, Morgan gave a signal and the killing chemical, thiopental sodium, began flowing into Beuke's veins.

At 10:53 a.m., nine minutes after his final 'Amen,' Beuke was dead.

Beuke's 'last words' were by far the longest uttered by any of the 38 killers executed since Ohio resumed capital punishment in February 1999. The previous longest final statement was nine minutes, by Vernon Smith on Jan. 7.  Prison officials said they had no inclination to stop Beuke. However, Greg Trout, staff attorney for the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said he will check state law for guidance on how to deal with such situations in the future. Prison execution procedures say, 'There will be no restriction on the content of the condemned prisoner's statement and no unreasonable restriction on the duration of the prisoner's last statement.'

Beuke, 48, of Hamilton County, was executed for the June 1, 1983, abduction and slaying of Robert Craig, 27, who had picked up the hitchhiker while on I-275.  Susan Craig, the victim's widow, watched the execution from an observation room, separated by glass but less than 20 feet from Beuke.

'It was long,' she said later. 'But this was his last couple of minutes on Earth.'

Dawn Wahoff, daughter of Wayne Wahoff, who was paralyzed after Beuke shot him in the face and back, also was a witness, along with her brother, Paul.

'You're stalling,' Dawn Wahoff said she thought when Beuke launched into his prayers.

In addition to Craig and Wahoff, Beuke shot and wounded Bruce Graham, 34, of West Harrison, Ind., after Graham picked him up hitchhiking in June 1983.  Beuke's attorney, Dale Baich, a federal public defender from Arizona, filed numerous unsuccessful appeals in the past week.

'The man who was executed today was not the same person who committed those crimes 27 years ago,' Baich said. 'His time in prison was a story of remorse and redemption.'

Officials said Beuke was emotional from the time he arrived Wednesday morning. Prison logs show he cried frequently, took communion, participated in a cell-front Mass and played a keyboard he was allowed to bring with him from the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown.He was the fifth Ohioan executed in five months this year and the 38th since capital punishment resumed in 1999."
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"He's stalling." 

Imagine having that thought.  Is it that sort of lack of empathy that governed Michael Beuke's thinking at some point in his life pathetic life?

Buried Face Down So She Can See Hell Coming

It's pretty apparent if you've read Bad Lawyer for any time at all that I'm anti-death penalty.  The death penalty is a waste of time and money, and judicial efforts to obtain capital punishment knots the Courts in politics and demagoguery.  The innocent, the grieving, and the guilty are not well-served by state sanctioned killing. 

Then you read about a guy like George M. "Porgy" Secco who would be at the top of Mother Theresa's list for the needle.  Porgy Secco was a drug dealer, a drug informant, a petty crime boss, and a Mingo County, W. Va.-area restaurant/pizzeria operator.  While in the employ of the government as an informant Lecco continued to sell cocaine, he learned from the FBI that he was target of an investigation.   Lecco came to believe that his employee Carla Collins, 33 was selling him out.  The piece of shit had her murdered.  This is from the Charleston Gazette article:

"At Lecco's behest, his employee Patricia Burton, 41, and Valerie Friend, 47, shot and beat Collins to death in an abandoned trailer on Double Camp Hollow in the early morning hours of April 16, 2005, according to testimony. Burton and Friend have entered into plea deals with prosecutors over their roles in Collins' murder.

In 2007, before Friend entered a plea to avoid the death penalty, she and Lecco were tried together and convicted, and that jury recommended the death penalty for both. U.S. District Judge John T. Copenhaver Jr. overturned that verdict because of juror misconduct, and Friend struck a deal with prosecutors and agreed to testify against Lecco in the re-trial. 

Lecco's defense argued that Burton attacked Collins out of jealousy over the attention paid to the younger women by Lecco, and Friend joined in the deadly assault after a long, cocaine-fueled drive around the Red Jacket area that culminated in the fateful visit to the trailer.  Investigators found Collins' body in a makeshift grave near the trailer, which had been torched following the killing, in June 2005. Friend testified during the trial that Lecco bragged that he had buried Collins, whom he called a snitch, facedown 'so she could see hell coming.'

She said she and Burton both used a .38 caliber revolver provided by Lecco to shoot Collins, and that Burton beat Collins in the head with a piece of cinderblock."
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Look, I don't believe in the death penalty.  You can see, even from the dance of death surrounding George "Porgy" Lecco it's a waste of time and resources.  Nothing in the form of a penalty will do justice to the evil that is Porgy Lecco.  So why wrestle in the mud with this pig--how do we prove our humanity when we can't rise above his crimes. 

Porgy Lecco sees Hell coming, without having to bury him face down.

Ohio to Twitter Execution News--How Charming!

The Columbus Dispatch is reporting that those charming folks at the State of Ohio Department of Corrections are exploring the possibility of utilizing Twitter to disseminate execution announcements.  How completely thoughtful of them!

What If Jesus Were Tried Under Texas' Death Penalty Law?

The Dallas Morning News has an intriguing interview with law professor and former federal prosecutor, Mark Osler (pic) who poses the question, What if Jesus were prosecuted under the Texas Death Penalty statute?

Bearing in mind that actual innocence is not an obstacle to death in the Big T, what chance would Jesus have?

Editor, Michael Landuaer does an awesome job of confronting the issue of this very bizarre practice in this death-wish region of our Country.  Professor Osler is a very brave man, to recontextualize the debate in such a startling perspective.  Maybe he will turn more than a few hearts. 

You can read the interview at the link.

Fugitive Found After 38 Years, Running a Wedding Chapel

The Columbia, Missouri Tribune (with a big hat tip to KC Crime Blog) has this incredible story of Frank Dryman a convicted murder who disappeared off of parole for 38 years to turn up in Pinal County, Arizona running a wedding chapel under the name, Victor Houston.  Apparently Dryman/Houston had so assimilated into Arizona society he befriended severeal Pinal County Sheriffs over the years. 

Dryman had orginally been sentenced to death by hanging in Montana for shooting the 1955 shooting death of Clarence Pellett.  Dryman a hitchhiker at the time of the killing had been picked up in a blizzard by Pellett who Dryman shot in the back six or seven times.  The Montana death sentenced was changed to life in prison and after 15 years Dryman was out on parole.  In 1972 Dryman vanished "into thin air," only to turn up in 2010 happily marrying Arizona couples.  Clem Pellet a surgeon in Washington state, and the murder victim's grandson, hired a private detective to solve the family mystery which led to the recent capture of the long time fugitive.

Dryman was 16 at the time of the crime, he's 78 now.  Here's link to the Arizona account of the recent arrest.

The Death Penalty--the First Murder

The first murder was Cain's murder of his brother Abel according to the Old Testament.

Now Cain was a bad dude, in fact he was bad to the bone.  As you recall, Cain and his brothers were farmers, Abel was the livestock guy, and Cain the tiller of land.  The murder comes about when Cain gets attitudinous when God shows some real appreciation for the offering made by Abel, and less than genuine pleasure at a half-assed offering by Cain.  In fact God warns Cain, "sin is crouching at your door."  This caution doesn't even cause Cain a momentary pause.  In a premeditated act Cain suggests to Abel that the two of them take a walk out into the field where Cain promptly spills his brother's blood.  In the OT account, God crossexamines Cain, "where's your brother?"  What does this wise guy say to the Creator?  Uh, like dude "am I my brother's keeper?" 

Holy mackeral, what a wise ass!  Let's just say that the fact that Cain was not instantly a small smolddering pile of carbon, should tell us all something about mercy.  In fact the first murderer is not only not killed, he is given a mark to protect him against being killed.  This murderer moves east of eden and builds a city in the land of Nod.

As much as I do believe in God, I am not a biblical literalist.  But when I read as I did today about the killing of the death row inmate in Ohio the same guy who had tried to kill himself last week, only to be nursed back to health so that Ohio could kill him Tuesday morning, I can't help but wonder did any of these so-called christians read Genesis?  In fact the Governor of Ohio is a former Baptist minister, didn't he read Genesis, how does he rationalize the state sponsored killing?

Look noone is going to miss Lawrence Reynolds (pic) was 43 years old.  He was a complete loser; he killed his 67 year old neighbor while fully addled on drugs.  He stole $40.  Still, Reynolds, was considering the state of his impairment at the time he committed his pathetic crime, less culpable than Cain.  Nonetheless, Ohio showed no mercy.

Texas Death Penalty Procedures Declared Unconstitutional

My pal, Chris pointed out a brief item in todays, NYT that led me to track down a more compehensive report at the Houston Chronicle website; the guy in the pic is Harris County Judge Kevin Fine.  In a rarely seen act of political profile in courage this good judge declared the procedures around the Texas Death Penalty unconstitutional.  The excerpt is from Brian Roger's article at the Chronicle:

"When asked direct questions Thursday about his ruling, Fine said he was declaring the death penalty unconstitutional because he believes innocent people have been executed.  Friday, Fine clarified that he declared the procedures Texas has in place to carry out the death penalty unconstitutional, a legal parsing even to the prosecutors trying the case.

'As a practical matter, if you strike down that statute, you're not necessarily striking down ‘the death penalty' but you're striking down the way we try death penalty cases,' said Bill Exley, an assistant Harris County district attorney. 'So the effect is that you can't have a death penalty because you can't get there.'

Exley and Assistant District Attorney Kari Allen are pursuing the death penalty for Green in the robbery and fatal shooting of Huong Thien Nguyen, 34, on June 16, 2008. Police said she and her sister, My Huong Nguyen, had returned to their home in the 6700 block of Bellaire Gardens about 1:20 a.m. when Green approached them, demanded money and shot them.Green's lawyers, Bob Loper and Casey Keirnan, heralded the decision as the 'beginning of the end of the death penalty.'

'We don't necessarily think we're the ones who will make this happen. But it certainly is a chink in their armor. This is going to raise everyone's consciousness,' Loper said. 'It appears as though it's going to go up on appeal. It certainly has people talking.'

If Fine's ruling were to be upheld, it effectively would take away the option of the death penalty in Green's case.Most legal commentators said the ruling wouldn't stand up at the appellate level.
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Can you believe it, a Texas Judge who doesn't want to be reelected!

Wow, someone with judicial power in Texas who actually gives a damn whether innocent people get executed.  I'm pinching myself.

God bless, Judge Fine!

Natural Death at Age 94, for Nation's Oldest Death Row Inmate

Associated Press reporter Bob Christie has this account  of the death of Leroy Nash, of natural casues on Arizona's Death Row.  I caught the story at the Salt Lake City Tribune website, because Nash was a Utahn, and it was news in Utah.  The picture is from an old file photo of an arrest in 1947 for the shooting of a Conneticut police officer.  The following is an excerpt from Bob Christie's story: 

"Viva Leroy Nash died late Friday [he was 94] at the state's prison complex in Florence, said an Arizona Department of Corrections spokesman.  Nash was still officially on death row, but spokesman Barrett Marson said Sunday he did not know if Nash died in his cell or in a medical facility at the prison.  Nash had been imprisoned almost continuously since he was 15, said one of his appellate attorneys, Thomas Phalen. In many ways, Nash was a throwback to the Old West, using words like 'bushwhacked' in conversation that had long been lost from everyday use.  'He was born in 1915 and he was sent to prison in 1930,' Phalen said. 'Think about it -- he had 15 years of life in southern Utah, at a time when Utah and Arizona was the wild, wild West -- and he went to prison in 1930, and he remained in prison for the next 80 years, more or less.'
Nash had suffered a series of heart attacks, the most recent early this month. His jailers recently removed him from the death row cell block on their own initiative because he was so mentally unfit, Phalen said.   At the time of Nash's death, state prosecutors were appealing a federal appeals court ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court that concluded he might not be competent [to participate in his death row appellate process.]Phalen said his research shows that Nash grew up in southern Utah and was sent to the federal prison in Leavenworth, Kan., in 1930 for an armed robbery.

He spent 25 years in prison for shooting a Connecticut police officer in 1947. In 1977, Nash was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences for a robbery and murder in Salt Lake City but escaped from a prison work crew in October 1982.  Three weeks later, on Nov. 3, 1982, Nash went into a coin shop in Phoenix and demanded money from employee Greggory West.   Nash shot West three times, killing him. Another employee was in the line of fire but was not hit, according to the corrections department. As Nash ran away, a nearby shop owner pointed a gun at him and told him to stop. Nash grabbed the weapon and the two men struggled over it until police arrived and arrested him.   He was convicted of first-degree murder, armed robbery, aggravated assault and theft, and sentenced to death in 1983."
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Defense attorney, Phalen is quoted at the conclusion of the article as saying his heart goes out to Nash's victims, but that he celebrated the fact that Nash, an "old Cowboy," was not killed by the state of Arizona.
The account of Nash's death reminds me that Dahlia Lithwick reviewed David Dow's book the Autobiography of an Execution in the Sunday New York Times.  I linked to Terry Gross' Fresh Air interview of Dow, here on Bad Lawyer within the last week.  As always, Dahlia Lithwick brings her own special insight to the death penalty debate.

The Autobiography of an Execution

Texas Death Row Appellate Attorney David Dow was interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air, today.  At the link you can listen to the interview.  It was a riveting discussion of crime and punishment. 

I was telling friends this morning that the most dramatic insight in this interview with Professor Dow was his observation that the persons Texas kills are not the same persons by and large who killed, if in fact they are guilty which in and of itself is a big question mark in Texas.  In many instances these death row inmates are the children who grew up with out parents who were themselves victims of horrific violence, who are drug and alcohol addicted and certainly moving in the maelstrom of life without skill sets.  After years on death row, many of these folks grow up, mature, become educated; and, God forbid, become rehabilitated.  But we kill them anyway.

Dow is not one of those dreamy lefties, he acknowledges that on rare occasion real and genuine evil exists among this population but by and large these are the exceptions, not the rule.

Grisham Didn"t Libel Anybody

John Grisham is the author of many books lawyers love to read.  I'm guessing he himself would deny literary-airs, but his novels consistently captured clear-eyed portraits of those aspects of the legal discipline he chooses to write about.  In otherwords, he is a great chronicler of the legal profession as most Americans encounter it. 

A successful writing career has given Grisham the freedom to pursue among other things, the Innocence Project and many other important legal reform efforts, including efforts to end the death penalty in the United States.  The work to the right, The Innocent Man, a work of non-fiction resulted in the eventual exoneration Ronald 'Ron' Keith Williamson in Oklahoma and the exposure of shortcomings in the Oklahoma criminal justice system.  The Innocent Man also got Grisham sued for libel by three Oklahoma criminal justice officials.  Yesterday legal websites including the excellent Courthouse News Service reported that the 10th Circuit United States Court of Appeals upheld a U.S. District Court judge's dismissal of the claims. 

Here, on Bad Lawyer we discussed defamation claims on several occasions.  Again the public figure/public official status of the plaintiffs in the Grisham case was determinative of the disposition of the lawsuit.  Public figures/public officials have a very difficult burden to overcome in establishing defamation liability.   Frankly Pulic Officials are the folks, that we the people are licensed by our most important freedoms, to criticize.  When I have more time I will revisit the subject of defamation and the interesting history underlying the seminal case, New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, or you can read the Wikipedia entry yourself at the link.