We want to continue to build the list of people receiving this bi-weekly Death Penalty Update, an excellent overview of death penalty news stories, scheduled executions, and new resources.  Please take a minute to let your colleagues, friends, family and members know that they can now subscribe simply by sending an email to Josh Noble, at jnoble@dcaclu.org, and typing ""Death Penalty Update"" in the subject line.   

Correction

A news brief in last week's edition of Death Penalty Update contained an error regarding the Terry Nichols trial.  Nichols was tried by a state jury in Oklahoma, not a federal jury.  

News

Darnell Williams' Death Sentence Commuted

(July 2, 2004)

Indiana Governor Joe Kernan commuted Darnell Williams' death sentence to a life sentence days before he was scheduled to die on July 9 by lethal injection.  Kernan's decision to commute Williams' sentence followed a unanimous decision by the state parole board, which said there were questions about Williams' guilt.  In addition, six jurors who voted for the death penalty, a law enforcement official who investigated the crime scene, and a judge who rejected Williams' post-conviction challenges to his death sentence all urged the Governor to stop Williams' execution.  Williams was arrested for the 1987 murders of John and Henrietta Rease.  Williams was outside the Rease's home when they were killed during an attempted robbery.  Although Williams was found to have bloodstains on his shorts, the blood was never identified as either of the victims.  DNA testing techniques were not available at the time of his trial.  However, Williams gained support for post-conviction DNA testing from unlikely areas, including the prosecutors that tried him and some of the jurors who convicted him.  Last summer, days before his scheduled execution, then-Governor Frank O'Bannon granted a stay of execution to allow DNA testing of the blood found on his shorts.  The tests determined that one of the bloodstains did not come from either victim.  The tests on the other bloodstain were inconclusive.  Kernan's decision to commute Williams' death sentence represents the first time in 48 years that an Indiana governor granted clemency in a capital case.  

Read More About Darnell Williams

Judge Orders Reforms On Mississippi's Death Row 

(June 30, 2004)

A federal appeals court ruled that the conditions on Mississippi's death row were so awful that they constituted cruel and unusual punishment.  The appeals court decision upheld an earlier ruling handed down by U.S. Magistrate Jerry Davis who ruled that the state death row was so harsh and filthy and that inmates were being driven insane.  The death row inmates were stuck in hot, filthy cells and provided inadequate mental health care.  Davis wrote in his decision, ""No one in a civilized society should be forced to live under conditions that force exposure to another person's bodily wastes?No matter how heinous the crime committed, there is no excuse for such living conditions.""  The federal appeals court instructed the Mississippi Department of Corrections to improve conditions including annual mental health checkups, better lighting, improved toilets, insect control, and implement ways to keep inmates cool during the summer.  The court also directed the state to house inmates with severe mental illness separately from others.  The ACLU National Prison Project filed the lawsuit.  Margaret Winter, Associate Director of the Project, praised the ruling for setting a precedent for humane standards on death row.  

Read An Article From 'The New York Times' 

Death Row Exoneree Awarded $5 Million

(June 29, 2004) 

After spending 14 years on Nevada's death row for a murder he always said he had not committed, Roberto Miranda has settled a wrongful conviction lawsuit for $5 million.  Mirada sued the Clark County Public Defender's for providing an inadequate defense.  Miranda claimed his public defender did not do enough to help him avoid conviction and a death sentence.  Miranda also filed suit against two police detectives for violating his civil rights.  JoNell Thomas, Miranda's attorney said, ""There is no amount of money that will give him back those 14 years.""  Miranda was arrested in 1981 for the stabbing death of Manuel Rodriguez Torres.  Ten years later, a federal judge appointed a new attorney for Mirada who ultimately persuaded a state judge to grant Miranda a new trial.  Prosecutors later declined to move forward.    

A number of exonerated death row inmates have filed lawsuits for being wrongfully convicted.  For example, last June, Aaron Patterson of Illinois filed a $30 million federal lawsuit against prosecutors, the city of Chicago, and police officers he says tortured him into confessing. Patterson was one of four death row inmates released by former Governor George Ryan when he commuted the death sentences of all inmates to life imprisonment just before he left office. According to Patterson, officers beat him, suffocated him with a plastic typewriter bag, and threatened him with a gun in order to get a confession from him. Patterson claims he told the police he would tell them anything they wanted to hear to get them to stop beating him. Madison Hobley, another of the four exonerees, filed a similar lawsuit.  Patterson spent 17 years behind bars.

Read More About Roberto Miranda 

New York Appeals Court Invalidates State Death Penalty

(June 24, 2004)

A 4-to-3 ruling by the State Court of Appeals in Albany effectively suspends the New York death penalty.  The Court ruled that a central provision of the state's capital punishment law violated the state constitution in that the rules might unconstitutionally coerce jurors into voting for a death sentence rather than risking a deadlock by holding out for life without parole.  In the event that a jury cannot agree on a sentence, a judge must impose a sentence between 20 and 25 years to life, with the possibility of parole.  The Court wrote, ""The deadlock instruction gives rise to an unconstitutionally palpable risk that one or more jurors who cannot bear the thought that a defendant may walk the streets again?will join jurors favoring death in order to avoid the deadlock sentence.""  The Court ordered death row inmate Stephen LaValle be resentenced to life without parole or a parole-eligible sentence between 20 and 25 years to life.  The three other inmates on New York's death row will also be resentenced.  The court also ruled that the death penalty could not be used in nine pending capital cases.  

Read An Article By 'The New York Times' 

Action Alert from New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty

Upcoming Executions 

JULY

07/01/04            VA            Michael Lenz - Stayed 

07/07/04            TX            Troy Kunkel - Stayed 

07/09/04            IN             Darnell Williams - Sentence Commuted 

07/09/04            SC             Arthur Wise

07/14/04            OH            Stephen Vrabel - Abandoned Appeals

07/19-25/04       NV            Terry Dennis - Abandoned Appeals

07/20/04            OH            Scott Mink - Abandoned Appeals

07/22/04            VA            Mark Bailey 

AUGUST

08/01/04            KY            Benny Hodge

08/05/04            AL            James Hubbard

08/18/04            VA            James Hudson

08/19/04            TN            Gregory Thompson - Stayed 

08/25/04            TX            Jason Busby 

08/26/04            OK           Windel Workman

08/26/04            TX            James Allridge III

08/26/04            PA            Wilfredo Ramos

NCADP Execution Alerts 

Employment & Volunteer Opportunities

Soros Justice Fellowships Available

Applications for Soros Justice Advocacy, Senior and Media Fellowships, are now being accepted by the Open Society Institute from lawyers, advocates, organizers, scholars, journalists and documentarians seeking to make advancements in criminal justice. The deadline for applicants is September 22, 2004. Proposed work should focus on reducing the nation's over reliance on policies of punishment and incarceration, encouraging the successful resettlement of people returning from prison, eliminating race and class disparities in the criminal justice system, and restoring judicial discretion. More information about the fellowship is available on the Open Society Institute's Web site. 

NCADP Board Of Directors Accepting Nominations

The NCADP Board of Directors is now accepting nominations for the 2004-2005 National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty Board of Directors. Nominations should be emailed to  conference2004@ncadp.org by July 12, 2004. Board elections will take place at "NCADP 2004," their annual conference which is being held Oct. 14-17 at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C.

For additional information, please visit:  http://www.ncadp.org/2004_conference_nominations_board.html 

PADP National Steering Committee Position Announcement 

The Amnesty International USA Program to Abolish the Death Penalty is recruiting for three unpaid volunteer leadership positions:  One must be from the Southern region, one from the Northeast region, and the last one is an ""at large"" position for which a resident of any region may apply.  The Program to Abolish the Death Penalty National Steering Committee (PADP-NSC) is composed of AIUSA members, staff, and Board liaisons working together to develop and implement Program goals.  The Committee collaborates and consults on fundamental policy matters relating to the Program, including long-range and annual plans, major policy or program changes or initiatives, program evaluation, and budget planning.  

Committee members must be members of Amnesty International USA.

To apply, interested candidates should submit a resume or summary, which describes past/present anti-death penalty work/volunteer activities (and other relevant social justice experience), a cover letter indicating interest in the position, and three references. All interested candidates must submit their applications directly to the PADP. Students and youth are strongly encouraged to apply.

Please submit all application materials by JULY 11TH to:
Attn: The Program to Abolish the Death Penalty
Ref: National Steering Committee Recruitment
Amnesty International USA
600 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, 5th Floor
Washington, DC 20003

You may also fax or email your application materials to the PADP c/o the
Program Associate, Kristin Houlé, at:
Fax:  202-546-7142
E-mail:  khoule@aiusa.org
(Please put PADP National Steering Committee Recruitment Application in subject line)

Resources 

American Prospect Features Special Report on Capital Punishment  (DPIC)

The July 2004 edition of The American Prospect features a special section on capital punishment with articles by some of the nation's most respected experts on the topic. ""Reasonable Doubts: A Special Report on the Death Penalty"" examines the growing movement to reform or abolish capital punishment in America. Among the topics examined are public opinion, innocence, race, and the death penalty for juveniles. The series also provides a closer look at the death penalty in states such as Illinois and Texas, and offers an overview of the Supreme Court's recent decisions on the death penalty. The authors included are: Anthony Amsterdam, Hugo Bedau, Christina Swarns, Tom Lowenstein, Sasha Abramsky, Jean Templeton, Joseph Rosenbloom, and Connie de la Vega.

Visit 'The American Prospect' Online

Long Road to Clemency for Man with Mental Retardation  (DPIC)

The Angolite, a news magazine produced by inmates at Louisiana's Angola State Penitentiary, highlights the commutation of Herbert Welcome, a man with mental retardation whose death sentence was lifted by Governor Mike Foster in 2003. The article follows Welcome's decades-long struggle to have his sentence commuted, including a 1988 recommendation for clemency that was never signed. Years later, Welcome's clemency effort was reignited by his attorneys from the Center for Equal Justice in New Orleans and his spiritual advisor, legendary rock guitarist Larry Howard. It gained ground after the Supreme Court's 2002 ruling in Atkins v. Virginia making it unconstitutional to execute those with mental retardation. In all, Welcome spent 21 years on death row before the Louisiana Pardons Board unanimously voted to recommend clemency during a hearing ordered by Governor Foster. The Angolite article includes an overview of the clemency hearing statements delivered by experts such as Robert Perske, as well as a case overview by Welome's attorney, Nick Trenticosta

Visit 'The Angolite' Online 

Additional Resources from DPIC 

2004 death penalty events calendar can be viewed at: /capital/general/10397res20041116.html.

For past editions of Death Penalty Update, please visit the ACLU online at: http://www.aclu.org/DeathPenalty/DeathPenaltylist.cfm?c=17.

For additional questions, comments, or feedback, please contact Josh Noble.

jnoble@dcaclu.org 

© 2004 American Civil Liberties Union Capital Punishment Project