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Death Penalty Cases Outside Virginia
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Tuesday, 11 March 2008 |
On March 7, 2008, the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the conviction and death sentence of Richard Taylor.
The court's ruling grants Taylor a new trial due to a variety of
constitutional errors at his original trial. These errors include the
denial of his constitutional right to counsel at a pre-trial competency
hearing, the failure of the trial court to hold a competency hearing
during the trial, and the failure of the trial court to appoint
advisory counsel. Taylor, who is severely mentally ill, was permitted
to represent himself at trial with little questioning of his
competency. At his 2003 trial, Taylor represented himself without
advisory counsel and presented no evidence towards his defense.
Cassandra
Stubbs, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s North Carolina-based National
Prison Project, stated, “The decision by the Court of Criminal Appeals
rights the terrible injustice of a death sentence imposed against
Richard Taylor, who faced his capital trial – while mentally ill,
likely incompetent, and forcibly medicated – without the benefit of
counsel. By recognizing the importance of Mr. Taylor’s right to
counsel, including the right to standby counsel, the Court firmly
established critical protections for mentally ill defendants who face
capital charges.”
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The Death Penalty Nationwide
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Tuesday, 11 March 2008 |
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 Reverend Joseph B. Ingle’s book, Last Rights: Thirteen Fatal Encounters with the State's Justice, will
be re-released in May with a new introduction by Mike Farrell (of
M*A*S*H*) and with its original forward by William Styron. Rev. Ingle,
who has counseled inmates on death row for over 30 years, recounts his
close relationships with 13 of these inmates before their executions.
Devoting a chapter to each one, Ingle stresses the need to see each
inmate as an individual. He writes, “The public needs to see them for
who they were and how their love enriched my life.”
(Last Rights: Thirteen Fatal Encounters with the State's Justice, by Joseph B. Ingle, Sterling Publishing, May 2008). Posted March 11, 2008.
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The Death Penalty Nationwide
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Monday, 10 March 2008 |
Since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988, the
state of New York has been more reluctant to impose death sentences
than other states, according to the Federal Death Penalty Resource
Counsel Project. New York federal prosecutors have asked juries to
impose death sentences 19 times, but in only one of those cases did
they vote for the death penalty. Nationally, federal prosecutors win
death penalties in about 33% of cases. In some cases, federal judges in
New York have asked the Justice Department to reconsider its
authorization of the death penalty. Judge Jack B. Weinstein recently
stated that a particular death penalty case before him was a waste of
taxpayer money because of the unlikelihood of a death sentence.
In
federal cases, the decision to seek the death penalty is first reviewed
by a committee at the Department of Justice and then must be approved
by the Attorney General. During John Ashcroft’s tenure as Attorney
General, the United States attorney’s offices in Brooklyn and Manhattan
were ordered to pursue the federal death penalty in 10 cases where the
local prosecutors had not recommended doing so.
Brooklyn Judge
Nicholas G. Garaufis has also asked the Justice Department to
reconsider seeking the death penalty in some cases he has overseen. He
noted, “There are judges — and I’m not speaking for them — who clearly
look upon the death penalty as so unlikely to be ordered by a jury that
it’s not worthwhile to pursue it. Especially because the alternative is
life in prison without the possibility of release.”
Three people have been executed under federal law since that death penalty law was reinstated in 1988.
(“Aversion to Death Penalty, but No Lack of Cases,” by Alan Feuer, The New York Times, March 10, 2008).
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The Death Penalty Nationwide
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Saturday, 08 March 2008 |
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The New Hampshire House of Representatives passed a bill to establish a
Commission to Study the Death Penalty. Many officials who have had
first-hand experience with New Hampshire’s death penalty, including
former Attorneys General Phillip McLaughlin, Peter Heed and Greg Smith,
former Superior Court Chief Justice Walter Murphy and former Supreme
Court Justice William Batchelder, support the establishment of a
commission to study the state’s death penalty procedures. If passed,
the bill will establish a bipartisan commission comprised of 15
individuals including state representatives and senators, lawyers,
religious groups, and families of murder victims.
The Commission to Study the Death Penalty in New Hampshire would study different aspects of the death penalty, including:
- Whether the death penalty rationally serves a legitimate penological intent such as deterrence.
- Whether the selection of defendants in New Hampshire for capital trials is arbitrary, unfair, or discriminatory in any way.
- Whether the penological interest in executing anyone convicted of murder is sufficiently compelling that the risk of an irreversible mistake is acceptable.
- Whether
alternatives to the death penalty exist that would sufficiently ensure
public safety and address other legitimate social and penological
interests, including the interests of families of victims.
Source: Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights. Posted March 8, 2008.
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