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National News Archive from 2001
- Archive of National News
See all CADP National News links and excerpts from the years 2000 | 2002.
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- Abu-Jamal, Mumia: Judge Dismisses Death Sentence
PHILADELPHIA -- A federal judge threw out Mumia Abu-Jamal's death sentence Tuesday and ordered a new sentencing hearing for the former Black Panther alternately portrayed as a vicious cop-killer and a victim of a racist frame-up. (12/19/01, The Daily Camera)
Abu-Jamal, Mumia: Appeal Fails
A Philadelphia judge turned aside yesterday a state court appeal for Mumia Abu-Jamal, the convicted police killer and author who has become an international cause celebre for death-penalty opponents. (11/22/01, The Philadelphia Inquirer)
Abu-Jamal, Mumia: Protests Mark Mumia's 20 Years on Death Row
December 9, 2001, will mark 20 years since the incarceration of Mumia Abu-Jamal, with most of this time spent locked down on death row. Don't let the weekend of December 7-10 pass without doing something for Mumia. (11/1/01, Refuse & Resist!)
Abu-Jamal, Mumia: Hundreds of Protesters at Hearing
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (AP) -- About 1,000 protesters converged on downtown Friday in support of death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal as his lawyers pursued a last-ditch state appeal. (8/17/01, CNN.com)
- Clergy Speaking Out Against Death Penalty
RICHMOND, Va. -- Religious leaders in the South and around the nation are speaking out against capital punishment more loudly than ever, emboldened by a shift in public opinion and cases of innocence on death row. ... The leadership of many Protestant churches, the Roman Catholic Church and Reform and Conservative Judaism have been on record opposing the death penalty for decades. (2/17/01, The Daily Camera)
- Committee Probing FBI Apologizes to Man Wrongly Jailed for Murder
WASHINGTON -- A House panel investigating the shady relationship between the Boston FBI office and its mob informants apologized Thursday to a man who spent 30 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit. (5/4/01, The Daily Camera)
- Condemned Fight for Spiritual Advisers
SAN QUENTIN, Calif. -- In his last hours on Earth, California death row inmate Thomas Thompson fought to stay alive or, failing that, to be with his spiritual adviser until the last moments. He lost the first battle but won a compromise on the second. (1/13/01, The Daily Camera.)
- Death Penalty Facts
- Death Row Inmate Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
SAN FRANCISCO -- From his tiny San Quentin cell, Stanley Williams spends his days on death row writing gritty children's books about his experiences as a founder and leader of the street gang the Crips. (11/19/00, The Daily Camera)
- Death Row to Freedom: A Journey Ends
VIRGINIA BEACH -- Earl Washington Jr. walked out of prison today, marking the first time in the modern era that newly discovered evidence has freed a man sentenced to death in Virginia. (2/12/01, The Washington Post)
DNA Clears Inmate in 1982 Slaying
Virginia Gov. James S. Gilmore III (R) pardoned Earl Washington Jr. yesterday after new DNA tests found no sign that Washington committed the rape and slaying that once brought him within five days of execution. (10/3/00, The Washington Post)
- Death Unplugged -- The Growing Movement to End Capital Punishment
But in recent months, support for capital punishment has been eroding. According to Gallup, public support for the death penalty is now at 66 percent, its lowest level since 1981. Many citizens and politicians have reversed their views on the death penalty after seeing evidence that our flawed judicial system all too often convicts innocent people. (Independent Media Institute)
- Declaration Personalizes Death Penalty
The Declaration of Life document declares that capital punishment is wrong at any time. If the signee is murdered, it requests that the judge not sentence the killer to death. "People are sick to death of the killing," said D'Arienzo. ... Paul Stevens of Dawson Springs, Ky., whose daughter was murdered in Evansville in 1969, is one of at least 1,500 people who have signed it in recent months. (5/12/01, The Daily Camera)
- DNA Frees Inmate After 20 Years in Jail
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- A man who spent 20 years in prison for murder was released Thursday because of DNA evidence obtained by his sister, a former high school dropout who put herself through law school in hopes of someday clearing her brother's name. ... Waters praised the efforts of his sister Betty Ann. "I think it's absolutely amazing that she's dedicated her life to this," he said. "It's been 19 years. My whole family suffered unbelievably." (3/16/01, The Daily Camera)
- Experts Welcome O'Connor Remarks
WASHINGTON -- Critics of the way capital punishment is administered say that Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor helped their reform effort with her unexpected public skepticism on the issue. O'Connor's remarks this week resonated strongly with members of a national committee studying the death penalty, composed of supporters and opponents who nonetheless believe it is administered unevenly. (7/4/01, Los Angeles Times)
- Feds Claim No Racial Bias in Death Penalty Cases
A top Democratic congressional source who learned of the expected release of the report told CNN the conclusions are likely to prompt some lawmakers to complain the Ashcroft Justice Department had failed to follow through on Reno's plans to examine the death penalty issue. (6/6/01, CNN.com)
- Garza is Second Federal Execution
TERRE HAUTE, Indiana (CNN) -- Convicted murderer Juan Raul Garza was executed Tuesday by lethal injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, eight days after the execution of convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. ... Garza's attorney John Howley [said] "there's no question that race plays a big part in every death sentence. The fact is we only give out the death penalty in this country to poor, to minorities, and to the mentally retarded." (6/19/01, CNN.com)
- Georgia's High Court Bans Electric Chair
Georgia's highest court Friday banned the state's use of the electric chair in the execution of condemned criminals, leaving only Alabama and Nebraska as the two states still allowing death by electrocution. The 4-3 decision by the Georgia Supreme Court denounced the chair for "its specter of excruciating pain and its certainty of cooked brains and blistered bodies." The ruling said that death by such means inflicts "purposeless physical violence and needless mutilation that makes no measurable contribution to accepted goals of punishment." (10/6/01, The Daily Camera)
Georgia Execution Tapes Get National TV Airing
NEW YORK (AP) -- When the state of Georgia sat Ivon Ray Stanley in its electric chair in 1984, a corrections official provided a step-by-step account of his death: the fastening of leg straps, the jolt of power, the final slump of his body. (5/3/01, CNN.com)
- High Court Overturns Sentence
WASHINGTON -- In a prelude to deciding whether the mentally retarded can be executed, the Supreme Court overturned the death sentence of a Texas killer on Monday because the jury lacked clear instructions on how to weigh his mental condition. ... "If you had to predict where the court is, we would hope they're becoming as troubled as a lot of Americans are about how the death penalty is being used in this country," said attorney Richard Kammen of Indianapolis. Kammen is vice president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. (6/5/01, The Daily Camera)
- Justice O'Connor: "Serious Questions" About Death Penalty Fairness
MINNEAPOLIS -- Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor questioned the fairness of the death penalty, saying some death row inmates had inferior representation and may not have had access to DNA testing that could clear them. "If statistics are any indication, the system may well be allowing some innocent defendants to be executed," O'Connor said Monday to the Minnesota Women Lawyers association. (7/3/01, Rocky Mountain News)
- Illinois: Three Inmates Walk Free
On Wednesday, after being locked up for almost 15 years, the three men walked out of prison, angry at the criminal justice system that wrongfully convicted them of the 1986 rape and murder of medical student Lori Roscetti, but grateful to be free. (12/6/01, The Chicago Tribune)
- Innocence on Death Row
In this country, one in seven people sent to death row are later proven innocent, and more innocent people are being sent to death row every year. In one very disturbing case, a prisoner was 48 hours away from execution when his innocence was proven.
- Last Federal Execution Occurred in 1963
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. -- The planned execution of Timothy McVeigh will leave 19 other men in the cramped cells of federal death row, all wondering if his fate will someday be their own. Fourteen of the remaining 19 federal prisoners facing death sentences are black, and three are Hispanic. All that, say Wiercioch and other death penalty opponents, points to a federal death penalty system that is not being used fairly or consistently. (5/7/01. The Daily Camera)
- Man Dies in Bizarre Execution
CARSON CITY, Nev. -- Screaming "I killed nobody, nobody," a South African national was executed late Saturday for murdering his estranged wife's lover in the desert outside Las Vegas. In a bizarre series of events, Sebastian Stephanus Bridges, 37, first seemed to waver in his resolve to file no appeals, delaying the execution that was scheduled for 9 p.m. Strapped to a gurney, a sobbing Bridges cried, "You want to kill me like a dog." But finally he said, "I will not stop it." As prison staffers began the three lethal injections at about 9:15 p.m., Bridges raised his head, looked wildly at the murder victim's father, who was one of the witnesses, and screamed, "This is murder." (4/23/01, The Daily Camera)
- McVeigh Case Gives Death Penalty Foes a Rallying Cry
"Human error may be OK in normal criminal trials but we can't risk human error when someone's life is on the line," said Jamie Fellner, associate counsel for Human Rights Watch. "How can we feel confident in the machinery of death when in a case like McVeigh's there are errors?" (5/13/01, The Daily Camera)
McVeigh, Timothy
News stories and commentary about Timothy McVeigh, the first person to die by federal government execution in 37 years.
- N.C. Governor Commutes Death Sentence
RALEIGH, North Carolina (CNN) -- Gov. Mike Easley has granted clemency to a death-row inmate who had claimed his sentence was imposed by a racist jury. (10/4/01, CNN.com)
- New Study: Death Penalty Applied Unequally
A new study of capital punishment suggests that it is applied unequally in rural and urban areas and that defendants whose victims are affluent are more likely to get the death penalty. Regarding race, the study, which looked at cases that were eligible for the death penalty in Nebraska, found that white and nonwhite defendants were about equally likely to receive the death penalty. (8/2/01, The Moratorium Campaign)
- Ohio Debates Executions
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- If John W. Byrd Jr. dies this week, he will be the first death row inmate to be electrocuted in Ohio in 38 years. He may also be the last. Byrd's decision to be electrocuted rather than die by lethal injection has created extraordinary fissures in this state among supporters and opponents of the death penalty. (9/9/01, The Daily Camera)
- Priest's "Confession" Frees 2nd Convicted Man
The release of the two men, who each served 13 years in prison, came a week after a Jesuit priest testified that a Bronx teen named Jesus Fornes confessed to the crime in 1989 and exonerated Morales and Montalvo. Fornes' lawyer, Stanley Cohen, and attorney Anthony Servino backed up the priest's testimony. (7/27/01, Newsday)
- Study: Disparities in System
WASHINGTON -- A Justice Department study found wide racial and geographic disparities in the federal death penalty system. ..."Minorities are over-represented in the federal death penalty system, as both victims and defendants, relative to the general population," Reno said. (9/13/00, The Daily Camera)
- Supreme Court News
CADP now has a Web page with U.S. Supreme Court news stories
- Texas Loses No. 1 Death Penalty State Title
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) -- Texas has lost the title of America's No. 1 death penalty state for the first time since 1996, with 17 executions in 2001 to Oklahoma's 18. ... Nationwide, the number of executions fell in 2001 from 85 to 66. After Oklahoma and Texas, the most were in Missouri, with seven; North Carolina with five; and Georgia, with four. No other state had more than two. ... Death penalty opponents struck a cautious note over this year's numbers. "While the past year had been a time of real progress in addressing the problem areas of the death penalty, the crisis continues," said Richard Dieter of the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center. (12/28/01, CNN.com)
Texas Court Delays Execution of Beazley
HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- Four hours before he was scheduled to die, a state appeals court delayed the execution Wednesday of Napoleon Beazley, whose case has fractured the U.S. Supreme Court and fueled fresh criticism of applying the death penalty to teenagers. (8/16/01, The Daily Camera)
Texas Execution Freeze Crawls Ahead
AUSTIN -- A measure to freeze Texas executions for two years inched forward Wednesday, facing still formidable hurdles ahead. (4/19/01, The Dallas Morning News)
Texas Man to Die for Murder as a Teen
HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- Gerald Mitchell's lawyers argued that customary international law is law in the United States and that a "clear international consensus" has developed against execution of people under the age of 18 at the time of their offenses. (10/22/01, The Daily Camera)
Texas Man Dies for Murder as a Teen
HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- A man who spent nearly half of his life on death row was executed by injection Monday night for a murder he committed at the age of 17. ... "Execution should not be the consequence of juvenile crime, no matter how horrendous," said Michael Faenza, president and chief executive officer of the Virginia-based National Mental Health Association. (10/22/01, The Daily Camera)
- The Specter of a Spectacle
Robert Sanchez was only 11 when he watched three men hanged together behind the courthouse in Estancia, N.M., in 1922. The gallows were ringed with canvas to hide the actual drop, but when the sun rose high enough that July morning, it cast the dead men's silhouettes against the sheet. And in the shade of dead men, a pall fell over a little boy and everyone he knew. (5/13/01, The Denver Post)
- U.S. Executes 85 People in 2000
WASHINGTON -- Eighty-five prisoners were executed in the United States in 2000, a drop of 13 from the previous year, and Texas accounted for nearly half of them. Fourteen states executed at least one prisoner last year, out of 38 states that sanction capital punishment, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. (12/11/01, CNN.com)
- Virginia: New Evidence Overturns Murder Conviction
A Virginia court ruled yesterday that a Richmond man has been wrongly imprisoned for 11 years, basing its decision on evidence that surfaced long after the state's shortest-in-the-nation deadline for bringing such information to light. (11/14/01, The Washington Post)
- The Widow of St. Pierre
Time passes, and a strange and touching thing happens. The murderer repents and becomes a useful member of the community. He saves a woman's life. He works in a garden started by the wife of the captain of the local military. The judge who condemned him frets, "His popularity is a nuisance." An islander observes, "We committed a murderous brute and we're going to top a benefactor." ... The movie becomes not simply a drama about capital punishment, but a story about human psychology. (3/30/01, Chicago Sun-Times. Film commentary by Roger Ebert)
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