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National News Archive from 2004
- Archive
of National News
See all CADP National News links and excerpts
from the years 2000 | 2001 | 2002
| 2003.
- About
Broken Links
- Death
Penalty Facts
- Ashcroft's
Dances with Death
As Attorney General,
John Ashcroft has mounted an effort
to effectively nationalize the death
penalty. In one recent case, he badly
overreached. ... Federal prosecutors
across the country have become demoralized
and infuriated by Ashcroft’s actions.
Last fall, a federal judge joined the
chorus of protestors. Judge John Gleeson,
a former federal prosecutor whose successes
include the conviction of mob leader
John Gotti, called Ashcroft’s policy
a "bad idea" that was "undermining
the investigation and prosecution of
violent crimes." (10/27/04, MotherJones.com)
- CA:
Jury Recommends Death for Scott Peterson
REDWOOD CITY, California (CNN) -- A
jury recommended Monday that Scott Peterson,
the former fertilizer salesman whose
case grabbed national headlines, be sentenced
to death for killing his 27-year-old
pregnant wife, Laci. (12/13/04, CNN.com)
- Congress
Passes Versions of Innocence Protection
Act
On October 9, the U.S. Senate
passed by voice vote a bill called
the "Justice
for All Act of 2004" that contains
important elements of the Innocence Protection
Act, originally introduced in 2000. A
similar bill recently overwhelmingly
passed the House of Representatives (HR
5107), and it is expected that the final
legislation will now be signed into law.
The bill provides for expanded access
to DNA testing for prison inmates and
assistance to states for both defense
and prosecution in conducting death penalty
trials. (10/11/04, DPIC Update)
- Death
Sentences in Decline
Washington -- The number of people sentenced
to death in the United States reached
a 27- year low in 2003, while the death-row
population fell for the third year in
a row, the government reported Sunday.
Some 144 inmates in 25 states were given
the death penalty last year, 24 fewer
than in 2002 and less than half the average
of 297 between 1994 and 2000, according
to the Justice Department. Death-penalty
opponents say the report shows how wary the
public is of executions, heightened by concerns
about whether the punishment is administered
fairly and by publicity about wrongful convictions.
... "What we're seeing is hesitation
on the death penalty, skepticism, reluctance," said
Richard Dieter, executive director of
the Death Penalty Information Center. "I
do think there is some concern about
the death penalty, and it's reflected
in death sentences from juries." (11/15/04,
The Denver Post)
- Democrats
Debate Death Penalty
Kerry was pressed about his views on the
death penalty, which he opposes except in
cases of terrorism. Moderator Larry King
asked Kerry if a person who kills a 5-year-old
should live. "My
instinct is to want to strangle that person with my own hands," he said. "But
we have 111 people who have been now released from death row ... because of DNA
evidence that showed they didn't commit the crime of which they were convicted." "Our
system has made mistakes, and it's been applied in a way that I think is
wrong," said Kerry, adding that the
death penalty also compromised America's "civility" as
a nation. Edwards, a death penalty supporter,
conceded that "serious steps" need
to be taken to improve the system so that
innocent people aren't condemned to death.
But he said, "I think there are some
crimes that deserve the ultimate punishment." (2/27/04,
CNN.com)
- Film
Explores Governor Ryan's Shocking Findings
Illinois,
Fall 2002: Governor George Ryan faces
shocking findings about flaws
in his state's capital punishment
system that call his long-held beliefs
into question. Suddenly, he must make
one of the most difficult decisions of
his life - to ignore this disturbing
evidence, or to transform the entire
Illinois capital punishment system. The
stakes of this decision are the lives
of over 170 people, and Ryan's
own political career. And he has only
a few months to issue his final decision.
Deadline, captures the ensuing dramatic
series of events as they unfold. (www.deadlinethemovie.com)
- GA:
Rudolph Attorneys Say Crimes Don't Warrant
Death
Penalty
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Accused bomber
Eric Rudolph's lawyers say the crimes their
client is charged with don't warrant the
death penalty, and they have asked a federal
judge in Alabama to block testimony from
a survivor of one attack from testifying
in any trial's penalty phase. ... Rudolph
was caught on May 31, 2003 after a manhunt
that lasted more than five years. He also
faces charges for a string of bombings
in Atlanta, including the Centennial Park
blast during the 1996 Olympics. He had
been indicted on the Birmingham charges
in 1998,
but after he was caught, he was
re-indicted under charges making him eligible
for the death penalty. The decision to seek
the death penalty was was made by the
federal government last December. (4/1/04,
CNN.com)
- lL:
Mass Commutations Upheld by Court
SPRINGFIELD -- Former Gov. George Ryan had
the constitutional authority to block the
executions of all 167 Death Row inmates last
year, the Illinois Supreme Court decided
Friday. (1/24/04, Chicago Sun-Times)
- Innocence
Protection Act Summarized by DPIC
The Justice for All Act of 2004, Public
Law No: 108-405, became
law on October 30, 2004, and affects
the death penalty by creating a DNA testing
program and authorizing grants to states
for capital prosecution and capital defense
improvement. See the new DPIC
Summary or the Justice
Project for more details on the law.
(12/6/04, DPIC Update) - Innocence
Protection Act Signed Into Law
President Bush signed into law the Justice
for All Act (H.R.5107) that includes
a version of the Innocence Protection
Act. The bill was co-sponsored by Senators
Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Orrin Hatch
(R.-Ut.). It will create a post-conviction
testing process to protect innocent defendants
and provide training funds for the defense
and prosecution in death penalty cases.
(11/2/04, Salt Lake Tribune). See the Justice
Project for more details on the law.
(11/10/04, DPIC Update)
- KS:
Kansas Death Penalty Ruled Unconstitutional
(CNN) -- Six inmates will be resentenced
and avoid execution after the Kansas
Supreme Court ruled Friday that the state's
death penalty law is unconstitutional.
In its 4-3 opinion, the state high court
said the 1994 law is flawed because of
a provision about how jurors should weigh
death penalty arguments during sentencing.
(12/17/04, CNN.com)
- NC:
Prepares to Execute Man Solely on Snitch
Testimony
Charles Walker is scheduled
to be executed in North Carolina on
December 3 for the 1992 murder of Elmon
Davidson. His conviction rests solely
on the testimony of snitch testimony
because authorities were unable to
find Davidson's body or any evidence
linking Walker to the crime. Walker's
attorneys have asked North Carolina Governor
Mike Easley to grant clemency for their
client and to reduce his sentence to
life in prison without parole. (11/29/04, DPIC Update)
- NC:
Mentally Ill Man Scheduled for October
Execution
Sammy Perkins is scheduled for execution
in North Carolina on October 8, despite
his mental
illness and the fact that the jurors
at his trial did not learn the extent
of his disability. (10/4/04, DPIC Update) - NY:
Ruling May Invalidate New York's Death
Sentences
ALBANY, New York (AP) -- The state's
highest court ruled that a provision
of New York's capital punishment statute
violates the state constitution, a decision
that would invalidate the sentences of
all four men on the state's death row.
(6/24/04, CNN.com)
- OK:
New Film Coming About Bud Welch and Bill
McVeigh
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Bud Welch,
who lost a daughter in the Oklahoma
City bombing,
went from wanting to kill bomber Timothy
McVeigh to becoming a leading opponent
of the death penalty. And along the way,
he came to know and have sympathy for
McVeigh's father, Bill McVeigh. The journey
of these two men after the worst act
of domestic terrorism in U.S.
history forms the basis for "Bud & Bill," a
film being produced by Robert Greenwald,
known for the political documentaries "Outfoxed:
Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism" and "Uncovered:
The War in Iraq." (9/14/04, ABC
News.com)
- OK:
Nichols Jury May Cast Doubt on Death
Penalty
McALESTER,
Okla. -- An Oklahoma jury's inability
to decide whether to send bombing
conspirator Terry Nichols to death row
may reflect wider misgivings about the
death penalty, his attorneys say. ... "It's
overcoming the idea of Oklahoma justice," said
Nichols' defense attorney Creekmore Wallace,
a veteran of 26 death penalty cases in
the state. ... Larry Pozner, past president
of the National Association of Criminal
Defense
Lawyers, said the Oklahoma jury's
decision "is part of the tapestry
of the death of the death penalty." "The
death penalty isn't going to die because
public support wanes," said
Pozner, of Denver. "It is going to be extinguished because it is largely
an unnecessary, futile and cost-ineffective solution." (6/14/04, The Daily
Camera)
- OK:
Nichols Spared Death Penalty
McALESTER, Oklahoma (CNN) -- Convicted
of 161 counts of murder in the Oklahoma
City bombing, Terry Nichols was spared
the death penalty for a second time Friday.
... In Denver in 1998, a federal jury
deliberated 13 hours over two days on the
sentencing
verdict after convicting Nichols in the
deaths of eight federal officers, but
could not break a deadlock. The judge
in that case sentenced Nichols to life
without parole. (6/11/04, CNN.com)
- OK:
Closing Arguments Begin in Nichols Penalty
Phase
McALESTER, Oklahoma (CNN) -- Closing
arguments in the life-or-death penalty
phase of the Terry Nichols bombing trial
were under way Tuesday with a prosecutor
urging jurors to sentence Nichols to
death. ... Nichols is already serving
a life sentence on federal convictions.
... One of the last defense witnesses
was Bud
Welch, whose daughter, Julie, died in
the April 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma
City Federal Building.Welch said he reached
the point of forgiveness when he met
and talked with Bill McVeigh, the father
of bomber Timothy McVeigh, and realized
that the elder man was "a bigger
victim than I." (6/8/04, CNN.com)
- OK:
Nichols Prosecutors Can Seek Death Penalty
McALESTER, Oklahoma (AP) -- Prosecutors
will be able to seek the death penalty
against Terry Nichols if he is convicted
of state murder charges for the Oklahoma
City bombing, a judge ruled Monday. (5/24/04,
CNN.com)
- Study
Suggests Thousands Falsely Convicted
A comprehensive study of 328 criminal
cases over the last 15 years in which
the convicted person was exonerated suggests
that there are thousands of innocent
people in prison today. Almost all of
the exonerations were in murder and rape
cases, and that implies,
according to the study, that many innocent
people have been convicted of less serious
crimes. But the study says they benefited
from neither the intense scrutiny that
murder cases tend to receive nor from
the DNA evidence that can categorically
establish the innocence of people convicted
of rape. ... The study identified 199
murder exonerations, 73 of them in capital
cases. (4/19/04,
The Daily Camera)
- Supreme
Court News
CADP now has a Web page with U.S. Supreme Court
news stories.
- TX:
Innocent Death Row Inmate Freed After
17 Years
HUNTSVILLE -- Seventeen years after
arriving on Death Row, Ernest Willis
bounded down the steps of the Huntsville
Unit Wednesday, freed from prison a day
after charges against him were dismissed
for a crime that may never have occurred.
(10/7/04, Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram) - TX:
Mentally Ill Man Executed
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) -- A mentally
ill killer was executed Tuesday evening
after Gov. Rick Perry rejected a parole
board's highly unusual recommendation
to commute his death sentence or delay
the execution. ... At least three mentally
ill prisoners have been executed in Texas
since the
Supreme Court ruled two years ago that
severely mentally retarded inmates should
not be executed. (5/18/04, CNN.com)
- TX:
Governor Weighs Reprieve for Mentally
Ill Man
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) -- The Texas
Board of Pardons and Paroles, in a highly
unusual action, recommended that Gov.
Rick Perry spare a mentally ill killer
scheduled to die Tuesday for a double
slaying. (5/18/04, CNN.com)
- USA:
115th Inmate Freed From Death Row
Prosecutors dropped all charges against
24-year-old Ryan Matthews, making him the
nation's 115th exonoree, and the 14th death
row inmate freed with the help of DNA testing.
(8/30/04, Death Penalty Information Center)
- UT:
Bills Would Ban Firing Squads, Holiday Executions
in Utah
SALT LAKE CITY -- Utah could ban firing
squads and execute condemned prisoners only
by lethal injection - but not on Sundays,
Mondays or holidays - under bills submitted
for the upcoming legislative session. Utah
is the only state that uses firing squads.
(1/4/04, The Daily Camera)
- VA:
Pardoned Man Still Trying to Clear Name
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- After three
years of freedom, former death row inmate
Earl Washington Jr. still has trouble
sleeping. The mildly retarded man dreams
that he's being strapped to the electric
chair. His stomach turns every time he
remembers that, despite DNA evidence
pointing to another man, prosecutors
still believe he could have raped and
murdered a woman in 1982. (3/21/04, The
Daily Camera)
- VA:
Sniper Muhammad Sentenced to Death
MANASSAS, Virginia (CNN) -- A Virginia judge
Tuesday sentenced John Allen Muhammad to
death ... Muhammad's accomplice, Lee Boyd
Malvo, 19, was convicted in a separate trial
of another sniper shooting. A jury sentenced
him to life without parole. (3/9/04,
CNN.com)
- Women
Facing Execution
A new report documenting the results
of a national survey of women currently
on death row found that many women have
been subjected to harsh living conditions
and that most were sentenced for the
murder of someone they knew. The report,
The Forgotten Population: A Look at Death
Row in the United States Through the
Experiences of Women, was prepared by
the ACLU and details the experiences
of 56 women living on death row. It also
reviews the cases of the 10 women who
have been executed since 1976. It found
that while women face problems similar
to men's, such as inadequate defense
counsel and struggles with drug and alcohol
addiction, women are often subjected
to harsher living conditions because
of their small numbers. (12/6/04, DPIC Update)
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