No Death Penalty for Anderson, Bethea

Cumberland County prosecutors have announced that they will not seek the death penalty against Michael Anderson or Derrick Durrant Bethea.  Anderson stands accused of shooting his girlfriend in their apartment in 2008, while Bethea shot another man to death outside of a nightclub earlier this year.

Executions – November 2009

4 – Paul Beasley Johnson (FL – stayed)

5 – Khristian Oliver (TX)

10 – Darryl Durr (OH – stayed)

10 – Yosvanis Valle (TX)

10 – John Allen Muhammad (VA)

17 – Larry Elliott (VA)

17 – Gerald Eldridge (TX)

18 -Danielle Simpson (TX – volunteer)

19 – Robert Thompson (TX)

Death Penalty Lawyer Elected Mayor

Well here’s one you don’t see every day.

Mark Kleinschmidt, director of the Fair Trial Initiative and counsel for several North Carolina death row inmates, has been elected mayor of Chapel Hill.

Jury Selection Underway for Flood

In Alamance County, three jurors have been selected for the trial of Lawrence Donell Flood, Sr. If convicted of first-degree murder, Flood could be sentenced to death.  Flood has been charged with the 2007 slaying of Gregory Jerrod Watlington.

Executions – October 2009

5 -Larry Bird Elliott (VA – stayed)

8 – Lawrence Reynolds Jr. (OH – stayed)

8 – Max Payne (AL)

22 – Christopher Kennedy (PA – stay likely)

27 – Reginald Blanton (TX)

Fair Trial Initiative Hosts Osborn Award Event

A message from FTI:

Third Annual
Fair Trial Initiative
J. Kirk Osborn Award Celebration
Thursday, October 8, 2009, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Carolina Club on the UNC Campus, Chapel Hill, NC

Walter E. Dellinger, III
Keynote Speaker

Join the attorneys, board, friends & staff of the Fair Trial Initiative on Oct. 8, 2009 as we celebrate the life and legacy of Chapel Hill attorney and former FTI Board member, J. Kirk Osborn by honoring his commitment to high quality indigent advocacy and his dedication to mentoring young attorneys.

2009 Honoree – Kimberly Stevens
Sponsorship and Host Opportunities Available
R.S.V.P. requested:  Please call 919-680-2986 or email karisha@fairtrial.org

$50 minimum donation requested
$15 donation requested for students
Business Attire

Directions to the Carolina Club
Take I-40 West to Exit 273A (Hwy 54 West) toward Chapel Hill & UNC.  You will be on Hwy 54 West.  Drive under the Hwy 15-501 Bridge, then turn left at the first light onto Country Club Rd. Take an immediate right onto Ridge Rd.  Go past Boshamer Baseball Stadium on your left and Stadium Dr. on your right.  Pass the tunnel entrance, then turn right into the Ramshead Parking Deck.

CDW <3 FTI

There’s a lil shout-out in this edition of one of DeathWatch’s favorite blogs (Capital Defense Weekly) to one of DeathWatch’s favorite organizations (the Fair Trial Initiative).

Death Penalty Art Exhibit Closing Event

A message from the North Carolina Coalition for a Moratorium:

After seven months at Duke, Premeditated: Meditations on Capital Punishment will be closing on September 16, 2009.  To celebrate the conclusion of this awe-inspiring exhibit at Duke, the Duke Human Rights Center, the Program in Latina/o Studies in the Global South, the Innocence Project at Duke Law School, the Duke Chapter of Amnesty International and the North Carolina Coalition for a Moratorium will be hosting an Exhibit Closing Reception on September 16, 2009.  The reception will begin at 5 pm and will be held in the Fredric Jameson Gallery in the Friedl Building on Duke University’s East Campus.

Malaquias Montoya is a leading figure in the politically and socially conscious West Coast Chicano graphic arts movement.   His work uses powerful images combined with relevant text panels to create compelling social criticism.

This gripping exhibit has been on display at Duke University since March of this year.  The walls of the Fredric Jameson Gallery on the East Campus are lined with acrylic paintings, silk screens, and text panels illustrating issues related to the death penalty and penal institutions.   These vivid paintings depict powerful imagery associated with lethal injection, the execution of the mentally ill, botched electrocutions, and the execution of the innocent. Montoya deals with his subject in such a disturbing and compelling fashion that no viewer could leave Montoya’s exhibit without being moved to reconsider such state sponsored atrocities.

Regarding this deeply compelling exhibit Montoya states:

“We have perfected the art of institutionalized killing to the degree that is has deadened our national, quintessentially human, response to death.  I want to produce a body of work depicting the horror of this act.”

Special guests NC State Senator Floyd B. McKissick, Jr. and Darryl Hunt will open the reception.  Surrounded by powerful images depicting capital punishment, Senator McKissick will discuss the recent struggle in North Carolina for the passage of the NC Racial Justice Act, legislation aimed at addressing racial discrimination in capital sentencing.  Senator McKissick of Durham, NC was the Senate sponsor for the NC Racial Justice.

Darryl Hunt is a Winston-Salem native who found himself a victim of a broken system in North Carolina after being wrongfully convicted for a 1984 rape and murder.  Only one juror’s doubt in Hunt’s trial prevented him from receiving a death sentence.  After spending 19 years in prison, Hunt was exonerated. If he was serving on death row, he likely would have been executed before the misconduct leading to his conviction was uncovered. Darryl founded the Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and Justice and works to address flaws in the criminal justice system.

Please join us as we simultaneously celebrate the closing of this remarkable exhibit by Montoya and the passage of the NC Racial Justice Act.

Executions – September 2009

1 – Jerome Marshall (PA – stayed)

2 – William Wright (PA – stayed)

15 – Romell Broom (OH)

16 – Stephen Moody (TX)

22 – Noel Matos Montalvo (PA – stay likely)

22 – Christopher Coleman (TX)

24 – Donald Mitchell Tedford (PA – stay likely))

24 – Kenneth Mosely (TX)

30 – John Balentine (TX)

New Approach to Death Penalty Decision-Making?

A new article, featured at Sentencing Law and Policy, caught my eye.  Here’s the abstract:

In almost every state that authorizes capital punishment, local county prosecutors are responsible for deciding when to seek the death penalty and for handling capital trials.  This approach has proven to be arbitrary and inefficient. Because death penalty cases are extremely expensive and complicated, counties with large budgets and experienced prosecutors are able to seek the death penalty often.  By contrast, smaller counties with limited budgets often lack the funds and institutional knowledge to seek the death penalty in truly heinous cases. The result is geographic arbitrariness.  The difference between life and death may depend on the side of the county line where the offense was committed.  Furthermore, in some counties, death penalty cases are handled by subpar lawyers. Inadequate lawyering leads to capital cases being reversed for prosecutorial misconduct, ineffective assistance of counsel, and inaccurate rulings by trial judges. Following reversal, these capital cases are re-litigated for years at enormous expense.

Because county control of death penalty cases has proven to be a failure, this article offers a roadmap for eliminating counties’ involvement in the death penalty system.  All aspects of capital cases — charging, trial, appeal, and everything in between — can and should be handled at the state level by an elite group of prosecutors, defense lawyers, and judges whose sole responsibility is to deal with capital cases.  This article details how an elite statewide death penalty unit could be created and how it could minimize the geographic arbitrariness of the death penalty while simultaneously reducing the costs of handling death penalty cases.

What do you think, dear readers?  Studies in multiple states have shown that where a crime occurs can have more to do with whether prosecutors seek the death penalty than the facts of the crime itself.  Is centralizing resources and decision-making a wise alternative, or should local authorities be the ones to decide how a murder case is handled?