NC Death Penalty Year in Review 2008

It has been an exceptional year for life in North Carolina.  No one was executed, and only one new person was added to death row (the lowest number since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1977).  This year, as many capital defendants were acquitted as were sentenced to death.  More death row inmates were exonerated than executed.  North Carolina should be proud.

Nationally, executions began again following the Supreme Court’s decision in Baze v. Rees, but lethal injection remains stalled in North Carolina due to litigation by inmates subject to the procedure as well as the doctors forced to participate in it.

Capital Trial Statistics

Life without parole – 9 (Kenneth Hartley, Charles Dickerson, Eric Oakes, Jakiem Wilson, James Stitt, Robert Windsor, Lisa Greene, Neil Sargeant, James Blue)

Sentences less than life -3 (Pliney Purser, Jonte McLaurin, John Chavis Ross)

Death -1 (James Ray Little)

Military capital trial acquittals – 1 (Alberto Martinez)

Post-Conviction Statistics

Executions – 0

Exonerations – 2 (Levon “Bo” Jones, Glen Edward Chapman)

Death row inmates getting new trials – 2 (John Conaway, William Moore)

Death row inmates getting new sentencing hearings – 1 (William Gray)

Otherwise removed from death row – 2 (Clinton Smith, Carlos Cannady)

Incompetent for execution – 1 (Guy LeGrande)

Deaths from natural causes – 3 (Gary Greene, Leroy McNeill, George Page)

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If you would like to be part of making 2009 another Year of Life, please consider making a donation to NC-based groups like the Fair Trial Initiative.

Life for James Blue

James Junior Blue has been sentenced to life without parole in Robeson County.  Mr. Blue’s was the last North Carolina capital trial of 2008.

James Ray Little was the only person sentenced to death in North Carolina this year.  2008 saw the lowest number of new death sentences in North Carolina since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977.

Wow.

Of late, DW has refocused its efforts, blogging only about death penalty-related events in North Carolina.  But sometimes a story comes along that’s just impossible to ignore.  Grits for Breakfast reports, “Police in Albuquerque, N.M. have become so reliant on snitches to solve cases that when they couldn’t generate enough informants organically they began to advertise in the local paper.”

The ad?

“[SEEKING] PEOPLE THAT HANG OUT WITH CROOKS TO DO PART-TIME WORK.  MAKE SOME EXTRA CASH!  DRUG USE OK.  CRIMINAL RECORD?  NOT A PROBLEM.”

Would it have cost extra to add “truth-telling optional?”

Paid informants have been responsible for sending untold numbers of innocent people to prison, sometimes even to death row.  (Just ask Bo Jones and Jonathan Hoffman.)

The Albuquerque police are taking the documented unreliability of informants to a whole new level.  As noted in the original USA Today article, offering easy money in these tough economic times is especially likely to lead to false information.  The brazenness of the ad makes me wonder if this is even a concern for the APD.  And as Grits points out, since when is “drug use OK” from the perspective of law enforcement?

The ACLU has some thoughts on how to reform the informant system here.

Jury Deliberates Life or Death for Blue

Jury deliberations have begun in the sentencing phase of James Junior Blue‘s trial in Robeson County.  Blue was convicted last week of murdering his grandmother to obtain drug money.

Blue’s attorneys presented evidence that he was physically and sexually abused as a child, which led to mental illness and drug addiction as an adult.

Blue’s family has forgiven him, and asked the jury not to sentence him to death.

2008 North Carolina Death Row Quick Facts

Total number of people executed since 1977: 43

Innocent persons freed from death row: 8

Clemencies granted: 5

Current death row population: 162

Method of execution: lethal injection

Race and gender

• Black men: 86
• White men: 60
• Native American men: 8
• Other men: 4
• White women: 2
• Black women: 1
• Native American women: 1

County of conviction

• Alamance: 1
• Alexander: 1
• Ashe: 2
• Beaufort: 1
• Bertie: 2
• Bladen: 1
• Brunswick: 3
• Buncombe: 9
• Cabarrus: 1
• Camden: 1
• Caswell: 1
• Catawba: 2
• Columbus: 1
• Craven: 3
• Cumberland: 9
• Davidson: 3
• Davie: 2
• Durham: 1
• Forsyth: 12
• Gaston: 5
• Gates: 1
• Guilford: 3
• Halifax: 2
• Harnett: 6
• Henderson: 1
• Hertford: 1
• Iredell: 1
• Johnston: 6
• Lenoir: 2
• Martin: 1
• Mecklenburg: 4
• Montgomery: 1
• Moore: 2
• Nash: 1
• New Hanover: 6
• Northampton: 2
• Onslow: 4
• Pender: 1
• Pitt: 3
• Polk: 1
• Randolph: 8
• Richmond: 2
• Robeson: 4
• Rockingham: 2
• Rowan: 4
• Rutherford: 2
• Sampson: 2
• Scotland: 2
• Stanly: 2
• Stokes: 1
• Surry: 1
• Union: 3
• Wake: 11
• Washington: 1
• Wayne: 4
• Wilson: 3

Counties with no death sentences: 43

(Alleghany, Anson, Avery, Burke, Caldwell, Carteret, Chatham, Cherokee, Chowan, Clay, Cleveland, Currituck, Dare, Duplin, Edgecombe, Franklin, Graham, Granville, Greene, Haywood, Hoke, Hyde, Jackson, Jones, Lee, Lincoln, McDowell, Macon, Madison, Mitchell, Orange, Pamlico, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Person, Swain, Transylvania, Tyrrell, Vance, Warren, Wilkes, Yadkin, Yancey)

Possible Relief for Lane; Taylor Denied

The North Carolina Supreme Court ruled last week in the appeals of two death row inmates, Eddie Lamar Taylor and Eric Glenn Lane.

In Taylor’s case (opinion here), the court found that there was no error with Taylor’s conviction or death sentence.  Among the issues raised by Taylor in his appeal: judge error, ineffective assistance of counsel, and racial discrimination in jury selection.

In Lane’s case (opinion here), the court remanded to the superior court that originally convicted and sentenced Lane, instructing them to consider the United States Supreme Court’s recent decision in Indiana v. Edwards.  In Edwards, SCOTUS ruled that just because a defendant has been found competent to stand trial does not mean that he is capable of representing himself.

Lane was allowed to represent himself for approximately six months, including the pretrial investigative period and the beginning of jury selection, despite being mentally ill and functionally illiterate.  The Wayne County Superior Court will now decide whether it would still have allowed Lane to represent himself under the Edwards standard.

National Year-End Report 2008

The Death Penalty Information Center has released The Death Penalty in 2008: Year End Report.  A few quick facts:

• There were 37 executions in 2008 (lowest in fourteen years)
• 95% of executions occurred in the South
• Nearly half of all executions took place in Texas
• There were 111 new death sentences nationwide (lowest since 1976)
• Four death row inmates were exonerated, and four had their sentences commuted to life without parole

c/o CDW

NC Death Row Inmate Dies

Death row inmate George Franklin Page has died of natural causes.  Page was convicted and sentenced to die for the 1995 shooting of a Winston-Salem police officer.  He had been scheduled for execution in 2004, but was granted a stay due to concerns about his mental state at the time of the crime.

Page developed PTSD after serving in Vietnam, and was in the throes of a flashback when he shot Officer Amos.  CT scans taken before the crime show that Page also suffered from significant brain damage, but that evidence was never presented to the jury.

George Page was 68 years old.

Alberto Martinez Acquitted

A military jury in Fort Bragg has found Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez not guilty of killing two fellow soldiers in Iraq.  The Army presented evidence that Martinez had both motive and access to the claymore mine used in the attack, while Martinez’s attorneys argued that others had the same motive and the same access, and that the Army ignored potential suspects other than Martinez.

Martinez has been in custody since the killings in 2005.  He completed the term of his enlistment with the Army while incarcerated, and is free to return to New York with his family.

Martinez Deliberations Continue

A Ft. Bragg jury is continuing its deliberations today in the trial of Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez, who is accused of killing two fellow soldiers in Iraq.  The jury has asked to review the testimony of two witnesses who spoke of conflicts Martinez had with one of those killed.

In the military system, the jury does not have to be unanimous for Martinez to be found guilty – ten out of fourteen will suffice.  However, all 14 jurors will have to be unanimous on guilt and sentence before Martinez can receive the death penalty.