Why we should enforce the death penalty

[Lady Sidhe]

I don't know if this technically belongs here, but...damn....


BILLINGS, Montana - A man after spending two years in prison
for bank robbery filed an appeal for wrongful imprisonment.
He claimed innocence even though his partner in crime clearly
identified him. He had a unique defense which proved fatal to
his cause. Transcripts of the appeal revealed a clever, if
unconvincing argument. He thought that the tellers could not
have possibly identified him correctly. Among his more
unforgettable quotes were, "How could the people in the bank
have identified me? I had a mask on when I did the job." His
appeal was denied.

[Happy Monkey]

"Life" means they can keep you there forever, if you show no improvement. "Life without parole" means they have to keep you there, regardless of behavior.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Sidhe, you spend entitely to much time and effort researching/reading these articles. It'll give you a warped view of the world.

[Lady Sidhe]

Well, ya gotta have a hobby, ya know.

I went to school on a criminal psych/cj track because I wanted to be a profiler....didn't work out, but I still can't help myself....so I figure, why fight it?

[Catwoman]

Keep going Sid - gives us something to talk about, and often a point of contention - without which things would be oh so boring.

[Lady Sidhe]

He admitted it, and there's a witness...

Ok, here's one...

The guy has admitted to killing 13 women, and the murder for which he's being charged has a WITNESS.



IN COURT: November trial set for Watts in 1979 killing

June 16, 2004

Confessed serial killer Coral Watts will go on trial in November for the 25-year-old murder of a Ferndale woman.

Watts, 50, was dressed in orange-and-white-striped jail garb Tuesday, surrounded by deputies during his arraignment in Oakland County Circuit Court on a first-degree murder charge. Judge Richard Kuhn entered a not-guilty plea for Watts, standard procedure in criminal hearings, and set a Nov. 8 trial date.

Watts, who has admitted to killing 13 women, is accused of stabbing Helen Dutcher, 36, a dozen times on a snowy December night in 1979. A witness testified at a hearing last month that he saw Watts slit Dutcher's throat.

Watts has been in a Texas prison for years under a deal he cut with prosecutors there in which he confessed to several slayings. In exchange, he was allowed to plead guilty to a burglary charge and received a 60-year sentence.

But a change in Texas law means Watts could be released as early as May 2006. Michigan prosecutors say he is linked to several killings in the state, including Dutcher's, and hope to keep him in prison for life.




And so WHAT'S the problem?? Personally, it pisses me off that he was allowed to plead guilty to burglary after he'd confessed to several murders. He's the kind of person the death penalty was made for.


Sidhe

[lumberjim]

you're absolutely right, sidhe. if a guy admits to a crime, he should not be able to plead it away just so they can close a few more open cases. that should be illegal, as it is openly adverse to the word 'justice'. if a person admits to a capitol crime in a death penalty state, and he/she is found guilty, they should be killed the same day. no appeal. certainly no automatic appeal.

how can a juge justify letting an admitted murderer go down on a burglery charge? stoopid.

so they closed 12 more cases. that's a short cut. they probably would have closed them anyway if they did the job right.

I think the DA that offered that deal should have to go to jail in his place if the guy gets out. that'll keep him inside.

[Lady Sidhe]

Central Florida Mom Indicted In Deaths Of Children
Official Cause Of Death Under Investigation

Andrea Noel Williams, 32, is suspected of drugging Ilona, 9, Ian, 6, and Ivey, 5. However, autopsy results haven't been issued to show the official cause of the children's deaths.

The indictment says Williams killed her children in early May in her Longwood home.

Police said the children were killed on Mother's Day, May 9 but the bodies were found May 11.

Williams was arrested May 10 in rural North Carolina where authorities said she confessed to killing the children, according to Local 6 News.



Longwood Children Allegedly Poisoned By Mom Buried
Mom Investigated Twice In 2003

LONGWOOD, Fla. -- As three children allegedly poisoned by their mother were buried Tuesday, law enforcement authorities were defending themselves for clearing the woman of past abuse allegations.

Andrea Williams, 32, was twice investigated last year by the Seminole County Sheriff's Office, but authorities found no reason to believe the children were at risk.

Williams was arrested May 10 in rural North Carolina. Authorities said she confessed to the killings of her children, Ilona, 9, Ian, 6, and Ivey, 5, the day before - Mother's Day. The children were found dead at the bottom of a trundle bed in their Longwood home.

Williams remains at the Seminole County Jail on murder charges.

Seminole County sheriff's Capt. Greg Barnett said he is confident his Child Protective Services investigators acted properly when they closed three reports without taking any action against Williams. The Sheriff's Office handles child abuse complaints in Seminole.

"We don't have a crystal ball, obviously," Barnett said.

Two reports stemmed from a March 2003 call to the state's abuse hot line by a mother whose child Williams was watching.

The woman told authorities her son made a statement that led her to think there was improper contact between her child and Williams.

The report concludes the boy may have been describing licking a lollipop that Williams gave him as a reward for good behavior, and investigators found no evidence of abuse for him or any of the Williams children.

The final report dealt with an investigation into Williams after she was hospitalized twice in eight days during the fall for mental evaluation under the state's Baker Act, which allows people to be evaluated to see if they are a threat to themselves or others.

It concluded there were "some indicators of substance exposed child," and said Ian told of twice being allowed to take a drink of beer while at the dinner table. The children "did not disclose abuse/neglect," according to the report.



Bodies Of 3 Children Found Stuffed Inside Bed, Mom Confesses

LONGWOOD, Fla. -- Authorities in Seminole County, Fla., found the bodies of three children Tuesday -- all under 10 years old -- stuffed inside a hideaway bed a day after their mother was arrested in North Carolina, according to Local 6 News.

Local 6 News reported that Andrea Williams, 32, confessed to killing her children -- ages 5, 6 and 9 -- and packing them in a bed inside a home located at 890 Georgia Avenue. Investigators told Local 6 News Tuesday night that it appeared the children had been under the bed for days.

Williams was arrested for second-degree trespassing Monday night in North Carolina. A search was launched in North Carolina when her three missing children could not be accounted for.

Longwood Police Chief Tom Jackson said the woman's husband, Gary Williams, helped police search the house Tuesday morning but could not find the children -- Ivy, 5; Ian, 6; and Ilona, 9.

However, Williams' comments while in custody led detectives to the home again and the children were found in the bed, Local 6 News reported.

[Lady Sidhe]

http://www.southernillinoisan.com/re...op/TOP002.html

SUTHERLAND GUILTY IN RETRIAL FOR CHILD'S 1987 MURDER

[Fri Jun 11 2004]

BELLEVILLE (AP) -- A man who spent more than a decade on death row for the 1987 rape and murder of a 10-year-old Southern Illinois girl was convicted for a second time Friday in a retrial ordered by the state Supreme Court.

A St. Clair County jury convicted Cecil Sutherland, 49, on all five counts in the rape and death of Amy Schulz.

Jefferson County State's Attorney Gary Duncan said prosecutors will seek the death penalty.

Sutherland, a former tire-factory worker, was sentenced to die in 1989 after he was convicted the first time of abducting Amy from the small town of Kell, raping and strangling her and cutting her throat. The Supreme Court, however, ruled in 2000 that prosecutors went too far in linking hair and fiber evidence to Sutherland, said he had a weak defense, and ordered a new trial.

"We initially had 12 people who found him guilty, now we have 24," the girl's father, Dennis Schulz, told the Belleville News-Democrat outside the courtroom Friday.

The jury of eight women and four men deliberated for about eight hours Thursday and Friday before announcing the verdict. They found Sutherland guilty on three counts of first-degree murder and one count each of aggravated criminal sexual assault and aggravated kidnapping.

Sutherland showed no emotion while the judge read the verdict, which drew sobs from the girl's family, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Defense attorneys had tried during the six-week trial to turn the focus on Schulz's step-grandfather, William Willis, a convicted sex offender.


Willis, 53, acknowledged during his testimony that he has a history of sexually abusing minors, including pleading guilty to molesting a Boy Scout in 1994. But he said he was never attracted to little girls and never molested Amy.

Prosecutors said Willis was excluded as the killer by hair and fiber evidence that were consistent with Sutherland's.

Duncan, who was not involved in the first trial, said the evidence had been bolstered by DNA technology that was not available in the 1980s.

Sutherland's defense attorney, former Chicago homicide detective John Paul Carroll, argued that the prosecution's mitochondrial DNA tests aren't as definitive as nuclear DNA tests.

Amy's death outraged the community, which created a child-advocacy center named in her honor.

The trial was moved out of Jefferson County because of extensive news coverage of the case in the Mount Vernon area.

[Lady Sidhe]

Posted on Mon, Jun. 14, 2004

Convicted killer faces new charges of murder, battering detainee

Associated Press

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - An inmate serving a 40-year sentence for a 1989 murder faces new charges of second degree murder and battery of a detainee, and has been transferred to a new prison, the Department of Corrections said.

Edwin Rivera, 37, of Sarasota, also faces a charge of felony battery causing great bodily harm. Department spokesman Sterling Ivey said he could not provide details about the new charges.

Rivera was arrested in October 1989 in Lee County, and pleaded no contest to murder, robbery with a deadly weapon, shooting missiles into a dwelling or vehicle, grand theft of a motor vehicle and attempted armed robbery.

On April 6, he was transferred from the Martin Correctional Institution in Indiantown to Florida State Prison in Starke, Ivey said.

Rivera was arrested on battery charges in April, but those were amended last month to include the murder charge.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigates attacks that occur at state prisons, and forwards any charges to the state attorney's office, Ivey said.



So what does it take? Raping and murdering a convent full of nuns?? He can't even contain the violence after it got him in prison, what makes anyone think that prison's going to IMPROVE his behavior? Some people just never learn.


Sidhe

[Lady Sidhe]

I know this didn't happen in the US, but raping and murdering a child deserves death, IMO

Sidhe



June 14, 2004

Justice for Caroline Dickinson

by Times online and PA news

Francisco Arce Montes was found guilty following a six-day trial in Rennes, Brittany, of the charge of murder of a minor preceded, accompanied, or followed by rape.

Montes, seated in the dock of the ornate packed court room, remained deadpan as the verdict was read out. Thirteen-year-old Caroline’s father, John, 48, from Bodmin, Cornwall, looked straight at Montes.

Just minutes after the sentence, John Dickinson stood on the steps of the court with his wife Sue and said: “I would like to be able to say this in French but the emotion is too much. I’m speaking on behave of Sue, Jenny and myself. The first thing to say is this is all about Caroline or ’Caz’ as some of her friends knew her. Although her life was short, she was happy, we knew she had a life ahead of her full of promise. We have some wonderful memories that we will cherish and she will never be forgotten.”

“The events of the last week have been for us a necessary but draining experience, as of course has the pursuit of justice for Caroline over the last eight years. We will now start the process of rebuilding our lives. We acknowledge that we are not the only victims of this dreadful crime, some of whom gave evidence at the trial and others whose evidence we have heard read. During these difficult times we have received support from many - family, our friends, colleagues and Caroline’s friends. Now is the time to let them know how much we have appreciated that support.”

Mr Dickinson, who at one stage was critical of the French investigation, went on: “We wish to express our particular thanks to the team of gendarmes who we knew as ’Cellule Caroline’ who through their hard work and dedication have brought Montes to justice.”

Mr Dickinson thanked his lawyer, Herve Rouzad le Boeuf; the French examining magistrates; and the Devon and Cornwall police who had worked alongside the French investigators.

For years her killer, 54-year-old Francisco Arce Montes, attacked and menaced women across Europe and in the US. On several occasions he was released without charge or bailed, only to move on and offend again. He was only traced by a stroke of luck when a US customs official, who read about Caroline’s case in a British newspaper, ran a check on one of the suspects named and discovered he was in custody in Florida.

Caroline died on July 18, 1996, within inches of four sleeping schoolfriends from Launceston Community College, in the Brittany village of Pleine-Fougeres.

Francisco Arce Montes was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

[Carbonated_Brains]

Wow, a huge torrent of newspaper articles.

I can't handle this thread anymore, it's maxxed out my irritate-o-meter.

[Lady Sidhe]

Self defense claimed in sword attack

By Pete Bowles
Staff Writer

June 14, 2004, 5:35 PM EDT

A Maspeth teen accused of hacking to death another teenager with a Samurai sword acted in self defense after the friend pointed a BB gun at him, according to a statement the teen gave to police.

"He pointed a gun at my head," the suspect, Michael Desiderio, 18, told a detective after his arrest in the slaying of Ricardo Richardson, also 18, in Richardson's home about 10 a.m. Sunday.

"I left the room," Desiderio said in the statement. "Then I went to get my sword and kept hitting him with the sword. He fell down. I put the sword in my closet in the basement of my home."

The statement Desiderio made to police was presented Monday at his arraignment in Queens County Criminal Court on charges of second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon.

Judge Lenora Gerald ordered him held in jail in lieu of bail and scheduled a court hearing for June 28.

Desiderio faces up to 25 years to life in prison if convicted.

Desiderio's attorney, Robert Gottlieb, argued that police had prevented his client from seeing two attorneys who went to a police precinct to assist him and that, as a result, he would seek to have the statement barred from trial.

Desiderio, who Gottlieb said has been working in a law office on Long Island for several months, was arrested at his grandfather's house at 54-43 66th St., where he had been living while his mother was moving into a new cooperative in Glen Oaks. His father lives in Arizona.

According to police, Desiderio killed Richardson with the sword in a two-story house on Maspeth Avenue which had become a hangout for local teenagers. Richardson, who moved to New York from Trinidad a few months ago, had been living in the house and had become a close friend to Desiderio.

Assistant District Attorney Natalie Bell told the court that Desiderio fled to his grandfather's house after the incident. "He left a man bleeding to death," she said.

Bell said Desiderio told the police were to find the bloody sword and admitted that he committed the gruesome crime. "I killed the guy," she quoted Desiderio as telling police. "The knife is wrapped up inside my bloody pants in the house."

Gottlieb said his client, who has a G.E.D. certificate, has never been convicted of a crime. His mother works as a school aide and his father owns his own business, the attorney said.



Uh-huh. I don't know about you, but bringing a sword to a gunfight is the way to go, I always say....

If someone were pointing a gun at my head, I wouldn't run to get a sword, then come BACK....I'd run and keep on going, then call the police. And it was a BB gun, for God's sake...since when is a shot from a BB gun fatal??

So we have someone who's admitted to murder, and I can't believe that he was in fear for his life from a BB gun. And if he WAS in fear for his life, why'd he run away, then go BACK??

It doesn't wash.


Sidhe

[Lady Sidhe]

Originally posted by Carbonated_Brains
Wow, a huge torrent of newspaper articles.

I can't handle this thread anymore, it's maxxed out my irritate-o-meter.

I said that I'd be putting up articles. If the thread annoys you, I'm not forcing you to read it.

Although, I admit that I should just start putting up links. Problem is, the links expire after a certain amount of time. I'll try to do better, though.

Sidhe

[russotto]

A BB gun shot CAN be fatal, but if you leave, go pick up your sword, then come back and hack the gun-wielder to death, it doesn't matter if it was a BB gun or a Tommy gun, it's still not self-defense!