Post by SoulTrainOz on Jun 28, 2006 20:07:46 GMT -5
decisions' on death
Claiming that Connecticut's 13 state's attorneys are making "God-like decisions" by seeking the death penalty in only some murder cases, lawyers for killer Jessie A. Campbell III want those prosecutors to testify about how they make such decisions.
But first, public defenders Ronald Gold and David G.E. Smith will have to persuade a Hartford Superior Court judge to consider their motion.
Smith and Gold, of the Capital Defense Unit of the state public defender's office, are battling for Campbell's life.
In 2004, Campbell was convicted of capital felony for shooting to death Desiree Privette, 18, and LaTaysha Logan, 20. He also was convicted of wounding Privette's aunt, Carolyn Privette.
Under state law, capital felony includes killing 2 or more people at the same time and certain other types of murder, such as the killing of an on-duty police officer or murder for hire.
The penalty for capital felony is either life in prison without parole or execution. A jury generally decides which of those penalties to impose.
But the jurors who convicted Campbell deadlocked on the penalty.
After denying a defense motion to sentence Campbell to life in prison, Judge Edward J. Mullarkey ordered a new penalty hearing.
This month, Gold, Smith, and prosecutors Vicki Melchiorre and Dennis O'Connor finished selecting a new jury to hear evidence in the penalty phase, which will begin in September.
Disparities seen
In the 23-page motion, Campbell's defense team claims that the state's capital-felony law has created disparities in how the death penalty is applied and asked Mullarkey to impose a life sentence on Campbell.
The "standardless system" by which state prosecutors decide to seek the death penalty is unconstitutional, the lawyers argue.
Prosecutors "make such decisions on their own, according to unwritten and/or widely varying standards," Gold and Smith say. "The result is that whether a person charged with a capital felony will face the death penalty depends largely on arbitrary factors such as the judicial district in which the crime occurred."
Specifically, the lawyers argue, a lack of "known standards" to guide state's attorneys in deciding when to seek the death penalty has created a vacuum resulting in the "arbitrary and capricious" application of the death penalty.
And because prosecutors have such wide latitude in deciding when they will seek the death penalty, the defense team says, death sentences violate the state's laws against sentences that are the "product of passion, prejudice, or any other arbitrary factor."
The lawyers say the motion doesn't challenge prosecutors' discretion, but rather their "completely unfettered choice on whether or not the defendant will have to face his or her death."
Of the 7 men currently on death row, five were prosecuted by Waterbury State's Attorney John Connelly.
'Hyperbole'
Connelly said Monday that the defense argument that prosecutors play God is "a lot of hyperbole."
"The capital felony unit is very creative, and they come up with a lot of stuff," Connelly said. "The bottom line is that the constitutionality of the Connecticut death penalty has been upheld by our state Supreme Court." The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to consider challenges to the law, he added.
In his 22 years as Waterbury state's attorney, Connelly has prosecuted dozens of murder cases. But not every one is a capital offense.
When a murder occurs in his district, Connelly said, his office is
involved from the beginning of the investigation.
If a case meets the statute requirements for a capital case, he vets the evidence and circumstances with investigators.
"My greatest concern, if we're going to seek the death penalty, is that there's no doubt in anyone's mind that the person charged is the one who committed the crime," Connelly said.
If not, he says, he weighs what he considers the crime's aggravating factors and mitigating factors that the defense would be likely to assert.
Waterbury Superior Court "gets singled out" by death penalty opponents for the numbers of men it has sent to death row, Connelly said. But he said prosecutors in Bridgeport and Hartford have more frequently sought capital punishment.
'My job: Enforce law'
"My personal feeling is that the death penalty is the law in Connecticut in certain types of crimes, and my job as a prosecutor is to enforce the law," he said. "I don't get to pick and choose what laws to enforce. ... If it is appropriate, then it should be sought."
But Gold and Smith said life-or-death decisions "should not be the sole responsibility" of individual prosecutors.
"Due process requires more," they wrote, citing the U.S. Supreme Court case, Bush v. Gore, in which the high court held that a recount of the 2000 presidential election would violate the constitutional right of voters to equal protection under law.
"This equal protection principle must apply to the right to life as well as the right to vote," Smith and Gold say in the motion.
The principles of that case "require that the method of deciding which defendants may face the death penalty be subject to at least as much scrutiny as the process of counting votes," the lawyers say.
No date has been set for a hearing on the motion.
(source: Journal Inquirer)
Claiming that Connecticut's 13 state's attorneys are making "God-like decisions" by seeking the death penalty in only some murder cases, lawyers for killer Jessie A. Campbell III want those prosecutors to testify about how they make such decisions.
But first, public defenders Ronald Gold and David G.E. Smith will have to persuade a Hartford Superior Court judge to consider their motion.
Smith and Gold, of the Capital Defense Unit of the state public defender's office, are battling for Campbell's life.
In 2004, Campbell was convicted of capital felony for shooting to death Desiree Privette, 18, and LaTaysha Logan, 20. He also was convicted of wounding Privette's aunt, Carolyn Privette.
Under state law, capital felony includes killing 2 or more people at the same time and certain other types of murder, such as the killing of an on-duty police officer or murder for hire.
The penalty for capital felony is either life in prison without parole or execution. A jury generally decides which of those penalties to impose.
But the jurors who convicted Campbell deadlocked on the penalty.
After denying a defense motion to sentence Campbell to life in prison, Judge Edward J. Mullarkey ordered a new penalty hearing.
This month, Gold, Smith, and prosecutors Vicki Melchiorre and Dennis O'Connor finished selecting a new jury to hear evidence in the penalty phase, which will begin in September.
Disparities seen
In the 23-page motion, Campbell's defense team claims that the state's capital-felony law has created disparities in how the death penalty is applied and asked Mullarkey to impose a life sentence on Campbell.
The "standardless system" by which state prosecutors decide to seek the death penalty is unconstitutional, the lawyers argue.
Prosecutors "make such decisions on their own, according to unwritten and/or widely varying standards," Gold and Smith say. "The result is that whether a person charged with a capital felony will face the death penalty depends largely on arbitrary factors such as the judicial district in which the crime occurred."
Specifically, the lawyers argue, a lack of "known standards" to guide state's attorneys in deciding when to seek the death penalty has created a vacuum resulting in the "arbitrary and capricious" application of the death penalty.
And because prosecutors have such wide latitude in deciding when they will seek the death penalty, the defense team says, death sentences violate the state's laws against sentences that are the "product of passion, prejudice, or any other arbitrary factor."
The lawyers say the motion doesn't challenge prosecutors' discretion, but rather their "completely unfettered choice on whether or not the defendant will have to face his or her death."
Of the 7 men currently on death row, five were prosecuted by Waterbury State's Attorney John Connelly.
'Hyperbole'
Connelly said Monday that the defense argument that prosecutors play God is "a lot of hyperbole."
"The capital felony unit is very creative, and they come up with a lot of stuff," Connelly said. "The bottom line is that the constitutionality of the Connecticut death penalty has been upheld by our state Supreme Court." The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to consider challenges to the law, he added.
In his 22 years as Waterbury state's attorney, Connelly has prosecuted dozens of murder cases. But not every one is a capital offense.
When a murder occurs in his district, Connelly said, his office is
involved from the beginning of the investigation.
If a case meets the statute requirements for a capital case, he vets the evidence and circumstances with investigators.
"My greatest concern, if we're going to seek the death penalty, is that there's no doubt in anyone's mind that the person charged is the one who committed the crime," Connelly said.
If not, he says, he weighs what he considers the crime's aggravating factors and mitigating factors that the defense would be likely to assert.
Waterbury Superior Court "gets singled out" by death penalty opponents for the numbers of men it has sent to death row, Connelly said. But he said prosecutors in Bridgeport and Hartford have more frequently sought capital punishment.
'My job: Enforce law'
"My personal feeling is that the death penalty is the law in Connecticut in certain types of crimes, and my job as a prosecutor is to enforce the law," he said. "I don't get to pick and choose what laws to enforce. ... If it is appropriate, then it should be sought."
But Gold and Smith said life-or-death decisions "should not be the sole responsibility" of individual prosecutors.
"Due process requires more," they wrote, citing the U.S. Supreme Court case, Bush v. Gore, in which the high court held that a recount of the 2000 presidential election would violate the constitutional right of voters to equal protection under law.
"This equal protection principle must apply to the right to life as well as the right to vote," Smith and Gold say in the motion.
The principles of that case "require that the method of deciding which defendants may face the death penalty be subject to at least as much scrutiny as the process of counting votes," the lawyers say.
No date has been set for a hearing on the motion.
(source: Journal Inquirer)