5 Settembre 2008

5 Settembre 1905

nasce Arthur Koestler

 

Kenneth Foster un anno dopo

Uno degli aspetti più intriganti della pena capitale negli Stati Uniti è l’assoluta arbitrarietà con cui sono selezionati i pochi disgraziati che sono poi sacrificati sull’altare di quella che gli americani chiamano giustizia. Ma ancora più affascinante è la selezione successivamente attuata dall’opinione pubblica italiana. Casi scomodi a parte solo alcuni dei condannati a morte americani hanno beneficiato dell’attenzione dei nostri mezzi d’informazione e non sono necessariamente i casi più interessanti. Noi abolizionisti dovremmo interrogarci su questo e chiederci se il nostro lavoro non sia altro che carne da cannone per il circo mediatico italiano.
Un anno fa si fece un gran parlare di Kenneth Foster, e alcuni italiani si vantano imprudentemente della sua salvezza, ma non sono stati pochi i condannati, prima e dopo di lui, che avrebbero dovuto attrarre l’interesse dei nostri media.

1) Sean Sellers passò quasi inosservato, eppure era uno di quei casi che gridano vendetta a Dio.

2) Qualche mese prima che accadesse a Foster anche Ronald Chambers, anche lui condannato per una complicità minore, si avvicinò, dopo trentadue anni di braccio della morte, al momento finale. Questo avvenne nella quasi assoluta indifferenza dell’opinione pubblica italiana, che non poté quindi gioire per l’annullamento della sua terza sentenza capitale.

3) Oggi il tempo sta per scadere anche per Troy Davis, condannato a morte esclusivamente sulla base di testimonianze in seguito ritrattate. Davis ricorda molto Joseph Amrine, che fu un’altra occasione sprecata dalle nostre televisioni. .

4) In questo momento in Texas si domandano se la relazione sentimentale fra giudice e procuratore abbia influito sul processo di Charles Hood e se questo dibattito debba avvenire prima o dopo la sua esecuzione.

5) Jeff Wood è in condizioni simili a quelle di Foster, anche lui complice minore in un omicidio, anche lui condannato a morte, anche lui a un passo dalla forca, ma momentaneamente salvato da un giudice federale che vuole sapere se Wood è veramente pazzo o se in lui c’è ancora una scintilla di razionalità che permetta di consegnarlo al boia in serena coscienza. Perché il Comma 22 prevede che “chi è pazzo può chiedere di essere esentato dalla pena di morte, ma chi chiede di essere esentato dalla pena di morte non è pazzo”

 

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(9/9/08) TROY DAVIS 

 

An open letter to Mr. Sonny Perdue Georgia Governor

 

Dear Governor,

According to Amnesty International  Your State is going to kill a probably innocent person: Troy Davis. Is it true?

Your faithfully C.G.

 

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/023/2007

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/9/132039/9041

http://www.amnestyusa.org/death-penalty/troy-davis-finality-over-fairness/page.do?id=1011343&n1=3&n2=28&n3=1412

 

Secondo Amnesty International la Georgia sta per uccidere una persona probabilmente innocente: Troy Davis. E’ vero?

 

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(10/9/08) ROTATORIE

 

10 Settembre 2008 
10 Settembre 1977     

Hamida Djandoubi è l’ultimo condannato ad essere ucciso in Francia

 

Ieri hanno tentato di uccidermi.

Due volte.

In due diverse occasioni due tizi a bordo di enormi SUV si sono infilati a tutta birra nella rotatoria dove stavo girando io.

Evidentemente pensavano che i colorati new jersey di plastica messi al centro dell’incrocio fossero pioli di una gimcana cittadina e che il bello del guidare a Forlì stia nell’evitarli per un soffio mentre si transita ai novanta.

A giudicare dal loro frenetico gesticolare entrambi sono stati molto seccati del mio ostacolare il loro tentativo di superare il record di velocità su terra.
Come se non bastasse, oltre a quelli che non sanno che si deve dare la precedenza a chi è già nella rotatoria, ci sono gli automobilisti che pensano che si debba aspettare il favore delle tenebre per avventurarsi in quell’infido terreno e si addormentano nell’attesa, mentre altri passano rombando senza badare a chi è nel mezzo.

Eppure basterebbe l’educazione di togliere il piede dall’acceleratore.

(16/9/08) When Not Guilty Still Means Going to Jail

When Acquitted Doesn't Mean Acquitted

Judges Can Sentence Criminals to Longer Prison Terms Even After a Jury Has Acquitted Them

By SCOTT MICHELS

Sept. 16, 2008 -

When Roger White helped his brother and his brother's girlfriend rob a bank in Maysville, Ky., he led police on a high-speed, 17-mile chase down country roads before he finally crashed his car and was caught.

At his 2003 trial, White, the getaway driver, was convicted of aiding the bank robbery, but the jury acquitted him of several other charges involving the use of a gun during the robbery and escape.

Nevertheless, a judge found that there was sufficient evidence that shots were fired during the robbery and subsequent police chase to add nearly 14 years onto White's prison sentence, more than doubling it  even though a jury found White not guilty of most of the gun charges.

White's case, now pending before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, raises questions about whether defendants should be sentenced to longer prison terms based on evidence that a jury either never heard or has rejected.

Several federal judges have said the practice violates the constitutional right to a jury trial and a few have called on the Supreme Court to reconsider its 1997 decision, in U.S. v. Watts, upholding increased prison sentences based on so-called "acquitted conduct."

"We have a sentencing regime that allows the government to try its case not once but twice. The first time before a jury; the second before a judge," Judge Myron Bright of the federal Eight Circuit Court of Appeals recently wrote.

"This state of affairs is unfair, unjust and I believe plain unconstitutional," he wrote. "Though the government might have 'won,' everyone and everything else  the defendant, the jury system, the Constitution  loses."

White's case is being closely watched by sentencing experts, who say it could pressure the Supreme Court to revisit its brief, unsigned opinion in Watts. Two appellate judges on the Sixth Circuit have said they would throw out White's enhanced sentence; if the full panel agrees, it would put the court at odds with the other federal appellate courts that have considered the issue.

The Supreme Court has called the right to a jury trial one of the foundations of American law. But at same time, the Court has given judges broad discretion in meting out sentences under the now-advisory federal sentencing guidelines, allowing them to consider conduct that the jury never considered or found a defendant not guilty of committing.

The issue has come up in several recent cases around the country. Earlier this year, in the case of a Madison, Wis., man who was sentenced to an additional 15 years in prison for possession of crack cocaine, the Supreme Court declined to reconsider its Watts decision. Mark Hurn was convicted of possessing powder cocaine, which would have sent him to prison for about three years, according to federal sentencing guidelines, but acquitted of crack cocaine possession. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

In Washington, D.C., federal prosecutors are asking a judge to sentence Antwuan Ball to the 40-year statutory maximum prison sentence for selling 11 grams of cocaine, though Ball was acquitted of every other count in a massive drug and murder conspiracy trial that lasted eight months. Ball's lawyer says Ball should be sentenced to about six years in prison under the sentencing guidelines for the drug charge.

"The government is trying to get Antwuan Ball sentenced based on what they charged him with rather than what he was convicted of," said Steven Tabackman. "Those charges in many respects were ultimately without any basis whatsoever."

"It is a sentencing scheme straight from the mind of Lewis Carroll," he wrote in recent court papers, referring to the author of "Alice in Wonderland."

All of the sentences are within the statutory maximum and every federal appeals court to take up the issue recently has said that judges can consider a range of conduct that has not been proven at trial.

Prosecutors have said Ball and his associates are responsible for distributing large quantities of crack cocaine in a Washington neighborhood and remain dangerous. They also say their sentencing recommendation is based, in part, on actions for which Ball was never charged or on which the jury never voted, not for which he was acquitted. The Justice Department declined to comment on the White and Ball cases, but in court papers government lawyers argue that sentencing for "acquitted conduct" has been upheld by the Supreme Court.

"The Constitution does not prohibit a sentencing court from considering conduct that was not found by the jury, as long as the court does not impose a sentence above the statutory maximum for the offense of conviction," government attorneys wrote in a recent brief in the White case.

"As the Supreme Court has made clear, a verdict of not guilty represents at most a finding that the government did not prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt; it is not a finding that the defendant is innocent," they wrote.

"Judges have been considering all sorts of information about each offender for a very, very long time," said Nancy King, a former prosecutor who teaches at Vanderbilt University Law School. "Allowing the judge to have some way to look at what the offender has done and sentence them based on what judge thinks is best is a good thing."

As long as the sentence is within the statutory maximum, King said, "they are not being sentenced for acquitted conduct any more than they are being sentenced for prior convictions," which judges routinely consider when sentencing criminals.

Advocates argue that recent Supreme Court cases call into question whether sentencing for acquitted conduct is permissible. Since its decision in Watts, the Court has held that the federal sentencing guidelines are advisory, rather than mandatory, and that, in most circumstances, any fact used to enhance a sentence beyond the statutory maximum must be proven to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

"It's embarrassing that we keep teaching high school students that one of the things that makes this country great is jury trials, when you can be sentenced and it doesn't matter that you've been acquitted" of the conduct on which part of the sentence is based, said Douglas Berman, a sentencing law expert at Moritz College of Law, who has filed a friend of the court brief on White's behalf.

In Roger White's case, his brother, Jeffrey White, promised him a third of the profits from robbing a bank in Maysville. According to court records, White's brother and his girlfriend robbed the bank and then fled in a car rented by White. The judge found that White led police on a high speed chase as shots were fired from his car at police.

White eventually crashed the car. Jeffrey White shot his girlfriend in the head before committing suicide.

At sentencing, the judge said that the crime was "one of the most egregious bank robberies that I have seen in my tenure here as a judge." Anything less than the 22-year sentence "would not promote respect for the law, [and would] minimize the trauma and pain and suffering by the victims," the judge said, according to the government's brief.

Though they don't dispute that White is guilty of the crime of which he was convicted, White's lawyers say the courts still should not be able to give him a greater sentence based on crimes the jury never convicted him of committing.

"The average American citizen would be shocked to find out you can still have a sentence based on conduct for which you were acquitted," said White's appellate attorney, Kevin Schad.

"The common citizen thinks that the judicial system works in a certain way. The government charges you with a crime and you get your day in front of a jury," he said. "If a jury decides you're not guilty then you're not going to be sentenced based on crimes for which you are not guilty. But that's not really what's occurring."

 

Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

 

PUBLIC AI Index: AMR 51/103/2008

15 September 2008

Further information on UA 250/08 (AMR 51/099/2008, 09 September 2008) –

Death penalty / Legal concern

USA (Georgia) Troy Anthony Davis (m), black, aged 40

 

On 12 September, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles voted to deny clemency to Troy Davis. He remains scheduled to be executed at 7pm local time on 23 September. He has been on death row for 17 years for a murder he maintains he did not commit.

 

Troy Davis was convicted in 1991 of the murder of 27-year-old Officer Mark Allen MacPhail who was shot and killed in the car park of a Burger King restaurant in Savannah, Georgia, in the early hours of 19 August 1989. Davis was also convicted of assaulting Larry Young, a homeless man, who was accosted immediately before Officer MacPhail was shot. At the trial, Troy Davis admitted that he had been at the scene of the shooting, but claimed that he had neither assaulted Larry Young nor shot Officer MacPhail. There was no physical evidence against Troy Davis and the weapon used in the crime was never found. The case against him consisted entirely of witness testimony. In affidavits signed over the years since the trial, a majority of the state’s witnesses have recanted or contradicted their testimony. In addition, there is post-trial testimony implicating another man, Sylvester Coles, as the gunman.

 

In March 2008, the Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, joined by two other Justices on the Court, wrote that “In this case, nearly every witness who identified Davis as the shooter at trial has now disclaimed his or her ability to do so reliably. Three persons have stated that Sylvester Coles confessed to being the shooter. Two witnesses have stated that Sylvester Coles, contrary to his trial testimony, possessed a handgun immediately after the murder. Another witness has provided a description of the crimes that might indicate that Sylvester Coles was the shooter.” The Chief Justice wrote that “the collective effect of all of Davis’s new testimony, if it were to be found credible by the trial court in a hearing, would show the probability that a new jury would find reasonable doubt of Davis’s guilt or a least sufficient residual doubt to decline to impose the death penalty”.

 

In considering the case, the members of the Board of Pardons and Paroles met on 12 September with the lawyer and relatives of Troy Davis, relatives of Mark MacPhail, and prosecutors from the District Attorney’s office which prosecuted Davis. The Board gave no explanation for or elaboration of its decision to deny clemency.

 

When it had stayed the execution on 16 July 2007, the Board stated that “the members of the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles will not allow an execution to proceed unless and until its members are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused” (see update to UA 170/07, 17 July 2007, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/121/2007/en). This would suggest that at least a majority of its members have now been persuaded of Troy Davis’s guilt. Amnesty International believes that in the interests of transparency and public confidence in the justice system, the Board should reveal how it came to its conclusion.

Prior to the decision, the chairman of the State Bar of Georgia’s indigent defence committee was quoted as saying that “It is important to the public’s confidence in Georgia’s criminal justice system that no person’s life is taken by the state except in circumstances where their constitutional rights to a fair trial have been fully respected. With so many witnesses recanting their testimony, there just seems to be too many doubts to move forward with this execution.”

 

After the Board’s decision, Troy Davis’s lawyer said that an emergency motion for a stay of execution would be filed with the US Supreme Court. He said that “the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do was to tell Troy we’re denied” by the Board. The head of the Georgia-based Southern Center for Human Rights, Stephen B. Bright, a law professor at Yale University, called the Board’s decision “shocking”. He said that “For somebody to be executed, we really should be sure beyond doubt that the person is guilty.” International standards prohibit the execution of anyone whose guilt is in doubt.

Amnesty International opposes Troy Davis’s execution unconditionally, regardless of questions of guilt or innocence, as it does all use of the death penalty.

Since the USA resumed executions in 1977, 1,118 prisoners have been put to death, 42 of them in Georgia. More than 100 people have been released from death rows around the country on grounds of innocence, many of them in cases in which witness testimony has been shown to have been unreliable.

For a full report on this case, see USA: ‘Where is the justice for me?’ The case of Troy Davis, facing execution in Georgia, February 2007, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/023/2007.

 

FURTHER RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible, in English or your own language, in your own words:

- explaining that you are not seeking to condone the murder of Officer Mark Allen MacPhail, or to downplay the seriousness of the crime or the suffering caused;

- expressing deep concern that the Board has voted to deny clemency to Troy Davis, despite the fact that most of the witnesses upon whom the state relied to convict Davis have since recanted or changed their testimony;

- noting the Board’s statement last year in issuing a stay of execution that the Board “will not allow an execution to proceed unless and until its members are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused”;

- asking the Board for clarification on the reasons for its decision to deny clemency, and how it has dispelled all doubts about Davis’s guilt;

- expressing concern that the post-conviction evidence throwing doubt on Troy Davis’s guilt has never been examined in court;

- noting that three members of the Georgia Supreme Court, including the Chief Justice, wrote in March 2008 of their doubts about Davis’s guilt and dissented against their colleague’s decision to deny Davis a hearing to examine the post-conviction evidence;
- noting the large number of wrongful convictions in capital cases in the USA since 1976, and noting that unreliability of witness testimony has been a contributing factor in many of these cases;
- urging the Board to reconsider its decision to deny clemency and calling on it to stop this execution.

APPEALS TO:

State Board of Pardons and Paroles, 2 Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive, SE, Suite 458, Balcony Level, East Tower, Atlanta, Georgia 30334-4909, USA

Fax: +1 404 651 8502

Email: Webmaster@pap.state.ga.us or Clemency_Information@pap.state.ga.us.

Salutation: Dear Board members

 

COPIES TO: diplomatic representatives of the USA accredited to your country.

 

http://www.amnesty.it/flex/cm/pages/ServeBLOB.php/L/IT/IDPagina/969

 

 

(24/9/08) KENNEDY

 

KENNEDY V. LOUISIANA

 

23 settembre 2008

23 settembre 1779 
I have not yet begun to fight!

Cpt John Paul Jones (Bon Homme Richard)

 

Il 25 giugno scorso la Corte Suprema, con la sentenza Kennedy v Louisiana, ha ribadito la sua trentennale politica che prevede la pena di morte solo per l’omicidio aggravato.

 

La causa riguardava la legge della Louisiana (1995) che comminava la pena capitale per il reato di stupro di un minore di dodici anni ed era facile prevederne l’esito (anche se non ci si aspettava un misero 5 a 4) perché già nel 1977, con Coker v Georgia, la Corte (Scotus) aveva deciso, basandosi sulla dottrina dell’evolving standard of decency, che lo stupro non può essere un reato capitale.

 

Già allora secondo la Corte la pena (privilegio dei neri del Sud) era sproporzionata al delitto e un chiaro invito a trasformarlo in omicidio (punito allo stesso modo). Per noi abolizionisti è inoltre evidente che aumenta a dismisura l’arbitrarietà della pena di morte, perché è già impossibile stabilire, pur in presenza di un fatto obbiettivo come un cadavere, quale omicidio sia capitale.

 

Possiamo affermare che la legge della Louisiana (e quelle dei cinque stati che l’hanno seguita) è dettata dalla moda della lotta alla pedofilia e dal desiderio di puntellare le sorti di una sempre più traballante pena capitale. Non per nulla sono passati vent’anni prima che qualcuno si preoccupasse della sorte dei bambini americani e più di quaranta dall’ultima esecuzione per stupro non seguito da omicidio.

 

La sentenza Kennedy ha causato le furiose doglianze dei forcaioli e l’imbarazzato commento di Obama che ha borbottato qualcosa su di una legge “well crafted” (da un giurista ci si attendeva ben altro). La polemica sarebbe terminata con una serie di mugugni (come per Atkins e Roper), se non fosse stato per un blogger che ha fatto notare come Congresso e Presidente abbiano, nel 2006, prodotto una nuova versione del Codice Penale Militare in cui è prevista la pena di morte per lo stupro di un minore. Linda Greenhouse ha riportato la notizie sul New York Times e si è scatenata una furiosa diatriba il cui succo è che la Scotus non si può permettere di decidere “evolving standard of decency” diversi da quelli del Congresso.

 

Si è chiesto a gran voce un rehearing della causa e, lo scorso 8 settembre, la Scotus ha preso l’inusuale decisione di consentire la presentazioni di nuovi briefing sull’argomento.

 

Ma le speranze forcaiole sono mal riposte.

 

Infatti nessuno dei partecipanti alla prima discussione si è degnato di citare anche solo di sfuggita lo Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Non l’hanno fatto né i favorevoli alla legge né i contrari, come del resto non lo ha fatto il giudice Alito nella sua dissenting opinion.

 

La ragione sta nel fatto che, da quando con Trop v. Dulles (1958) la Scotus decise che l’interpretazione dell’Ottavo Emendamento non poteva essere letterale, ma collegata all’ “evolving standard of decency that marked the progress of a maturing society”, non è mai accaduto che qualcuno citasse il Codice Penale Militare. 

Nelle 27 opinioni, che hanno preceduto la sentenza Kennedy, in cui la Corte Suprema ha utilizzato l’evolving standard of decency, l’UCMJ non esiste. Non è citato nemmeno in Coker, quando lo stupro di una donna era un reato capitale per il diritto militare e tale è rimasto, per trent’anni, fino al 2006, quando è stato sostituito proprio dalla disposizione che oggi si vuole utilizzare come grimaldello per l’allargamento dell’utilizzo della pena capitale.

The whole stuff is a complete waste of time

Claudio Giusti

 

Nota sulle esecuzioni

Dal 1930 (primo anno di statistica federale) al 1967 ci sono state 3.859 esecuzioni.

Il decennio peggiore è stato il primo, con 1.676 esecuzioni di cui 199 nel solo 1935.

I neri erano il 54% del totale e il 90% dei 455 uccisi per stupro (97% al Sud).

 

 

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(27/9/08) DE GUSTIBUS

 

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(28/9/08) APRIL 30

 

Dott. Claudio Giusti

Via Don Minzoni 40, 47100 Forlì, Italia
Tel.  39/0543/401562     39/340/4872522
e-mail  giusticlaudio@aliceposta.it 

 

 

*****

Claudio Giusti ha avuto il privilegio e l’onore di partecipare al primo congresso della sezione italiana di Amnesty International e in seguito è stato uno dei fondatori della World Coalition Against The Death Penalty. Fa parte del Comitato Scientifico dell’Osservatorio sulla Legalità e i Diritti.

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