B: [F]or we know enough, if we know we are the kings subjects: if his cause be wrong, our obedience to the king wipes the crime of it out of us.

W: But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place;' some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.

In our opinion by removing two articles from criminal code Uzbek government purposes two objects. Firstly, those ones who govern today's ruthless Uzbeki regime are going to win the respect of international community claiming "we do our best to introduce a moratorium". Secondly and in the main, Karimov-led herd of lawbreakers realize that one day they might be sentenced to death and consequently they are highly concerned about escapement at any price. In spite of the fact that Islam Karimov had time to murder some hundred Uzbeki Muslims today the world is already aware of continued genocide and violence committed at the head of Uzbek president.

"In the face of irrefutable evidence, he indulged in sophistry in every possible way and refused to admit guilt," Xinhua News Agency quoted the court as saying. "His attitude was disgusting and he was severely punished in accordance with the law."

For prosecutors to seek and win convictions against two defendants in a crime, knowing only one of them can be guilty, is dismaying, dishonorable and maybe "outright deplorable.''

But it's not illegal, at least not according to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

In a 2-1 ruling Monday, the court upheld a 16-month increase in Jonathan Shaw's prison sentence for a 1995 restaurant robbery in Fairfield, based on the jury's conclusion that he held a gun to the restaurant manager's head.

In a separate trial more than two years later, prosecuted by the same Solano County district attorney's office, another jury found that a second participant in the robbery, Mango Watts, was the one who held the gun to the manager's head, a finding that added 10 years to Watts' sentence. That jury was unaware of Shaw's verdict.

Like other courts that have reviewed the case, the appeals court said only one of the two men could have wielded the gun, but no law prohibits prosecutors from making inconsistent arguments to different juries, as long as they don't falsify the evidence.

If you are going to commit a murder, you might want to pick your spots. "The practice of the death penalty became more isolated in 2003," the report says. "Only three states outside of the South conducted executions in 2003: Indiana, Missouri and Ohio. Three states in the South, Texas, Oklahoma and North Carolina, accounted for 69 percent of the executions in 2003. All together, the South was responsible for 89 percent of the executions this year."

King County prosecutors responded with their own motion Friday and said the Ridgway decision has little bearing on the Champion case. They argued the Superior Court does not have the legal authority to address the fairness issue. It should be a matter for the state Supreme Court to decide, they said.

At trial, appellant argued that until the evidence established that a person was a victim, the alleged victim stood in the same position as any other witness in the case and should be excluded from the courtroom. Appellant never argued that his due process right was violated. The Court of Appeals will not consider an argument on appeal which was not presented to the trial court.
[U] Hague v. Commonwealth, (No. 1274-99-2, 23 May 2000)(citations omitted).

On appeal, the defendant contends the trial court erred in failing to exclude Chesnut from the courtroom pursuant to Code § 19.2-265.1. He argues the statute requires the exclusion of all witnesses, including victim witnesses, and that the victims' rights statute, Code § 19.2-265.01, is inapplicable. This argument is different from, and actually conflicts with, the argument he raised at trial: that Chesnut should be excluded under Code § 19.2-265.01, the victims' rights statute, because his presence would impair the trial. Nothing in the defendant's argument at trial indicated that he thought the general statute, Code § 19.2-265.1, controlled rather than the specific statute, Code § 19.2-265.01, dealing with victims.

Though taking the same general position as in the trial court, an appellant may not rely on reasons which could have been but were not raised for the benefit of the lower court. We will not consider an argument on appeal which was not presented to the trial court.
[U] Woodell v. Commonwealth, (No. 2241-00-3, 05 Mar 2002)(citations omitted).

At trial, Investigator Kristie Siron of the Staunton Police Department testified that the felony theft charges were based on Argenbright's record of prior convictions for similar offenses. When shown a copy of a computer printout of Argenbright's NCIC record by the Commonwealth, Investigator Siron identified the printout as appellant's criminal record. The Commonwealth then offered the printout into evidence. Argenbright objected and the following exchange took place:
MR. BOBBITT [Defense Attorney]: Your Honor, I'm going to object to the--this printout, I mean I would think that there ought to be copies of the--of the-- certified copies of the conviction if they are going to establish that he was convicted.
MR. ROBERTSON [Commonwealth's Attorney]: Judge, there is a statute that allows the record to come in.
JUDGE: Isn't that true Mr. Bobbitt?
MR. BOBBITT: I think he's probably right, but I'm not sure about that so I'm--I'm going to object to it.
JUDGE: I'm going to admit it, it's Commonwealth's One.

The trial court relied on the information contained in the NCIC record to prove the prior convictions required under Code § 18.2-104 to convict Argenbright on thirteen out of eighteen felony charges of obtaining money by false pretenses under Code § 18.2-178. The court subsequently sentenced him to the penitentiary for ten years, with seven years suspended. Argenbright appeals the thirteen convictions elevated to felonies pursuant to Code § 18.2-104.

ANALYSIS

The admissibility of evidence is within the broad discretion of the trial court, and a ruling will not be disturbed on appeal in the absence of an abuse of discretion.

Both at trial and on appeal, Argenbright argued that only certified copies of court records of his previous convictions were admissible to prove the prior convictions necessary to convict him pursuant to Code § 18.2-104. While he objected when the Commonwealth sought to admit the printout of the NCIC report, his sole argument was that only certified copies of the convictions were admissible for that purpose.

Argenbright argues for the first time on appeal that the trial court erred by admitting the printout without proper certification pursuant to the Code § 8.01-389, the judicial records exception to the hearsay rule. We will not review on appeal a specific argument not raised before the trial court absent a showing of good cause or as necessary to attain the ends of justice.

. . .

When Argenbright objected to the offer of the printout of the NCIC report into evidence, the Commonwealth asserted that there was "a statute" that permits the NCIC report to be admitted into evidence. In response, the court stated that it also thought a statute permitted the admissibility of the NCIC report as evidence, and asked if Argenbright agreed. He responded that he agreed that the Commonwealth was "probably right but I'm not sure about that so I'm--I'm going to object to it." Argenbright articulated no other grounds to the trial court as to why the NCIC report should not have been admitted into evidence. Neither the trial court nor the Commonwealth's attorney identified the statute "that allows the record to come in." On appeal we will not speculate on which statute the court may have relied.

Absent clear evidence to the contrary in the record, the judgment of a trial court comes to us on appeal with a presumption that the judge knew and correctly applied the law. Argenbright argued that the evidence was inadmissible solely because the NCIC printout was not a certified copy of the court record of his prior convictions. He did not object that the NCIC report was not accurate or that it contained erroneous information. Finally, Argenbright did not object to the NCIC report as inadmissible hearsay or that it had not been properly authenticated. Neither did he object on the grounds of lack of adequate foundation. His failure to raise these objections to the trial court constituted a waiver of these objections. We will not consider them for the first time on appeal.
Argenbright v. Commonwealth, (3282-02-3, 25 Nov 2003)(citations omitted)(emphasis added)

He was given the maximum sentence allowed: 30 months incarceration, followed by 27 months of probation. He was then sent to a maximum security juvenile facility in Pennsylvania on the order of the federal Bureau of Prisons.
. . .
Patrick is being kept at the Cresson Secure Treatment Center in the central part of [Pennsylvania].

Cresson is for the most serious juvenile offenders in Pennsylvania who have proved disruptive in other facilities. Patrick is now housed in a wing where the other inmates are all mentally ill or mentally retarded.
. . .
[T]he education he is receiving . . consists of Patrick's volunteering to tutor the other boys in reading or arithmetic.

Federal law requires that juveniles convicted in federal court be provided with proper education, and that "whenever possible" they should be kept in a facility "located in or near" their home. Cresson is 570 miles from his home.

In railing against an unspoken traffic ticket quota he says that officers must meet -- 10 tickets per week, he contends -- he writes: "The new commanding officer of the precinct is pressuring us to write more and more tickets. We were officially told NOT to write anymore tickets for headlights and taillights. Most people fix the problem within 24 hours and the ticket would be admonished therefore the City of New York makes no money in the end.

"So I have come up with a better way of writing tickets. I just write down the plates of the cars that cut me off the the (sic) parkways and I send them a bogus parking ticket in the mail. The person will then have to deal with the Parking Violations Bureau and not me. Problem quickly resolved. So, in other words, be careful who you cut off on the road. They might be an off duty cop and they could write your plates down and write you a $150 parking ticket. Have a nice day."

A police source said Internal Affairs investigators are reviewing all tickets written by the officer.

Malvo Sentenced to Life

When the jury came back at 4 p.m., the foreman handed the judge only the verdict on the terrorism charge. Circuit Judge Jane Marum Roush sent jurors back to the jury room to fill out the other form. But they had not circled the verdict on the form, and the jurors were sent back to the jury room for a second time. Seconds later, they returned with the verdict. The jury then came back at 4:10 p.m. and handed the second verdict form to Roush.

The sentence is a stunning win for Malvo's defense team, which focused its efforts throughout the trial on saving the teen-ager's life rather than proving his innocence.

Prosecutor Robert F. Horan Jr. said afterward that Malvo was ``very lucky that he looks a lot younger than he is.'' And he suggested the timing of the deliberations just days before Christmas affected the jury.

``We used to have a theory when I was a very young prosecutor that whatever you do, don't try one on Christmas week,'' Horan said.

Victoria Buchanan Snyder, brother of Sonny Buchanan, one of the 10 dead, said "I cannot say I am not disappointed, because I am disappointed." "There cannot be another case more deserving of the death penalty," she went on, but concluded: "I respect the jury's decision."

Paul Laruffa who was wounded by a bullet shot said failure to give Malvo the death penalty "minimizes what this man did." "Was Malvo less guilty than Muhammed? I don't think so. They did exactly the same thing. That is why we are expressing our disappointment."

Vijay Walekar, the brother of taxi driver Premkumar Walekar, who was shot dead as he put petrol in his vehicle, said: "I am not happy with the verdict" and highlighted the risk that Malvo could escape and reoffend.

The faces of nine slain shooting victims flashed on the large courtroom screen, smiling at the jury that began considering the fate of sniper Lee Boyd Malvo on Monday.

One by one, Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr. demanded justice. "We want justice for Sonny Buchanan," the veteran prosecutor gravely intoned. "We want justice for Premkumar Walekar. We want justice for Sarah Ramos. We want justice for Lori Lewis-Rivera . . . . "

He proceeded through a list of nine of the 10 people killed in three terror-filled weeks in the Washington area in fall 2002. "They have one thing in common," Horan said. "They're all dead, and they're all dead at the hands of this defendant. . . . There are prodigies among children. We see them in music, we see them in academics, we see them in athletics. And unfortunately, we also see prodigies in evil."

Horan argued that Malvo, 18, was the gunman not only in the shooting of FBI analyst Linda Franklin, with which he was convicted last week, but also in the five shootings that occurred on Oct. 3, 2002, the second day of the sniper rampage. "They started out by killing innocent people before they even told the government why they were doing it," Horan said of Malvo and John Allen Muhammad, who was convicted last month of masterminding the sniper killings. "If there is such a thing as vileness, that is vileness."

. . .

"Is the behavior of this defendant so outrageous that the penalty of death is called for? Is the behavior so outrageous?" Horan asked. "We submit, based on the evidence that is already before you, that the penalty of death is the appropriate verdict at this stage."

Defense lawyer Craig Cooley said in his closing that Malvo is not inherently evil but was shaped by those around him, particularly Muhammad.

"There's no such thing as a self-made man," Cooley said. "Lee was uniquely susceptible to becoming attached to a father figure in the charismatic personage of John Muhammad."

Cooley said Malvo was susceptible to Muhammad because of his father's absences and because his mother beat him and moved him constantly.

"Children are not born evil. When they commit evil acts, you can almost always trace the acts to the evil that has been performed against them," Cooley said.

...

"We live in a society that force-feeds violence on our children, on television and in movies and in video games," Mr. Cooley said. "We glorify vengeance and we glorify violent responses to violence."
. . .
Mr. Cooley asked jurors to consider their individual responsibility for imposing the death penalty, recalling that "in ancient times execution was a participatory activity." Jurors back then, he said, would stone the defendant to death and then retrieve their bloody weapons.

He walked to the counsel table and picked up a heavy stone, weighing it in his hand.

"Each of you must actively participate or, worse, acquiesce in that decision," Mr. Cooley said of the death penalty.

Mr. Cooley ended by standing over Mr. Malvo, placing a hand on his shoulder.

. . .

Mr. Cooley concluded his emotional closing argument with a plea for Mr. Malvo's life. "It's a test of our humanity to condemn the acts but love the child," he said. "The choice here for you today is not death or freedom. The choice here is whether to take a human life or to send this child to a lifetime in prison.

"Don't be swayed by the voices of vengeance and retribution," he added. "Hold on to your compassion."

Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Horan Jr. told jurors their decision is not about retribution. “It’s not vengeance we’re asking for,’’ Horan said. “It’s justice. We want justice for a lot of people. We want justice for Sonny Buchanan. We want justice for Premkumar Walekar. We want justice for Sarah Ramos. We want justice for Lori Lewis-Rivera. We want justice for Pascal Charlot. We want justice for Dean Meyers, Kenneth Bridges, Linda Franklin, Conrad Johnson.

“They have one thing in common. All those people, they are dead. And they’re all dead at the hands of this defendant,’’ Horan said, pointing to Malvo.

A Husband Cries

Lee Malvo's trial had been mostly devoid of emotional moments, but it turned gut-wrenching last week when the sentencing phase began. Jurors wept during testimony by relatives of some of the victims.

Vijay Walekar, who lost his brother, Premkumar Walekar, said his sister-in-law still cries every time he calls her.

"I have to keep reminding myself that my brother is no longer with us," Mr. Walekar said quietly.

Ms. Franklin's daughter, Katrina Hannum, said she "lost my whole family the day I lost my mother."

Myrtha Cinada, whose father, Pascal Charlot, was killed, avoided looking at Mr. Malvo until the end of her testimony.

Then, she turned toward him and told him: "You are evil. You're insane because you took my father's life. Because of you, he didn't have a chance to see his great-grandchild. That's insane of you to do. You're evil."

The vice principal of . . . York Castle High School in Jamaica, dissolved in tears on the stand as she described [Malvo's] nomadic childhood.

"We are all hurting so much for Lee ... because here was a brilliant mind. We were certain that Lee would have achieved excellence," said Esmie McLeod, who added that Malvo was moved several times by his family.

. . .

Jamaican pastor Lorenzo King, who baptized Malvo into the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1999 at the age 14, testified that Malvo "appeared to be lonely. And he seemed to be searching for belonging. You could sense that in him."

"I have no doubt about the quality of his commitment. He was fully committed to the beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church," King said. "On the evening he was baptized he walked approximately two miles bringing his clothes with him."

"We cannot simply accept the government's position," Reinhardt continued, "that the Executive Branch possesses the unchecked authority to imprison indefinitely any persons, foreign citizens included, on territory under the sole jurisdiction and control of the United States, without permitting such prisoners recourse of any kind to any judicial forum, or even access to counsel, regardless of the length or manner of their confinement."

The jurors asked several questions at the end of the day, including a request to again see the Chevrolet Caprice that Malvo and Muhammad allegedly used during last year's deadly shooting spree in the Washington, D.C., area. The car had a modified back seat that could lift up and allow access to the trunk.

Circuit Judge Jane Marum Roush denied the request, saying "we really don't want the jurors pawing through" the car.

The jury also asked for help with the definition of malice, a necessary element to a murder conviction. The definition provided in the jury instructions is "an intentional doing of a wrongful act ... at a time when the mind of the actor is under control of reason." The note said they have specific trouble with the phrase "under the control of reason."

Prosecutor Robert F. Horan Jr. said he is concerned that the jury is unnecessarily confusing the malice issue with the insanity issue and wanted to clarify that. But the defense lawyers argued that sanity is a legitimate issue when debating whether Malvo's actions amounted to malice.

"Malice is a state-of-mind issue and it's affected by sanity," Malvo lawyer Craig Cooley said.

Roush ruled that the jurors will have to use the common-sense definitions of "control of reason" and she can provide no further guidance.

found here

Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr. used a multimedia presentation of crime scene photos and Malvo's tape-recorded confession to argue that Malvo was the triggerman in many of the shootings. Malvo "described [them] in a way only the killer could describe," Horan said, with Malvo's voice resounding through the still courtroom. The recording had an eerie cockiness, punctuated by odd chuckles, as the defendant said of the shootings, "They're all easy; they're not hard."

At one point, as Malvo's voice described the collapse of sniper victim Pascal Charlot in the District on Oct. 3, 2002, a transcript of his words was posted on a large screen. Fairfax homicide detective June Boyle asked him where Charlot was hit, and Malvo responded, "Chest shot." As he did, a larger-than-life autopsy photo of Charlot's fatal chest wound appeared beneath Malvo's words on the screen.

At first, Malvo listened to Horan's argument with his head bowed as photos of the sniper victims flashed above him. But soon, he returned to his habit of sketching furiously on a legal pad and ignoring the proceedings, as he has done for long stretches of the trial.

Defense attorney Michael S. Arif began his closing argument walking back and forth in front of the jury box, both hands in his pants pockets. His voice raspy and weak from a cold, Arif told the jury that he didn't deny that Malvo was with Muhammad when Franklin was killed, but he said Muhammad took the shot that killed her.

He said that the defense does not dispute that Malvo was involved in the shootings, but argued that killing Malvo would serve no purpose.

"Adding another life to that pile of death does not solve anything," Arif said. "It does not bring anyone back. It is just revenge. There is an old adage; if you are going to kill for revenge bring two shovels."

While Arif spoke, Malvo watched him from the defense table, his right hand resting on his chin. Horan fiddled with a pile of papers in front of him, appearing not to listen to Arif.

He stood and waved three handwritten letters Malvo sent to a fellow inmate in the Fairfax County jail in late summer and early fall this year.

"If you fight them all the time they will always be looking at you," Horan, reading from Malvo's letter, said to the jury. "But if you never resist, when you do resist -- they will be caught by surprise, never expected it, wouldn't even dream you were capable of such cruelty, hatred, brains."

Psychologist Stanton Samenow testified that Malvo's mother had instilled a strong sense of right and wrong in him, although through abusive means at times. Samenow also said Malvo expressed strong opinions about right and wrong in terms of how black people were treated in America.

Prosecutors tried to contradict Malvo's attorneys' assertion that their client was an easily-led child susceptible to brainwashing.

In interviews with Malvo, Samenow said the teenager described himself as strong-willed and emotionless. Samenow said he agrees and didn't see any evidence of mental illness.

Samenow, who lives in Alexandria, is author of the landmark and controversial 1984 book "Inside the Criminal Mind," based on six years of clinical work and research at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington. In the book, Samenow argues that most crime is caused by willful decisions of criminals. Psychological or sociological factors don't matter, he contends, nor do personal or socio-economic backgrounds. He argues that criminal offenders have a "criminal personality" present from early childhood.

"Criminals cause crime," he writes in the book. "Not bad neighborhoods, inadequate parents, television, schools, drugs, or unemployment. Crime resides within the minds of human beings and is not caused by social conditions."

"Out of Character Crime" is Not Out of Character

When a person commits a crime that seems totally alien to his personality and background, people are puzzled and shocked. In my experience, a crime only appears to be "out of character." If you develop a thorough understanding of the perpetrator's mental makeup, you will learn that there is precedent if not in behavior, then in thinking for the crime to occur. The quiet man who murders his wife in the heat of an argument may not have planned the homicide in terms of a specific date, time, and place. However, in his mind, he had killed her many times during previous conflicts. This is a person who, instead of coping with the adversity, fantasized numerous times destroying the adversity. Thus the occasion in which the actual crime occurs truly reveals the perpetrator. It is within character if one only knows his or her true character.

On cross-examination, Samenow acknowledged that in more than 30 years of experience, he has never come across a criminal he believed was incapable of knowing right from wrong.

Though little is known about Malvo's sessions with Samenow, they apparently have been stormy. Malvo's lawyers have described their client as cooperative. But they add that Malvo is frustrated by the repetitive nature of Samenow's inquiries.

Samenow also said he administered no psychiatric tests to Malvo, largely because he believes a patient can feign mental illness.

The death penalty proposal Gov. Tim Pawlenty will pursue next year would allow executions only in cases of murder - not attempted murder as he earlier suggested.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty said he would draft a capital punishment law that avoids the racial disparities other states have experienced in the application of the death penalty.

"When we put together a death penalty proposal, it will be cautious compared to other states," Pawlenty told reporters after his speech.

There was a whole body of evidence the jury didn't get to hear, the Supreme Court judgment said. Prosecutors and police knew of witnesses - not made available to the defence - who contradicted statements made by others who were presented to the court.

And perhaps most damning of all, the Supreme Court was concerned by circumstances surrounding the so-called confessions by the accused - confessions Taillefer and Duguay said were dictated to them, then beaten out of them.

Banks' lawyers demonstrated to the Texarkana court that the prosecution had withheld from the defense and the jury the fact that its main witness, who gave damaging evidence at the sentencing hearing, was a paid police informant.

Another main prosecution witness lied when he said that he had spoken to no one in advance about his courtroom testimony. That lie was uncovered only in 1999, when Banks' defense team obtained a transcript of the witness's pretrial interview with law enforcement officials, in which he was coached and rehearsed in what to say.

Gena Bunn, an assistant Texas attorney general, told the court on Monday that state prosecutors probably knew their star witness lied on the stand during Delma Banks' capital murder trial. And they weren't particularly forthcoming about the extent of the falsehoods during Banks' appeals, she said.

But none of that is reason to overrule the appeals court that upheld Banks' conviction and sentence, Bunn said, because Banks' first lawyer was too slow to complain about the deceptions, and jurors at his trial probably would have convicted him anyway.

Banks' current attorney said the prosecutors' misconduct and Banks' first lawyer's incompetence cry out for a rehearing.
. . .
Bunn told the justices that state prosecutors didn't have an obligation to point out that one of the witnesses lied when he told the court he wasn't a paid informant. She said the lie didn't matter because the witness was paid to help police find the gun, not for his testimony.

What matters, she said, was that Banks' lawyers missed deadlines for appeals while they searched for evidence and tried to find the witnesses, who had left Texas. Because of their tardiness, Bunn argued, the prosecutors couldn't be blamed for the problems.

The Supreme Court today will be asked to rein in what defense attorneys, and some prosecutors, contend is a rogue appeals court that ignores the justices' rulings in order to rubber stamp Texas death sentences.

In reversing the 2001 first-degree murder conviction of Lionel Tate, the 4th District Court of Appeal wrote that Tate's ability to assist in his defense, key to determining his competency to stand trial, was clearly in doubt.

"The record reflects that questions regarding Tate's competency were not lurking subtly in the background, but were readily apparent, as his immaturity and developmental delays were very much at the heart of the defense," Judge Barry J. Stone wrote in the opinion.

found here

John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo scouted about 100 different locations in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia as they prepared for last fall's sniper rampage, according to testimony from a psychiatrist at Malvo's capital murder trial this morning.

The plan "was basically to go to different places and keep the authorities not knowing where the next shooting was going to occur," said Dr. Neil Blumberg, who spent about 50 hours interviewing Malvo to evaluate his mental state at the time of the shootings.

Blumberg also said that Muhammad planned to shoot three to five children on the morning that he shot a 13-year-old boy at a middle school in Bowie. Muhammad and Malvo had scouted three schools in the area and chose Benjamin Tasker Middle because of the woods near the school and favorable terrain, Blumberg said.

"He said he didn't like the idea, but Muhammad said 'Let's do it.' He went along with it," Blumberg testified today. "Muhammad's plan was to shoot between three and five children. Not to kill them -- no head shots -- but he said the plan was to have a ripple effect."

The boy shot at the school, Iran Brown, was hit in the abdomen and survived. No one else was shot that day. Blumberg did not say if Malvo told him why Muhammad deviated from the plan. He testified that Malvo said he was in the car acting as the spotter for that school shooting, while Muhammad fired from the woods.

The psychiatrist said Malvo's account was credible because Malvo acknowledged involvement in all of the sniper shootings and admitted being the shooter in one, the October 22, 2002, shooting of bus driver Conrad Johnson in Aspen Hill, Maryland. He also admitted to killing Keenya Cook in Tacoma, Washington, in February 2002.

Fairfax County prosecutor Robert Horan Jr. questioned whether Malvo admitted to shooting Johnson and Cook to avoid facing the death penalty. Maryland and Washington do not allow execution of people convicted of crimes committed as juveniles, while Virginia does.

"Do you think he was smart enough to know ... that he couldn't get the death penalty in Maryland for shooting Conrad Johnson?" Horan asked.

Blumberg said Malvo could have been aware of that, but that he did not believe it affected Malvo's statements.

Horan then asked Blumberg if Malvo knew he couldn't face the death penalty in Washington state.

"I don't know if he knew about that," Blumberg said.

- - - - -

Defense psychiatrist Neil Blumberg testified that Malvo's initial statements claiming responsibility occurred while he was still under Muhammad's influence. He added that if Malvo was lying later it didn't make sense for him to still admit he was the triggerman in two killings.

"Someone who's lying or malingering - why not deny everything?" Blumberg said.

Under cross examination by Fairfax Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr., Blumberg relayed Malvo's description of the first slaying that day in Montgomery County. The victim was James L. Buchanan, 39, who was shot while pushing a lawnmower near a car dealership.

"He saw him pushing a lawn mower," Blumberg said. "There was no one around. He said he was driving and Muhammad was in the trunk. He said they were only 60 or 70 yards away. He said he saw Mr. Buchanan grab his chest. He then ran and dropped. . . . He and Muhammad switched seats and he broke down the weapon and Muhammad drove off."

The next victim that morning was Premkumar A. Walekar, 54, who was shot in the chest while pumping gas at a gas station in Aspen Hill, Md.

"He said they were parked across the street in the parking lot of a strip mall over 100 yards away," Blumberg said, "The station was busy. There were lots of targets and Muhammad shot and they left."

The first four shootings were in Maryland. The final killing of the day was in the District. Blumberg said Malvo told him that Muhammad wanted to kill someone in Washington because residents of the District were starting to "feel safe."

As a child, Malvo killed stray cats with a slingshot beginning at age 8 or 9 and continued the anti-social behavior for nearly five years, Neil Blumberg testified at Malvo's capital murder trial.

Malvo also regularly stole comic books and compact discs, said Blumberg.

. . .

On Wednesday, Blumberg testified that Malvo's mental diseases left him "psychologically numb" and legally insane because he couldn't tell right from wrong.

Blumberg's statements under cross-examination echo earlier testimony from a defense psychologist who said Malvo killed cats as a child. Blumberg said Malvo had grown to hate cats because his mother frequently beat him after Malvo's pet cat would soil his sheets.

The psychiatrist said shoplifting and cat-killing were signs of a childhood conduct disorder that combined with later mental illness to make Malvo "unable to distinguish between right and wrong" and "unable to resist the impulse" to commit the sniper killings in 2002.

Malvo also suffered from depression and a dissociative disorder that allowed him to tune out reality, lose his sense of identity and become vulnerable to Muhammad's wishes and "intense, coercive persuasion," Blumberg testified.

[T]he police pursued an intentional strategy of questioning a suspect without Miranda warnings, obtaining incriminating admissions before resuming the interrogation after a 20-minute delay. This time, the suspect, Patrice Seibert, was fully advised of her rights, signed a formal waiver form, and incriminated herself again.

The initial statement was clearly inadmissible. The question for the Supreme Court on Tuesday was whether the second statement, following the warnings, should be seen as the product of a fully informed suspect's free will, admissible in court. The Missouri Supreme Court said no, ruling that to admit the second statement in this circumstance would be to encourage deliberate evasions of the Miranda rules.

The Supreme Court ruled in a 1985 case from Oregon that an intervening warning could isolate the initial failure and make a second statement admissible. In that case, however, the initial failure to give the warnings was inadvertent. A central issue in the new case is whether it mattered that the police had deliberately omitted the warnings.

Dr. Diane Schetky testified that she believes Malvo, 18, suffered a dissociative disorder characterized as "a disruption of the normal integrative functions" of the brain.
. . .
Schetky also said Malvo still does not fully appreciate the gravity of the consequences for the crimes. "He's sitting there doodling like a child in pre-school," she testified.

Malvo, who appeared to be sketching on a yellow legal pad while seated at the defense table, looked up for several seconds, then returned to drawing.

Unable to distinguish between right and wrong, Lee Boyd Malvo met the standard for being legally insane when he participated in last year's deadly sniper rampage.

"From Day One, I thought he met the legal criteria for being legally insane in Virginia," Dr. Neil Blumberg told the jurors in the capital murder trial.

Blumberg said that Malvo had a mental disease that made him "unable to distinguish right from wrong and was unable to resist the impulse to commit the offense." Those are two of the tests for legal insanity as it is defined in Virginia.

The psychiatrist was the second to take the stand Wednesday to tell jurors that the Jamaican-born teen-ager had lost his sense of what is right. Blumberg diagnosed the youth as suffering from an unspecified "dissociative disorder," depression and a "conduct disorder."

But he believes the dysfunction was because of brainwashing by his alleged accomplice, convicted killer John Allen Muhammad. A Virginia Beach jury recommended a death sentence for Muhammad.

Blumberg, who said he is being paid about $42,500 by the state of Maryland for his evaluation of Malvo, said the disorder and brainwashing allowed the teen-ager to snuff out his feelings and take part in shooting after shooting, all for Muhammad's "righteous cause."

Even as Blumberg spoke, Malvo furiously doodled on a pad, as he has for most of the trial, alternating between looking up at the subject of his sketches and hunching over the defense table to draw.

The manic sketching, Blumberg said, was an example of dissociation, of Malvo blocking out the unpleasantness of a trial that could lead to his execution.

"This is a technique whereby he doesn't even have to think about what is going on here," Blumberg said. "What's going on here is he is being tried for murder, and he faces the death penalty. And the way he deals with that is focusing on his drawings, keeping his mind elsewhere."

Malvo "was merged with Mr Muhammad. He was acting as his proxy. He was like a puppet in his hands."
. . .
Asked by defence lawyer Craig Cooley if Malvo was able to distinguish right from wrong - the legal standard for insanity in Virginia - Schetky said, "I believe he was not."

Mr. Horan's cross-examinations yesterday aimed to undermine the psychiatrists' diagnoses. He showed the jury the entry for disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Society and pointed out the absence of a list of symptoms, such as those found with other mental diseases.
The psychiatrists said that many broad categories in the manual, such as depression, have entries for "not otherwise specified" conditions that don't fit specific maladies but nevertheless represent legitimate mental disorders.

Mr. Horan noted many of the shootings, focusing on the eight that Mr. Malvo confessed to during police interrogation, and asked the psychiatrists whether the sniper suspect knew his actions were wrong.

When Dr. Blumberg or Dr. Schetky said they didn't discuss with the defendant a particular shooting, Mr. Horan often asked, "You didn't think it was important if he thought it was wrong?"

That line of questioning led Dr. Schetky to describe how the teenager was emotionally wracked when he fatally shot Keenya Cook, 21, in the face as she opened the door of her home in Tacoma, Wash. The Feb. 16, 2002, shooting served as a training exercise for Mr. Malvo, according to testimony.

Dr. Schetky said the sniper suspect was shaking and soiled his pants after he shot Miss Cook, reactions that he hid from Muhammad.

Mr. Horan asked whether that meant he knew it was wrong to shoot Miss Cook.

"He felt he didn't have a choice," she said.

Mr. Horan asked repeatedly whether the teenager knew it was wrong. Dr. Schetky said he had "misgivings."

"So, he knew it was wrong, but he decided to do it anyway?" said Mr. Horan.

Dr. Schetky said yes.

The killing of the woman, Keenya Cook, was the first murder he explored in detail with Malvo, he testified.

Muhammad told him about the mission only three hours earlier, Malvo told him.

“He said he was a afraid to say he couldn’t do it,” Blumberg testified, “afraid Muhammad wouldn’t want him around.”

Malvo was dropped off, went to the door and talked with Cook. She was the niece of a former bookkeeper who had testified against Muhammad in a child-custody dispute in which he lost custody of his three children.

“The victim was friendly,” Blumberg said, “then he pulled out a .45 and shot her once in the head.”

He ran, in a panic, stripped off his outer layer of clothes and called Muhammad over a walkie-talkie, the psychiatrist said.

“As he was doing this he said he was only focusing on what he was going to do. Trying to control his emotions,” Blumberg said.

Malvo relied on extensive training by Muhammad, Blumberg said, that capitalized on a natural tendency of the formerly abused child to zone out on his emotions.

found here

During cross-examination today, prosecutor Robert F. Horan Jr. said Malvo committed his first killing at Muhammad's bidding just 10 weeks after he ran away from his mother. Malvo confessed to the Feb. 16, 2002, slaying of Keenya Cook in Tacoma, saying he walked up to her house and shot her in the face at point-blank range.

"By February 16 he goes out and shoots a woman he doesn't even know in the face and kills her," Horan said in questioning the defense psychologist. "And it is your testimony he did this because he was indoctrinated by Muhammad?"

Psychologist Dewey Cornell said Malvo wanted to please Muhammad and that Cook's killing served as Malvo's first test that he would do Muhammad's bidding.

Horan suggested Tuesday that Cornell sought to change Malvo's attitudes and played chess with him in order to do so.

Cornell, a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Virginia, said he played chess with Malvo "to improve our relationship ... so that he would be more likely to tell me the truth."

Horan queried later, "You were getting paid by the taxpayers, weren't you?"

"Not for the chess time," Cornell responded.

[June 1] was the first time, Cornell said, that Malvo acknowledged that he had been manipulated by Muhammad and began to tell a different version of events. Malvo began to say that he been only the spotter -- not the shooter [em dash] in all but the final sniper shooting.

That, Cornell said, is the real Lee Malvo.

Prosecutors don't buy it. In crossexamining Cornell Tuesday, lead prosecutor Robert F. Horan Jr. made a mockery of Malvo's conversion, repeatedly referring to the "old Malvo" and the "new Malvo" as if they were two different people. Horan asked which Malvo had committed various crimes, and which Malvo that Cornell had evaluated.

But Cornell wouldn't play along. "You want to call it the old Malvo and the new Malvo, but I wouldn't say there's one day in which there's a new Malvo," said Cornell, a University of Virginia psychologist who spent 54 hours with Malvo this year. "I'd say there is a process he went through and is continuing to go through."

"The purpose is to get children to do what they've been told without emotions getting in the way," Neil Boothby, an international authority in the field of child soldiering, told jurors as Malvo's capital murder trial continued in Chesapeake.

Boothby, who has observed child soldiers in war-torn countries such as Rwanda and Bosnia, testified that guerilla or state-sponsored leaders indoctrinate children to kill for a variety of supposedly just causes: religious, political, ethnic or racial reasons.

Boothby described an "emotional numbing" process that can render child soldiers so completely brainwashed that the youths can operate free of direct adult supervision and will not turn on their leaders if captured.


If a leader learns a child soldier has doubts about killing, Boothby said, the leader often will portray those moments as a sign of weakness.
. . .
Chief prosecutor Robert F. Horan Jr. vehemently objected to Boothby's testimony, saying it was irrelevant to the string of sniper attacks that left 10 people dead and three more wounded from the Washington suburbs to the Richmond area in October 2002.

"I'm not aware of any war fought by children in the United States," Horan argued. Malvo "wasn't prepared for war, he was prepared for assasination."

[P]sychologist Dewey Cornell said Malvo told him he was the spotter, and told Muhammad, "SAC one, go" -- "the sign that it was clear to take a shot," Cornell said.
. . .
Cornell said Malvo's confession -- made to Fairfax County police and the FBI -- was "inaccurate," and was an attempt to spare Muhammad a death sentence.

The psychologist testified that Malvo told him "he was the spotter on every [sniper] shooting up until the last one," contradicting the statements he made to police.

"Lee always admitted that he was involved in the shooting with Mr. Muhammad," Cornell said. But the psychologist said he believes Malvo took the blame because he blamed himself "for the failure of the mission" when they were captured. Malvo was supposed to have been on lookout when they were captured, police said.

Cornell recounted the progression of Muhammad's alleged indoctrination of Malvo as the teenager's lawyers continued their push to prove Malvo not guilty by reason of insanity for the October 2002 sniper shootings. One of the legal definitions for insanity includes an inability to determine right from wrong.

Malvo's lawyers contend Muhammad, now 42, brainwashed Malvo, now 18, and trained the teen to shoot the high-powered rifle used in the shootings that left 10 people dead and three wounded from the Washington suburbs to the Richmond area last fall.


Cornell traced the genesis of Muhammad's alleged brainwashing of Malvo, starting with how Muhammad regaled Malvo and other boys on the island of Antigua with tales of war exploits. He bought them ice cream and taught them karate.
. . .
Cornell, who has interviewed Malvo for 54 hours during the past several months, testified that Muhammad filled Malvo with hate and racial prejudice toward white people.

Muhammad allegedly made Malvo listen with headphones to audiotapes of hate-filled speeches as the teen fell asleep. Muhammad selectively culled the speeches from the writings of civil-rights figure Malcolm X, Cornell testified, adding that one such tape began with music by reggae artist Bob Marley but then shifted to hateful speech by someone else.

Cornell said Muhammad and Malvo often discussed right and wrong, and Muhammad told him "that right and wrong do not exist."

Muhammad said the two were in a war, and that "the winners in a war determine which killings are right and wrong," Cornell said.

In Malvo's initial interviews with Cornell, he defended Muhammad. After several months, though, Malvo said he realized that Muhammad had manipulated him.

"He realized he was an expendable person" to Muhammad, Cornell said, recalling that Malvo wondered: "If I was doing right, why did God let it stop?"

Malvo also had misgivings about Muhammad's plan for the sniper attacks, but felt compelled to follow Muhammad's orders.

"Mr. Muhammad gave him pep talks that black people were killed every day and that in times of war, innocent people would die," said Cornell, who interviewed Malvo more than 20 times after his arrest.

Cornell said that Malvo told him he was in "turmoil" over Muhammad's decision to begin a series of shootings. "He felt an obligation to follow his father, but he started to have some misgivings, which, to him, was stressful. He thought the only way out of this was to kill himself."

Cornell said Malvo told him that when Muhammad sensed he was losing his resolve to follow his orders, Muhammad would tell the teenager: "Soldier, you are not getting afraid. Soldier call yourself to attention."

Muhammad often told Malvo that Malvo should shoot and kill Muhammad if he ever strayed from the mission, Cornell said. Malvo assumed the same would happen to him if he deviated, according to the witness.

The judge in the trial of sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo banned an audiovisual presentation by a defense psychologist Monday after prosecutors complained it was full of inadmissible evidence including Malvo's baby pictures.
. . .
Prosecutor Robert F. Horan Jr., who was given an advance copy of Cornell's presentation, said it included, among other things, baby pictures intended to soften up the jury.

``I've never heard of a psychologist who bases his opinion on what a baby picture looks like,'' said Horan, who likened the presentation to the type of brainwashing the defense claims was imposed on Malvo by sniper mastermind John Allen Muhammad.

Circuit Judge Jane Marum Roush agreed with Horan that Cornell's presentation was ``replete with inadmissible evidence'' and barred the defense from displaying it.

Cornell also said Malvo attested to being a fan of "The Matrix," a movie that depicts humans being under the control of an evil computer-run government. Cornell said Malvo had watched the movie more than 100 times and that the teen identified with the hero of the movie, who is to free humans who are so oppressed they don't know they are being dominated. Cornell said Malvo believed blacks were in a similar position.

The defense played a violent segment from the movie showing protagonists gunning down police and others, as well as clips from sniper video games, including "Halo," "Covert Ops" and "Ghost Recon."

One of the games includes "God Mode," in which the player is immune to an enemy's bullets. Malvo and Muhammad used the phrase "Call me God" in notes they left for police at shooting scenes and in phone calls to investigators. "Another kill," one of the games recites after each fatal shot.

"I'm not saying it controlled his actions," Cornell testified of "The Matrix." But he said the movie might have desensitized Malvo to violence and also spurred aggression.

As a child, sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo hunted and killed cats with a slingshot, one of the first signs of emotional problems in an otherwise "strikingly obedient child," a psychologist testified Monday.

Malvo once had a pet cat but grew to hate cats, said psychologist Dewey Cornell, who has interviewed Malvo 21 times since February. Cornell said Malvo's mother, Una James, would beat the boy because the pet cat would sleep in Malvo's bed and soil the sheets.

"If he saw a stray cat he would become angry and shoot the stray cat. He hit some of the cats, and probably killed some of the cats," Cornell testified at Malvo's trial. "This was probably the most serious problem in his childhood.

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Friday’s testimony centered on indoctrination, despite Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr.’s assertion that it was “a red herring” in a case with an insanity defense.

Horan objected repeatedly to questions about whether Malvo’s frequent moves, restricted diet or lack of a father figure could have contributed to his indoctrination by Muhammad.

Such hypothetical questions “must give the full picture of a life,” Horan said, not just pick and choose details.

Eventually, Martin was allowed to answer a question by defense attorney Thomas B. Walsh, who asked if Malvo’s nomadic existence would “be consistent with the condition that would facilitate someone being indoctrinated.”
. . .
Horan continued to object, stating that the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition “never, never, never defines indoctrination as a mental disease.”

The reference manual calls indoctrination “a dissociative disorder not otherwise specified,” Horan read. Malvo laid his head on his arms, folded on the table, and watched as the attorneys debated during a 30-minute jury recess.

Walsh explained that Martin was there not to address Malvo’s background but to testify from his professional knowledge and “simply set the stage” for later expert testimony. Fairfax County Circuit Judge Jane Marum Roush then permitted Martin to answer Walsh’s questions.

Martin, who testified that he was a lieutenant in a religious cult in the early 1970s, said that there are a series of techniques cults or individuals use to indoctrinate people. Typically, he said, they have a dogma or ideology, and a system for teaching that ideology.

Cults also attack the person's past belief system, Martin said. "In other words, out with the old and in with the new."

Cults usually place some sort of demand on people they are indoctrinating, Martin said, whether it be enduring lectures, watching videotapes, or engaging in exercise and meditation.

Martin, who according to The Associated Press has not interviewed either Malvo or Muhammad, also said cults promote a fear of leaving a group, and create additional incentives -- in the form of extra sleep or food, for example -- for remaining in the group.

Martin said people have a common misconception that most indoctrinated people are isolated from society. "It's a misnomer to think that everything about these situations is like a concentration camp," he said.

And, he said, there can be one-on-one indoctrination of the sort defense attorneys say happened with Muhammad and Malvo.

[I]t is far from clear whether the snipers had extortion in mind when they started killing.

They did not even suggest they wanted money until a vague reference to "negotiations" in a phone call to police on Oct. 15, the day after the 11th shooting - the murder of Linda Franklin at a Home Depot store in Fairfax County, for which Malvo is now on trial.

They did not get around to demanding the $10 million until four days later, after wounding a man outside a restaurant in Ashland. An entry in their laptop computer showed they had considered demanding $5 million.

The snipers wanted the money placed in a bank account from which they could withdraw it through ATMs anytime, anywhere in the world. Even Muhammad must have realized how far-fetched that was, said Robert K. Ressler, a former FBI profiler who has interviewed numerous serial killers. He said the snipers probably thought up the extortion plan in the middle of the killings as an excuse to taunt and challenge the police.

If money had been the snipers' motive, Fox said, "it would have been easier for them to rob a bank."

"Some people just like to kill other people," said Gregg McCrary, another former FBI profiler. "They try to rationalize the murders afterward, but it might not be any more complicated than that."

"Juries are fundamentally reluctant to accept the notion that humans are so pliable, that human will can be bent in that way," he said. Sociologist James Richardson teaches at the National Judicial College, a training center for judges at the University of Nevada at Reno. He says the brainwashing defense has been tried unsuccessfully in high-profile cases like the 1976 trial of newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst. She was kidnapped by armed revolutionaries but - toting a machine gun - later joined them in robbing a California bank. Unmoved by her defense of indoctrination, a jury found her guilty. Mr. Richardson says that although jurors are often sympathetic to the emotional pressure put on malleable suspects by conniving accomplices, they return to a premise of American justice, that people are responsible for their own actions.

One drawing depicts a naked black man hanging in a public square from chains around his wrists. Nearby, a slave takes orders from his master. A caption says: "THIS IS WAR. IT WILL GO ON AND ON UNTIL YOU ARE TOTALLY DESTROY, YOUR WHITE STATE OF MIND . . . HOLY WAR! JIHAD."

Another shows the Star of David in the crosshairs of a gun scope, with the declaration, "WANTED DEAD! True Terrorists. Fight to destroy oppression," written next to the image. And in another, a sniper lies in tall grass setting his rifle sights on a target: "NO PEACE! ONLY PIECES. You got lucky boyz! (Great job). No suppressor! YOU WILL NEVER BE SAFE!"

Delma Banks, Jr. v. Janie Cockrell, Director, Texas Dept. Criminal Justice
No. 02-8286

Question:
Did the 5th Circuit err in rejecting Banks' claim under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), that the prosecution suppressed material witness impeachment evidence that prejudiced him in the penalty phase of his trial, on the grounds that: (a) the evidence supporting the claim was procedurally defaulted, notwithstanding the fact that there was no reasonable basis for concluding that counsel for Banks could have discovered the suppressed evidence prior to or during that trial or state post-conviction proceedings; and (b) the suppressed evidence was immaterial to Banks' death sentence, where the panel neglected to consider that the trial prosecutors viewed the evidence to be of "utmost importance" to showing a capital sentence was appropriate?


Did the 5th Circuit act contrary to Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984) and Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362 (2000), when it weighed each item of mitigating evidence separately and concluded that no single category would have brought a different result at sentencing without weighing the impact of the evidence collectively?


Did the 5th Circuit act contrary to Harris v. Nelsen, 394 U.S. 286 (1969) and Withrow v. Williams, 507 U.S. 680 (1993) in holding that Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(b) does not apply to habeas proceedings because "evidentiary hearings" in those proceedings are not similar to civil trials?

Banks' attorneys will tell the court Monday that prosecutors hid evidence and systematically eliminated all blacks from the jury. They'll say that before his one-day trial, Banks' first lawyer interviewed no witnesses and failed to review the prosecution's evidence. He did not investigate Banks' social history or school records prior to the penalty phase of the trial. And the appeals courts never gave those lapses the attention they deserved, Banks' lawyers will argue.
. . .
[O]ver the past few terms, the court has been reshaping the nature of capital punishment by ordering changes in the way defendants reach death row.

The justices, led by newer members of the court who are still shaping their view of capital punishment, have outlawed executions of the mentally retarded; required juries rather than judges to impose death sentences; blasted racial jury-stacking in capital cases and heightened the standards for defense lawyers in death penalty cases.

Banks' case involves several of those issues and others, leading some experts to believe the justices may take another broad swipe at the existing capital system in their ruling.

In Ring v. Arizona, decided in June 2002, the court held that juries rather than judges had to make the crucial factual determinations that separated convicted murderers eligible to be sentenced to death from those who were not. While juries in most states have the role of determining the existence of "aggravating factors," five states — Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Nebraska, in addition to Arizona — gave that role to judges.

Inmates in those states with cases still on appeal received new sentencing hearings, and the states have changed their laws to conform to the Ring decision. The question for the Supreme Court now is whether inmates who have exhausted their direct appeals in state courts can bring habeas corpus petitions in federal courts to challenge the constitutionality of their death sentences.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Tuesday he would push to reinstate the death penalty in Minnesota next year, saying he has had it with tales of violent sexual offenses.

"I think I speak for most Minnesotans — as a Minnesotan, as governor, as dad of two young daughters: I'm fed up," he said at a news conference, reacting to the arrest of a convicted sexual offender in the Nov. 22 disappearance of University of North Dakota senior Dru Sjodin.

Pawlenty said Sjodin's case was the "tipping point" in his decision.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty's call for the reinstatement of the death penalty in Minnesota is a profoundly troubling development which voters and legislators should reject.

Not only is state-sanctioned killing impractical, costly and ineffective as a deterrent to crime, but -- more important -- it would make all Minnesotans complicit in the very cycles of violence which everyone abhors and which are tearing at the fabric of our society.

As spiritual leaders of many of Minneapolis' downtown houses of worship, we stand with those who will resist this backward and frightening step. While we do not speak for members of our congregations, our firm opposition to the death penalty rises from what we understand to be the deepest values of our various faiths.
Rev. James Gertmenian of Plymouth Congregational Church and the Rev. Timothy Hart-Andersen of Westminster Presbyterian Church

"There are now numerous examples of innocent people who have been released from death row and many more examples of people being executed in a cloud of uncertainty about their guilt or culpability," said Caroline Palmer, president of the Minnesota Lawyers Guild and a member of Minnesotans Against the Death Penalty, a group formed this spring. "The trend in the United State is turning against the death penalty."

"Not only is it morally wrong … but it also is fiscally dumb," said Rep. Mindy Greiling, a Roseville DFLer. In other states, it costs millions of dollars to deal with the legal appeals of death row inmates.

"We cannot teach that killing is wrong by taking the lives of offenders," Kate Krisik, social concerns director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference, read from a letter from the Roman Catholic bishops' organization.

"This should really terrify everyone in our communities of color in Minnesota," said Spike Moss, a Minneapolis African-American leader. Moss and others, including the head of the Minneapolis NAACP, cited studies that have found people of color are disproportionately represented on death row.

"It is a form of torture," said Paul Werger, state death penalty abolition coordinator in Minnesota for Amnesty International.

"Thou shalt not kill. This is God's commandment," said Brian Rusche of the Joint -Religious Legislative Coalition.

NAACP national chairman Julian Bond, in St. Paul on Friday for Minnesota's 20th Human Rights Day Conference, joined those voicing concerns about Gov. Tim Pawlenty's call for reinstating capital punishment in Minnesota.

Bond said the death penalty is applied disproportionately to racial minority group members and is fraught with error. He called the governor's initiative a "bad, bad notion."

"There's a frightening hunger in part of the population for retribution rather than punishment, and that's never a good thing," Bond said. "It's not a good outcome in any case."

DFL House Minority Leader Matt Entenza of St. Paul says the governor's timing is regrettable.

"The members of my caucus were shocked that at a time that we should be out trying to figure out where this young woman is, that some politicians are trying to pander on hot button social issues," Entenza said.

---

Of the Senate members who gave an opinion in the survey, DFLers came down 25 to 2 against the death penalty and Republicans were split 10 to 10. But Hottinger said that he didn't want to declare victory and that a relatively popular governor and public anger over the Sjodin case should not be discounted. But, Hottinger said, "In the past, when there's been momentary angry public fervor, long-term thinking has prevailed."

In the House, where Republicans have an imposing 82-51 majority, with one vacancy, the numbers mirrored the Senate's. Republicans who took a side were opposed 31 to 26. DFLers who could be reached and picked a side were opposed 37 to 0.

Fully 85 percent of Minnesota's 200 legislators -- 67 senators and 133 representatives -- responded to the telephone survey conducted Wednesday through Friday. The 201-seat Legislature has one vacancy.

---

House Speaker Steve Sviggum, R-Kenyon, Pawlenty's indispensable ally and commander of a lopsided Republican majority, was only lukewarm about the new agenda item Wednesday. Sviggum was one of 30 House members who voted for capital punishment in 1997, the last time it came to a floor vote. There were 102 nays.

"I would tell you that there is nothing that puts it at the top of our agenda," Sviggum said. "It was kind of laid out without any discussion or notification. But if the governor introduces it, I would guess that it would come to a vote."

"We're eagerly awaiting guidance on the constitutionality of the statute," said Michael Arcuri, the district attorney in Utica and president of the New York State District Attorneys Association. "The decision didn't give us any guidance."
. . .
The two associate judges who dissented on Tuesday, Victoria Graffeo and Susan Phillips Read, used harsh language as they argued that the court should have left in place a first-degree murder conviction for the Syracuse-area man, James Cahill III, who beat his wife with a baseball bat and later forced cyanide down her throat. Cahill is now to be sentenced to a maximum of life in prison for second-degree murder.

"The majority has substituted its `wisdom' and public policy choices for those of the Legislature," Graffeo wrote.

"I'm haunted by the fact that I now think we seized an innocent man, with no valid Canadian arrest warrant, based on false evidence from the U.S."

Peltier, an AIM activist who is serving two life sentences for the 1975 murders of two FBI agents in South Dakota, fled to Canada. He was extradited in 1976 on the basis of affidavits from a witness named Myrtle Poor Bear, a mentally challenged woman who claimed she was Peltier's girlfriend and had seen him shoot the two agents.

Poor Bear later recanted her evidence after it was proven she had never met Peltier nor witnessed the shootings.

Warren Allmand, a former justice minister, and the judge who extradited Peltier later said they would never have agreed to his extradition had they known some affidavits and evidence presented by the U.S. were false.

Prosecutors in the case of the German who killed and ate a man could face legal problems proving he had committed murder because the victim offered himself for slaughter and wanted to be eaten.

Wilfred Machage, assistant minister for home affairs, said: "The practice has been used worldwide in the past but latest trends show that it is an abuse of an individual's right to life and it is not part of the measures that can help a convict fit in society because they will be dead."

It is to the credit of the Federal Ministry of Justice that it has assumed responsibility of not only raising issues of this nature but for ensuring that Nigerians are properly informed on the many issues related to death penalty.

This is why my Committee looks forward with much expectation to the outcome of this dialogue. Specifically the interest of the Committee on Justice and Legal Matters in the death penalty dialogue is based on our desire to raise key concerns about the state of the Nigerian Criminal Justice System. We believe that this dialogue should not be based solely on whether or not the state should be given the power to kill. This must also be a platform where stakeholders should collectively explore means by which the Federal Government and I mean specifically the Presidency would put the reform of our justice sector on top of its agenda.

The case was so lacking in evidence it "offends my sense of justice," declared U.S. District Judge David Sam.

Sam sent Justice Department lawyers packing Friday after throwing out what he saw as a fanciful racketeering case. It was the second time he had rejected the case, and this time it was for good as he acquitted the defendants.

Sam, 70, has spent 18 years on the federal bench. He interprets law literally, frowns on fanciful legal theories and emphasizes a limited role for government, especially the federal government, in constitutional affairs.

The acquital in the scandal could have repercussions for the prosecution. Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, said the panel might hold hearings next year to examine the government's handling of the case.

"After so obvious an abuse of power it is now the responsibility of Congress to see what has gone wrong," Cannon said. "This should include making the victims of fouled prosecutorial discretion whole, at least for the cost of their defense."

click on any picture above to go to the article it is with

One of Malvo's attorneys, Michael S. Arif, said in an interview Tuesday -- before the judge overseeing Malvo's trial had issued a gag order -- that many of the drawings were done when the teenager was held in isolation at the jail and that the issues he focused on, such as racism, were embedded in his mind by Muhammad, who was convicted and sentenced to death for a sniper slaying.

"Muhammad was off center and felt victimized by white society," Arif said. "Lee is a Jamaican, not an African American. This is not his fight. It was Muhammad's fight, if there was a fight to be had."

"How many million people have seen this movie and how many have committed murder?" asked Horan rhetorically during a Boston Globe interview.

In court Thursday, the judge questioned the prosecutors and defense attorneys in the case, and all told her they did not leak the letter.

Roush also said she was "disturbed" by the daily news conferences defense attorneys had been holding after court.

"I'm going to enter a gag order because I am increasingly disturbed by this. I think it's an attempt to reach the jurors or the jurors' families," Roush said. "No more talking to the papers, no more having press conferences."

Robert F. Horan Jr., the lead prosecutor, argued that some of the experts should not be allowed to testify at all and sought to limit the testimony of others. He told the judge that none of the experts the defense presented or proposed to present could say Mr. Malvo was insane in a legal sense.

"We have an insanity defense that's like a puff of smoke," Mr. Horan said. "There is no real claim that he was insane under Virginia law."

The most defense experts had concluded in their pretrial reports, Mr. Horan said, was that Mr. Malvo's ability to tell right from wrong was "severely impaired." That was not enough, he said.

Judge Jane Marum Roush, in a comment from the bench, agreed with Mr. Horan's description of the legal standard but still allowed the defense's first three expert witnesses to testify.

Judge Roush said the insanity defense required proof that Mr. Malvo was categorically incapable of making the distinction.

"I imagine someone is going to have to say at some point that the indoctrination in this case was so severe that it made Mr. Malvo unable to know right from wrong," she said. "I would be sorely disappointed if there is no such testimony."

Craig S. Cooley, a lawyer for Mr. Malvo, responded, "No more than I would be," and added that defense experts would testify that Mr. Malvo was indeed insane in that sense.

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The defense also introduced a stack of more than 100 drawings Malvo has made during his year in the Fairfax County jail. Many are heroic portraits of such figures as Saddam Hussein, Louis Farrakhan and Moammar Gaddafi, and they include language such as "Stand up black men, just stand up together" and "I Lee will die for the revolution."

One drawing features a rifle sight on a police officer's head. Others are messages to Fairfax Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr.; one says, "Wanted Horan dead." A drawing of the World Trade Center includes Osama bin Laden and the word "prophet." Another picture shows a rifle sight on the White House with a threat: "Sept. 11 we will ensure will look like a picnic to you."

Yet another shows Malvo with a smiling Muhammad's arm around him, with the caption "Father and son."
. . .
In 1990, Muhammad was shipped to Saudi Arabia as the military prepared to move into Kuwait. He was assigned to an engineering squad headed by Sgt. Kip T. Berentson, who testified that as Muhammad's supervisor, he sometimes filed complaints about Muhammad's performance. He said Muhammad felt he was picking on him.

"Did he complain that this had some sort of racial tone?" Cooley asked. Berentson, who is white, said yes. He said Muhammad filed counter-complaints about Berentson, but none was substantiated.

In November 1991, an incendiary grenade was tossed into Berentson's tent. He said Muhammad was "suspected and removed [from the unit], but not convicted."

In his testimony, Lindbergh Williams said he loved his father, but also recounted to the Malvo jury how Muhammad repeatedly told him of the alleged abuse he was receiving from his mother.

"If you tell an 11-year-old something on a constant basis every day, every day, eventually you're going to believe it," Williams said.

Williams, now a 21-year-old janitor in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was Muhammad's first son, born to Muhammad and his first wife, Carol Williams. The couple separated when Lindbergh was a toddler.

When Lindbergh Williams was 11, he spent a summer with his father. Lindbergh described his father as person with a "big heart" who loves children. But, Williams said, the man also is "a manipulator."

"If he sees weakness, he'll take advantage of your weakness," he testified.
. . .
Prosecutor Robert Horan Jr. questioned Williams in an apparent effort to show that as an 11-year-old he was able to overcome the will of his father.

But Williams said it was not his decision to return to his mother. Instead, he said, Muhammad's second wife, Mildred, persuaded Muhammad to return the boy.

Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr. called the defense’s theory “nonsense’’ and “a red herring.’’

“Thousands and thousands of people lose their children every year in divorce court’’ and never kill people, Horan argued after objecting to jurors being allowed to hear custody testimony.

“Judge, that is such speculation, it should never be allowed in this trial. Because that’s all it is. ... They were here on a totally different mission,’’ Horan said.

“Their intent was to get the government to give them money. … The goal of killing Mildred Muhammad is a pipe dream. It is a convenient pipe dream.’’

Roush sent the jury out of the room and asked Cooley, "Is anybody going to say the custody decision was at all a reason for the shootings?"

Cooley cited a number of threats against Mildred Muhammad and said, "Mr. Muhammad's intentions were recovering his children." He noted that when Muhammad was arrested last year, he told investigators of his nationwide search for his children.

Roush allowed the jury to hear the tape.

Malvo's lawyers theorize John Muhammad planned to kill his ex-wife during the sniper shootings, and then regain custody of the children. The same theory was advanced by Muhammad's prosecutors.
. . .
Cooley said the contrary positions taken by different prosecutors for the same crimes are difficult to reconcile.

"They have certainly taken contrary positions in these two trials, about as contrary as you can get," he said outside of court. "I think you'll see it raised as an issue later in this trial."

Also on Tuesday, Roush ruled that jurors can hear about an incident in which Muhammad allegedly threw a grenade into fellow soldiers' tent while serving in the Army during Operation Desert Shield. Muhammad was never charged in the matter, and no one was injured.

Prosecutor Robert F. Horan Jr. argued that Muhammad's military records describing the incident and the accusations against him should not be permitted as evidence because they contained speculation from soldiers who could not be cross-examined in court.

While allowing the alleged grenade attack to be introduced as evidence, Roush barred much of Muhammad's military records, saying they contained speculation and opinions about Muhammad that are not permissible in a trial.

Banks' lawyer, Randall Roske, criticized the ruling, saying it will lead to aggressive searches.

"Police are going to read this as, 'Knock and announce and kick the door in,'" he said.

Justice David H. Souter, writing for the nine justices, said while "this call is a close one, we think that after 15 or 20 seconds without a response, police could fairly suspect that cocaine would be gone if they were reticent any longer."

He noted the unfortunate timing of the afternoon raid, which brought Banks "out dripping to confront the police." But police didn't know Banks was in the shower, he said.

U.S. Constitution: Article III

Section 3.

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

"It is absolutely a red herring in this case," Horan said. "They never made any try to kill her. Never. They were here on a totally different mission. This defendant said so."

In a firm voice Mildred Muhammad testified earlier before the jury that her husband was a very strict parent. "He was controlling," she said, "he was the disciplinarian, but his tactics were he had to have complete control of them."

Mildred Muhammad said she obtained a restraining order against her husband after he came to her house following the couple's separation and pushed her aside to get in the door so he could visit with his son, John Jr., who was ill at the time.

She also said after the separation that her husband had her phone number changed and didn't give her the new number. "Then he would say, 'Thought you would get away from me, didn't you?' " Mildred Muhammad testified.

She said that she called 911 on Oct. 11, 2002, when she saw a dark colored Chevrolet Caprice or Impala outside her home in Clinton, Md. "The driver just sat and stared," she said, "but the passenger had a newspaper that went up to cover his face."

[T]he Supreme Court has ruled that courts should not award “inadequate” sentence to [rapists] who are actually “animals in human forms."

A Singapore court has sentenced a man of Indian origin to 26 years in jail and 24 cane strokes for raping an air stewardess and molesting her colleague in a hotel on April 8.

In 2001, the Sunday Mirror ran an interview with the father of the victim of an alleged assault by two Leeds footballers, Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate. The piece was published while the jury was trying to make up its mind about the guilt or innocence of the accused. Because the story could have misled the jury, it gave rise to a substantial risk of serious prejudice in the criminal trial. The consequences were drastic: the case collapsed, the editor resigned, the newspaper was fined 75,000 pounds for contempt and paid 54,000 pounds in costs.

Mr. Horan, the prosecutor, is already growing exasperated with the defense's case, though it is only getting started. He objects often, arguing that evidence about Mr. Malvo's childhood cannot tell the jury anything valuable about his culpability for his acknowledged role in the sniper shootings.

"I understand," Mr. Horan asked a witness who had testified about the strict discipline Mr. Malvo had been subjected to, "that in Jamaica if you misbehave as a child, you get a beating."

The witness, Lloyd Barrett, agreed.

"Have you ever lived with the Irish?" Mr. Horan asked.

Mr. Barrett looked mystified.

Mr. Cooley, in a news conference, expressed a sort of sympathy for his adversary.

"When we think of adjectives to describe Mr. Horan," he said, "patience is probably not No. 1 on the list."

Defence attorneys contend Malvo is innocent by reason of insanity, thoroughly brainwashed by Muhammad. Their strategy so far has included testimony showing a dramatic change in Malvo after he met Muhammad in 2000, when Malvo's mother left him to fend for himself on the island of Antigua.
. . .
Prosecutors, by contrast, portray a cold-blooded killer who functioned in concert with Muhammad and was the triggerman in most of the 13 sniper shootings in and around the US capital.

"Can you get them to bring me something? Raisins."

"Let me see if I can find some. Just plain raisins?" Boyle asked.

"Plain raisins, no sugar on them," he responded. He later explained the benefits of a grape fast that might last three to five days.

"Well, it cleans your body out. . . . It's an antioxidant. . . . Grapes fill you up. Ever try eating five pounds of grapes for a meal?"

Later in the interrogation, Malvo explained that health and physical stamina were imperative for him and Muhammad to carry out the shootings because any distraction might cause them to stray from a particular plan. For that reason, Malvo said, he supplemented his diet with vitamins and minerals.

"There's no room for you not to feel well," he told Boyle. "There's no reason for me to fall on the battlefield. Your soldiers are strong. They're not ill."