SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- When James Lee Crummel hanged himself in his San Quentin Prison cell last month, he had been living on Death Row for almost eight years -- and he was still years away from facing the executioner.
California's automatic death penalty appeals take so long that the state's 723 condemned inmates are more likely to die of old age and infirmities --or kill themselves -- than be put to death.
Since capital punishment was reinstated in 1978, California has executed 13 inmates, and none since 2006. But 20 have committed suicide, including Crummel, who abducted, sexually abused and killed a 13-year-old boy on his way to school in 1979. Another 57 inmates have died of natural causes. The ponderous pace of this process has helped make the state's death row the most populous in the nation, and it has generated critics from all quarters.
Victim rights groups say the delays amount to justice denied. Death penalty opponents say the process, like execution itself, amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
And now the state's voters will get an opportunity this November to vote on a measure that would abolish the death penalty, which critics deride as an inefficient and expensive system for a financially troubled state.
It took the Supreme Court four years to appoint Crummel a public defender, and it took his attorney almost that long to file his opening brief after several time extensions. Crummel's appeal was
expected to consume a few more years before the high court decided the case.While most condemned inmates welcome legal delays, even those seeking a speedy resolution are stymied.
Scott Peterson, who was sentenced to death seven years ago for murdering his pregnant wife Laci, is attempting to get his case before the Supreme Court as soon as possible, because he says he was wrongly convicted.
Peterson's parents hired a top-notch private appellate lawyer after sentencing, while other Death Row inmates wait an average of five years each for appointment of taxpayer-funded public defenders.
"We are moving at lightning speed compared to most automatic appeals," said Peterson's attorney Cliff Gardner. "He wants to establish his innocence."
The slow wheels of death penalty appeals, and the billions of dollars spent on them over the years, are making converts of some of capital punishment's biggest backers, including the author of a 1978 ballot measure that expanded the types of crimes eligible for capital punishment in the state.
Retired prosecutor Donald Heller, who wrote the 1978 proposition, and Ron Briggs, the initiative's campaign manager who now serves on the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors, say they support abolition in California because the system is too costly and hardly anyone is being put to death.
"We'd thought we would bring California savings and safety in dealing with convicted murderers," Briggs said in a statement. "Instead, we contributed to a nightmarish system that coddles murderers and enriches lawyers. "
The current measure -- known as the SAFE California Act -- would convert all death sentences to life in prison without parole and redirect $100 million from the death penalty system to be spent over three years investigating unsolved murders and rapes.
Despite the growing backlog, district attorneys continue to send murderers to death row. Five new inmates have arrived this year, and several more are expected, including Los Angeles gang member 24-year-old Pedro Espinoza who was convicted of shooting to death a high school football player. A jury recommended death for Espinoza, and a judge is scheduled formally sentence him in September.
Meantime, Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley is attempting to immediately resume executions of two longtime Death Row inmates Mitchell Carleton Sims, 52, and Tiequon Aundray Cox, 46, who have exhausted all of their appeals. Sims has been on Death Row since 1987, Cox since 1986.
"It is time Sims and Cox pay for their crimes," said Cooley, who is asking that the inmates be executed with a single drug rather than the three-drug lethal cocktail now being challenged in federal and state courts. The California District Attorneys Association is backing Cooley's attempt to resume executions.
Cooley argues appeals rather than trials consume the lion's share of what the state spends administering the death penalty in California. Cooley wants executions to remain on hold until after the November election. But if the death penalty is retained, he proposes a change in the law to allow the State Court of Appeal to start handling death penalty appeals rather than automatically sending every case to the Supreme Court for review.
Appealing the death penalty in California takes decades for a variety of reasons. There are too few qualified attorneys to handle too many automatic death penalty appeals, resulting in inmates waiting about five years each for a public defender. Once an inmate is represented by counsel, it still takes additional years to put together the voluminous trial record that serves at the heart of the appeal.
Those records often exceed 70,000 pages, according to Peterson's attorney, adding that he wouldn't be surprised if his client's record reached 80,000 pages.
Gardner says he expects to file his appeal brief later this month, which would be a first for any inmate sentenced to death during the past 12 years.
None of the estimated 250 prisoners in that category is as far along as Peterson, according to a study of California's death penalty published last year by 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Arthur Alarcon and Loyola Law School professor Paula Mitchell.
They estimated that $4 billion has been spent on all facets of the state's death penalty since 1978, including $925 million on appeals.
California's death penalty, the authors said, is a "multibillion-dollar fraud on California taxpayers" that has seen "billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent to create a bloated system, in which condemned inmates languish on death row for decades before dying of natural causes and in which executions rarely take place."
Source: www.mercurynews.com
DAR Antique Show is July 27-29 at the Roanoke Civic Center - Roanoke Times
The 46th annual DAR Antique Show will be held Friday, July 27, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday, July 28 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Sunday, July 29 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Roanoke Civic Center Special Events Center.
Ken Farmer with the PBS Antique Appraisal program will be doing appraisals Friday from 1 to 5 p.m. by appointment. Details are available at gjbchapter.org.
The largest antique show in the Roanoke Valley with up to 50 antique dealers from all over the East Coast, featuring period English and American furniture, silver, estate and vintage jewelry, china, glassware, antique linens, toys, tools, collectibles, rare books and manuscripts, and much more! Admission is $6.50, with unlimited returns throughout the weekend.
The event is sponsored by the General James Breckinridge Chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution.
– Submitted by Judy Thierry
Source: blogs.roanoke.com
California, Oregon Battle Over Landmark Status - Voice of America
That sounds kind of routine, but some people up the coast in Oregon are not at all happy about it.
Sir Francis Drake, the daring British explorer, is said to have sailed to that little piece of California’s Pacific coastline 433 years ago, in 1579, in the middle of his epic three-year expedition around the world.
He mapped a cove where he landed - and named it and the surrounding cliffs “New Albion.” Albion, which is Greek for “white,” was an early name for Britain, inspired by the famous white cliffs near Dover.
Today, the California cove and bay are called “Drake’s Bay” in the explorer’s honor.
Drake is said to have hung around for five weeks, repairing his ships and interacting with Native American tribes. That’s the main reason the place is historic, for this was the first recorded contact between the British and American Indians.
So why should people up the coast in Oregon be upset?
They say Drake’s “Albion” visit didn’t happen there at all, that he actually put ashore farther north on the rocky Pacific coast. Amateur historian Gary Gitzen and other Oregonians say that first contact took place in and around Oregon’s Nehalem Bay.
If you lay Drake’s own map of the cove he visited atop a map of Nehalem Bay, Gitzen says, “it’s the same outline.” He’s writing a book, called "Oregon’s Stolen History," all about it.
The National Park Service sent the conflicting claims to a couple of historic commissions, which ruled in California’s favor.
According to the Northwest News Network, the California location’s landmark designation will be a “done deal” as soon as U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar signs the proclamation.
For now maybe, say the folks up north. They’re not about to give up their claim that the real Drake’s Bay should be in Oregon.
Source: www.voanews.com
Antique auto collector begins parting with his beloved collection of restored classics - MLive.com
SARANAC, MI – Dr. Elroy Kidle gently brushes his hand along the cowl of his rare 1914 Cadillac Landaulet Coupe, parked next to his equally rare 1905 REO Runabout.
Kidle is in the twilight years of his long love affair with old fine old cars. He was especially fond of REOs that were built in nearby Lansing until the mid-1930s.
“The reason I’m getting rid of them is because I can’t drive them anymore,” says the 83-year-old retired dentist as he pauses in the paneled garage behind his house that’s decorated with photographs and advertisements of automotive brands that are now extinct.
The gleaming red Runabout – one of the oldest REOs known to exist – has already been sold. Kidle says he will deliver it to the new owner this summer.
“It’s going to a gentleman in New York, it’s going to be in a museum,” says Kidle, who rescued the car from a barn in Benkelman, Neb. and had it restored to showroom condition. “I sold it to him two years ago and told him he could have it in the next five years.”
Earlier this year, Kidle sold a 1914 REO to a fellow dentist and member of the REO Club of America.
Next on his list is the stately Cadillac that Kidle has been restoring since he bought it 20 years ago.
The Cadillac was originally purchased by John and Mary Phillips, a wealthy Jackson family with 10 children, he says.
With room for three, the Cadillac was purchased for Mary Phillips to drive. After her death, it was stored by one of their daughters in a barn in Dowagiac, where its wooden subframe rotted beneath its aluminum body until Kidle rescued it.
Over the years, Kidle has hired craftsmen to replace the wooden subframe and hand-form key parts of its aluminum body. He’s also restored the original four-cylinder engine and chassis.
Steve Sturim, owner of Steve’s Antique Auto Repair in Wyoming, says Kidle’s coupe is one of only three known to still exist and one of only 50 made in 1913.
The Landaulets were known as “tulip cars” because of the unique shape of their bodies, Sturim says. “There are no flat panels on them.
“Those are aluminum hand-formed bodies that were actually done by the two Fisher Brothers that started Fisher Body,” says Sturim, who worked on the drivetrain and helped Kidle find the craftsmen to rebuild the car.
“As far as we’re aware, the car has never been outside the state of Michigan,” says Sturim, whose shop is filled with restoration projects. One of his projects recently set a new speed record for vintage cars.
Sturim says he admires Kidle’s passion for finding and restoring old cars. “He loves his REOs and he loves his old cars,” he says. “His passion has taken him all over the country touring in these vehicles.”
Kidle enjoys showing off the car’s unique features – a three-piece windshield, a built-in tire pump, an internal wiring system that travels through the doors and the unique steering column and seating arrangement that accommodated the 4-foot 9-inch tall Mary Phillips.
So far, Kidle says he has not actively sought buyers for the Cadillac. “I’m interested that it goes to the right place,” he says. “I would rather see it go to a museum.”
Though he’s not set a price, Kidle says he’ll need at least $100,000 to get his money out of it.
Kidle intends to keep his 1933 REO, a handsome sedan that he found in Illinois and had restored. It came equipped with an automatic transmission and a six-cylinder engine.
“This was considered a very modern car,” Kidle says. Despite its modern appointments, Kidle notes it’s the last model to feature wood-spoked wheels.
Although REO continued making trucks into the mid-1970s, it stopped making cars in 1935.
On the wall of his garage, Kidle has hung a photograph of President Theodore Roosevelt riding in a 1907 REO during a visit to Lansing. He has another poster of the sprawling REO factory in Lansing during its heyday.
“It was a real good company,” he says wistfully.
E-mail Jim Harger: jharger@mlive.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/JHHarger
Source: www.mlive.com
California 'not out of the woods' says Controller - The Business Journal
California is not out of the woods yet, says the state's controller.
California State Controller John Chiang said that although revenue was $83.5 million above budget estimates in May, "the General Fund is not out of the woods."
"Most of the increase over expectations in May owes to strong growth in the insurance tax, which is a tax on gross premiums, which was up $130.6 million relative to the estimates for the month," wrote Chiang in his monthly budget newsletter.
But revenue from the "Big 3" sources that are the state's most important -- income taxes, sales taxes and business taxes -- were all down, coming in 2 percent below estimates. Together, these three sources account for about 90 percent of California's general fund revenue in a year.
Sales taxes were $106.3 million below expectations, while personal income taxes were $14 million short.
Chiang warned that "the major drivers of revenues in the state are still showing signs of weakness."
Also, these budget estimates are new ones, revised downwards in May by the state as it foresaw "more tepid improvement in revenues than previously forecasted."
Compared with Governor Brown's original January budget proposal, the general fund is now $2.653 billion short. The January guess was for $74.745 billion in revenue for the fiscal year so far (July 1, 2011 to May 31, 2012). The May revision calls for just $72.093 billion.
June is the most important month now, said Chiang. "While May revenues were steady, June revenues are the ones to watch. The last month of the fiscal year is now the biggest."
If this June is like previous Junes, said Chiang, the state legislature will spend most of it figuring out how to cut costs.
"Sacramentans can expect 450 hours of daylight during June, more than any other month," wrote Chiang. "The Legislature may use the long days reviewing reductions for 2012-13."
Steven E.F. Brown is web editor at the San Francisco Business Times.
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