San Francisco, 29/01/02

Pena di morte: giustiziato il detenuto-scrittore

Un uomo accusato di omicidio di un pensionato, e che durante gli anni della sua detenzione ha vinto anche alcuni premi di poesia, � stato giustiziato oggi in California.

Stephen Wayne Anderson, 48 anni, � morto per iniezione letale nel carcere di San Quintino, poche ore dopo essersi visto repingere un ennesimo ricorso. Lo ha annunciato un portavoce della prigione californiana.

Anderson, riconosciuto colpevole di aver ucciso nel 1980 un anziano insegnante in pensione, nel periodo in cui � stato rinchiuso nel braccio della morte � diventato scrittore ed ha vinto un premio di poesia messo in palio dall'organizzazione internazionale degli scrittori 'Pen's Club'. Da un suo poema, il 'Lamento dal braccio della morte' � stato tratto uno spettaccolo teatrale andato in scena a Broadway, a New York, alla met� degli anni Novanta.

L'esecuzione di oggi � la prima in California dal marzo scorso, e la decima da quando � stata ripristinata la pena di morte negli Stati Uniti.(Red)

Killer Who Penned Prison Poetry Executed in Calif.

Jan 29 

SAN FRANCISCO  - The state of California on Tuesday executed Stephen Wayne Anderson, a convicted killer who became a prize-winning poet during his years on death row, for the 1980 murder of an 81-year-old retired schoolteacher.

  Anderson, 48, was put to death by lethal injection at 12:32 a.m. PST (3:32 a.m. EST) at San Quentin State Prison just hours after last-ditch legal moves to save his life failed, a prison spokesman said.

 Anderson fought an unsuccessful battle to stave off execution, saying California Gov. Gray Davis's stated opposition to leniency in death penalty cases meant that he could not receive a fair clemency hearing.

 His efforts were bolstered by supporters, including members of PEN, the international writers' group, who said that during his time in prison Anderson had reformed and become an accomplished author, poet and playwright.

 But a series of courts disagreed, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined late on Monday to stop the execution.

 Anderson's execution was the first in California since last March and the 10th since the nation's most-populous state resumed carrying out the death penalty in 1992.

 Davis, who has denied that he is unfairly predisposed against granting clemency, said that he carefully reviewed Anderson's case and concluded there was no doubt about his guilt.

 "There is no dispute that Mr. Anderson, with an IQ of 136, is an extremely intelligent man. But his intelligence, ironically, also makes the brutality and indifference of his crimes all the more reprehensible," Davis said in a statement issued last Saturday turning down Anderson's bid for clemency.

 Anderson, who had described himself as a professional burglar, was serving time in Utah State Prison when he killed another inmate in 1977. He escaped two years later, and officials say they know he committed at least one "murder for hire" while a fugitive.

 LEFT VICTIM TO BLEED TO DEATH

 In 1980, he traveled to southern California's San Bernardino County, where he occupied an abandoned house near the home of elderly retired schoolteacher Elizabeth Lyman.

 After observing Lyman for several days, he broke into her house at night and shot her in the face when she woke up and surprised him while he was robbing her bedroom.

 Officials say he then left her to bleed to death in her bed while he cooked dinner and watched television until police, alerted by a neighbor, arrived at the scene.

 Anderson was first sentenced to death in 1981 for the Lyman murder. But that sentence was reversed in 1985 by the California Supreme Court, which cited errors in the jury instructions. A separate jury reconsidered the evidence, and again decided on a death sentence against him in 1986.

 During his years on California's death row, Anderson studied and took to writing, eventually winning two awards from PEN for his poetry. His poems were used as the basis for the play "Lament from Death Row," which was produced off-Broadway in New York in the mid-1990s.

 Supporters said Anderson's literary talent -- which he has used to explore themes of prison, death and guilt -- was rare.

 "His own gift of compassion may be the greatest reward for his personal transformation," Bell Gale Chevigny, a professor emeritus of literature at State University of New York-Purchase and editor of a PEN anthology of American prison writing, said in a San Francisco Chronicle opinion piece pleading for Anderson's life.

 One of Anderson's most frequently cited poems, entitled "For My Memory," begins:

 Light a candle for my memory/in a quiet chapel by the sea;/as day drifts in to dusky night/cup it in your hands and hold me tight.

 California has almost 600 prisoners on death row, more than any other U.S. state. But the state still trails far behind Texas, which leads the nation in executions since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

Los Angeles Times

Killer Executed at San Quentin

 Crime: Stephen Wayne Anderson spent 20 years on death row for shooting an 81-year-old woman during burglary.

       Times Headlines 

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 Killer Executed at San Quentin

 Suit Aims to Halt Import of Mexican Avocados

 By SCOTT GOLD and JOHN M. GLIONNA, 

 SAN QUENTIN -- Stephen Wayne Anderson was executed by lethal injection early this morning, two decades after he went to death row for shooting a San Bernardino County grandmother and then, authorities said, cooking noodles in her kitchen while she died.

 Around midnight--after federal judges were unswayed by a desperate campaign for a reprieve--Anderson, 48, was dressed in new denim pants and a blue work shirt and led into the San Quentin State Prison death chamber.

 Anderson, a small-time burglar who confessed to murdering 81-year-old Elizabeth Lyman during a botched robbery in 1980, had been given a choice between the gas chamber and lethal injection, and picked the latter: a cocktail of sodium pentothal, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride.

 Authorities locked down the prison hours earlier as part of an extraordinary security routine reserved for execution nights.

 His last meal consisted of two grilled cheese sandwiches, a pint of cottage cheese, radishes, hominy grits, a slice of peach pie and a pint of chocolate chip ice cream.

 The execution began shortly after midnight. Anderson, his heavily tattooed arms bulging from his shirt, was expressionless as he entered the small death chamber and was helped onto a gurney. He did not resist or speak as guards strapped down his ankles, then removed heavy chains that bound his arms to his waist and strapped them down as well. His fists were unclenched and his fingers also taped down.

 Physicians attached intravenous lines to his arms, and at 12:18 a.m. a guard announced that the execution would begin.

 As the drugs began pouring into his veins, Anderson strained his head several times to look toward the 40 witnesses. One of his attorneys mouthed the words "I love you" to him several times. His eyes blinking and with his right foot twitching nervously, he mouthed the words "thank you." That was his last communication.

 His breathing became strained and heavy, the blood drained from his face, his head rolled to the right and he was motionless by 12:23 a.m. After several minutes, during which the only sound was the clunking of boiler pipes and the periodic beeps of medical equipment, he was pronounced dead at 12:30 a.m.

 While many condemned inmates surround themselves with relatives and supporters as their execution nears, Anderson had no visitors for the last three days and did not consult with spiritual advisors, though they were available to him. 

Anderson's attorneys said his body will be cremated and his ashes sent to a friend in Farmington, N.M.--the town where he grew up, suffered through an abusive childhood, was cast out of his house by his father and began a life of petty crime that would soon mushroom out of control.

 A few dozen protesters, representing the nation's deep division over the use of execution as a punishment or deterrent for crime, gathered outside the main gate of California's oldest correctional institution, north of San Francisco.

 On a night when temperatures dipped to near freezing, they ranged from college-age to retirees and held signs that read: "Don't kill for me" and "Not in my name."

 Earlier in the day, members of L.A. Catholic Worker held a vigil outside the Criminal Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles. And Father Bob Jones, of St. Camillus Pastoral Care Center, offered his regularly scheduled noon Mass for the repose of the soul of Elizabeth Lyman.

 "In our prayers we ask God to bless the citizens of California; for what is being done in our name, to pardon us," Jones said.

 Anderson was the 10th man executed by California since voters reinstated the death penalty in 1978 and the first since double-murderer Robert Lee Massie was executed last March.

 Unlike Massie, who had not exhausted his appeals and bitterly chose the death penalty over a lifetime behind bars, Anderson was "not a volunteer," one of his attorneys, Margo Rocconi, said in an interview last week. Instead, attorneys, friends and other supporters had made him the subject of legal disputes and political intrigue--which continued late into the day Monday.

 His attorneys, for instance, filed a lawsuit demanding that Gov. Gray Davis recuse himself from Anderson's clemency petition, arguing that the governor has never granted clemency to a murderer--and has suggested that he never will. After denying clemency to three previous killers in the last three years, Davis threw out Anderson's petition on Saturday. Anderson's final appeals on that point were denied by federal judges late Monday.

 Lyman's survivors joined calls for clemency, arguing in court documents that they did not want--or need--Anderson to die for his crimes.

 Anderson's legal team also argued that he received poor legal representation during his trial. He was defended by S. Donald Ames, a San Bernardino County attorney whose bumbling trial work forced courts to throw out two other killers' death sentences.

 For example, Ames, who died two years ago, claimed Anderson had prohibited him from calling witnesses. But federal judges investigating the case found later that Ames' own notes indicated that Anderson had provided a sizable list of potential witnesses.

 Anderson's attorneys also said the jury was not allowed to delve into Anderson's youth, during which he was abused by his parents, disowned at 17 and forced to live outdoors in the hills surrounding his New Mexico home. He began robbing churches and schools to get food and money.

 By 1980, Anderson, then a drifter who had been arrested for several break-ins and had escaped from a Utah work furlough program, landed in Bloomington, a small, unincorporated town near Fontana. On Memorial Day, he broke into the home of Lyman, a retired piano teacher.

 Anderson had thought Lyman was not home, but when she rose from her bed, Anderson panicked and shot her in the face with a .45-caliber handgun. Prosecutors said he then prepared himself noodles in Lyman's kitchenDefense attorneys suggested Lyman had prepared the noodles herself before she was killed, and said overzealous prosecutors seized on details like that to make sure Anderson would be executed.