13/03/03

TEXAS/USA

La Corte Suprema degli S.U. ha sospeso l'esecuzione di Delma Banks, a poche ore dall'ora fissata per l'iniezione letale.

WASHINGTON, 13 MAR - La Corte Suprema degli Stati Uniti ha sospeso, a poche ore dall'ora prevista, l'esecuzione della pena di morte di Delma Banks, che doveva diventare il 300.o condannato messo a morte in Texas dalla ripresa delle esecuzioni nel 1977.

Basks sostiene di essere stato condannato per errore per un delitto compiuto 23 anni or sono, al termine di un processo che sarebbe stato segnato da vizi di forma: tra l'altro, Banks, nero, venne giudicato per l'uccisione di un bianco da una giuria di soli bianchi.

La sospensione in extremis di una esecuzione da parte della Corte Suprema degli Stati Uniti e' piuttosto rara.

L'esecuzione della pena restera' sospesa fino a quando la Corte non decidera' se il caso debba essere rivisto o meno.

 Texas, sospesa la condanna a morte per Banks

WASHINGTON - La Corte Suprema degli Stati Uniti ha sospeso, a poche ore dall'ora prevista, l'esecuzione della pena di morte di Delma Banks, che doveva diventare il 300simo condannato messo a morte in Texas dalla ripresa, nel 1977, delle esecuzioni. Banks condannato per un delitto compiuto 23 anni or sono, sostiene di essere stato vittima di un errore giudiziario al termine di un processo che sarebbe stato segnato da vizi di forma.

Tra l'altro Banks � nero, ma venne giudicato per l'uccisione di un bianco da una giuria di soli bianchi. La sospensione in extremis di una esecuzione da parte della Corte Suprema degli Stati Uniti � piuttosto rara. L'esecuzione della pena rester� sospesa fino a quando la Corte non decider� sulla eventuale riapertura del caso.

Supreme Court Focuses on Death Penalty

By GINA HOLLAND, 

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court appears poised to take on yet another death row case infused with concerns about capital punishment.

The justices granted a last-minute stay Wednesday to Texas inmate Delma Banks, just days after giving a victory to another convicted Texas killer.

Justices ruled last month that Thomas Miller-El, who is black, deserved a new chance to press his claim that prosecutors stacked his jury with whites and death penalty supporters. Miller-El also had received a stay from the high court.

"I'm wondering whether they're beginning to pay special attention to Texas," said Michael Mello, a Vermont Law School professor specializing in the death penalty. "If I were the attorney general of Texas or the governor, I'd be pretty unsettled by this."

Texas has executed 10 people this year, and it accounts for more than one-third of the 835 executions in the United States since the U.S. Supreme Court  in 1976 allowed capital punishment to resume.

Kent Scheidegger, legal director for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, said the court may have simply wanted more time to study Banks' lengthy appeals. "Maybe they are not comfortable with the review he's had so far," he said.

The justices are not expected to consider striking down capital punishment, but they have closely examined the practice. Last year, the court ruled that executing mentally retarded people is unconstitutionally cruel. The court is hearing arguments later this month in a Maryland death penalty case that gives justices a chance to spell out when inmates can claim that poor representation led to conviction.

Banks' lawyers had told justices he was poorly represented at trial, prosecutors improperly kept blacks off the jury and testimony from two prosecution witnesses was shaky. Banks is black, his 16-year-old victim was white and the jury was all-white.

A group of former federal judges, including former FBI  Director William Sessions, had urged the Supreme Court to intervene. They said in a filing that the claims raised in the appeal "go to the very heart of the effective functioning of the capital punishment system."

The majority of last-minute death row appeals are rejected by the Supreme Court, although justices have stopped a handful of executions in the past few years. Last year, the court blocked executions in Florida, Tennessee and Texas. The Texas inmate was Miller-El, who won his appeal 8-1.

Capital punishment foes said they hoped the court would use Banks' appeal as a follow-up to that case.

"The Supreme Court now has to figure the standard by which a person on death row gets a full hearing," said David Elliot, a spokesman for the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

The stay in Banks' case will remain in effect until the court decides whether to review his case. No justices noted objections to the reprieve.

MARCH 13, 2003:

TEXAS: Supreme Court blocks 300th Texas execution

The Supreme Court on Wednesday stopped Texas from executing its 300th inmate since capital punishment resumed in the United States in 1977, granting a dramatic last-minute stay to condemned killer Delma Banks.

Banks' claims that he was wrongly convicted of a murder 23 years ago were backed by three former federal judges.

His lawyers told justices he was poorly represented at trial, prosecutors improperly kept blacks off the jury and testimony from 2 prosecution witnesses was shaky. Banks is black, his victim was white and the jury was all-white.

The court issued the stay, without comment, about 10 minutes before the 44-year-old was to be put to death for the 1980 murder of 16-year-old Richard Wayne Whitehead, a co-worker at a restaurant. Banks shot Whitehead "for the hell of it" after a night of drinking, according to testimony Banks gave at his trial.

Banks has been on death row 22 years, longer than Whitehead was alive.

One of the three former federal judges supporting the Supreme Court intervention was former FBI Director William Sessions, who submitted a brief to the high court in which he cited "uncured constitutional errors" in Banks' case.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals this week refused to block Banks' execution, and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles would not hear his plea because it was filed too late.

The majority of last-minute death row appeals are rejected by the Supreme Court, although justices have stopped a handful of executions in the past few years. Last year, the justices blocked executions in Florida, Tennessee and Texas.

The Texas inmate who received a stay, Thomas Miller-El, won his Supreme Court appeal last month. The court ruled that Miller-El, who is black, deserved a new chance to press his claim that prosecutors stacked his jury with whites and death penalty supporters.

The stay in Banks' case will remain in effect until the court decides whether to review his case. No justices noted objections to the reprieve.

Prosecutors and the victim's family have insisted Banks received a fair trial.

"All these articles about poor Delma, poor Delma and how much of a raw deal he got," said Larry Whitehead, the victim's father. "Stopping a youngster's life at 16 years old is a raw deal."

Sessions and others had told the court in a filing that the claims raised in the appeal "go to the very heart of the effective functioning of the capital punishment system."

Texas accounts for more than 1/3 of the 835 executions in the United States since the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976 allowed capital punishment to resume. Virginia has the 2nd-highest total, with 87.

On Tuesday, murderer Bobby Glen Cook became No. 299 since Texas resumed capital punishment in 1982. It was the 10th execution this year in Texas, which is on a pace to top the record 40 lethal injections carried out in 2000. (AP)

 Tex. Execution Stayed at Last Minute
Supreme Court Considers Review

By Charles Lane
 March 13, 2003

The Supreme Court granted a last-minute stay of execution last night to a Texas death-row inmate who says he is innocent of the murder of which he was convicted 23 years ago, setting the stage for another high-profile debate at the court over alleged flaws in the U.S. capital punishment system.

In a brief order issued about 10 minutes before officials were to administer a lethal injection to Delma Banks Jr., the justices said that he should be kept alive at least long enough for them to consider his request for a full-scale hearing on claims that his 1980 trial in Bowie County, Tex., was marred by prosecutorial misconduct, ineffective defense counsel and racially discriminatory jury selection.

Banks, an African American, was convicted of killing a white teenager by an all-white jury. If his execution had proceeded last night, he would have been the 300th person put to death in Texas since the state resumed executions in 1982.

It was unclear when the court might meet to consider Banks' petition. Its next scheduled closed-door conference is March 21. However, the stay may be a favorable sign for Banks because it required the votes of at least five justices, and a decision to hear his case could be made with the assent of just four justices.

Consistent with growing public concern over the possibility of wrongful death sentences, the court has shown interest recently in the issues raised by Banks' appeal, though its rulings have not always come out the way death penalty opponents would have liked.

The court ordered a lower court review of another Texas man's death sentence last month, ruling that a case could be made that jury selection at his trial was racially biased; last year, it abolished capital punishment for the mentally retarded. But also last year, the court rebuffed an effort to seek abolition of the death penalty for juveniles and let Virginia proceed with the execution of a murderer who had been represented at trial by the murder victim's former lawyer.

"Delma Banks Jr,. who has maintained his innocence from the beginning, found justice in the courts today, and we are hopeful that this delay will allow a meaningful review of the serious claims in his case," Banks' lawyer, George Kendall of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, said in a prepared statement. "The court's decision to stay the execution in order to potentially hear the significant claims put before it demonstrates that our tribunals will not turn a blind eye to egregious miscarriages of justice."

Bobby Lockhart, district attorney of Bowie County, said, "Factually, [Banks] was guilty, and legally the jury found him guilty. As to the death penalty, that's up to the Supreme Court. I think that the Supreme court will review the case and find that he was guilty, and I think there's no way the stay [of execution] will be extended beyond 30 days."

Banks' case has attracted attention in part because of the supporters who have rallied to his cause, including former FBI director William S. Sessions and two former federal appeals court judges.

In a brief submitted to the Supreme Court in support of Banks' request for a stay, Sessions and his colleagues said that the Banks case is tainted by "uncured constitutional errors" that are "typical of those that have undermined public confidence in the fairness of our capital punishment system."

Banks, then 21, was convicted in 1980 of shooting his co-worker Richard Wayne Whitehead, 16, to death with a .25-caliber handgun.

Banks' lawyers argue that prosecutors wrongfully suppressed evidence that one of their key witnesses, who has since recanted, lied on the stand. Banks' attorneys also argue that his inexperienced defense lawyers offered little evidence to counter prosecutors' claims that Banks deserved the death penalty, even though he had no previous criminal record.

Prosecutors kept African Americans off the jury, they contend, producing the all-white panel that convicted Banks and sentenced him to death in the course of two days of legal proceedings.

No physical evidence linked Banks to the crime. But Banks was the last person seen with Whitehead, and prosecutors said their case against him is strong. Last week, the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, reversing a federal district judge's ruling in favor of Banks, permitted his execution to proceed, on the grounds that the alleged flaws in his trial were not substantial enough to have changed the outcome.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals this week refused to block Banks' execution, and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles would not hear his plea because it was filed too late.

Because of the prolonged appeals process in his case, Banks has been on death row while Texas conducted 299 executions, the most of any state since the Supreme Court permitted states to resume capital punishment in 1976.