ARIZONA: Ariz. to Fight Decision On Death Sentences
Prosecutors Cite Strains; Ruling Stirs Public Anger

Arizona officials vowed today to fight a federal appeals court decision that overturned the sentences of nearly 3/4 of the inmates on Arizona's death row and generated widespread public outrage. The state is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in an issue that has put several federal appeals courts on a collision course.

If it is upheld by the Supreme Court, Tuesday's decision by U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit threatens to put a huge strain on the resources of prosecutors, who would have to comb through decades-old evidence and track down witnesses in as many as 89 capital cases to prove to newly seated juries that the death row inmates belong there.

Attorney General Terry Goddard said his office is unprepared for such an undertaking and he would have ask the state legislature for additional staff and resources to handle the workload.

"Obviously guilt or innocence isn't on the table, but life and death is," Goddard said. "We are going to be very competitive and very aggressive in our arguments."

Tuesday's decision comes after the Supreme Court ruled last year in Ring v. Arizona that allowing judges rather than juries to determine death sentence eligibility factors, such as whether a crime was sufficiently "heinous, cruel or depraved," violated a defendant's right to a jury trial.

Residents are upset about the decision. As Elree Backers waited in the sweltering heat to catch a bus in downtown Phoenix, he said he does not understand why having a jury instead of a judge decide whether to send someone to death row makes any difference. And Backers, a former auto detailer, said he definitely does not see why taxpayers should have to pay to find out.

"It's just going to cost the taxpayers more money, more mistakes are going to be made and I just think it's just a waste. Obviously these guys did something bad to get there," he said. "Some of the things criminals do are so heinous that they need not enjoy life anymore. I think they should just let things stay how they are. Why should they get another chance?"

Pedicab driver Mike Ness agreed as he wiped the sweat from his forehead while waiting for lunchtime riders under a downtown shade tree.

"I believe in capital punishment. I don't think we should just let people sit there forever in prison. All of this appealing is a big waste of money. They should just be taken care of," Ness said. "They shouldn't have done the crime if they didn't want to end up there."

But death penalty opponents here said that the appeals court made the right decision, and that there are a number of advantages to having a jury weigh in on sentencing, including its awareness of what the community wants and its freedom from the pressures judges must deal with.

Dale Baich, who supervises the death penalty unit in the federal public defender's office here, said juries are "fundamental. It's a bedrock principle this country was founded on," he said. Baich's office represents 26 of the affected inmates.

In response to the Ring decision, the Arizona Supreme Court vacated all 26 death sentences in cases pending on direct appeal and the legislature changed the law to allow juries to once again have the power of handing down death sentences.

But for defendants facing the possibility of death, the change may not be cause for celebration. Since jury sentencing was reinstated, more death sentences are being imposed than ever. While judges meted death sentences in about 20 % of capital cases, 10 of the 12 defendants whose fate was decided by juries were sent to death row. The other 2 were given life sentences.

Goddard said those numbers are too small to give a definite indication of the direction Arizona juries are leaning. Nationally, the percentage of death sentences handed down by juries is much lower.

"I think with time we will be able to tell if Arizona juries are an anomaly or if they will start to shift back to something more like the national statistics," Goddard said.

Richard C. Dieter, executive director of Washington-based Death Penalty Initiative Center, said the 9th Circuit's decision is yet another sign the death penalty is slowly making its exit from the U.S. justice system. During the 1990s, the number of executions rose nationally, averaging nearly 65 a year, up from 25 a year in previous decades. But the number of death sentences is declining.

"It underscores how unsettled death penalty law is and how likely it is to change," Dieter said. "People are hesitant about giving the death penalty. They're not getting the death penalty even though they are very aggressively seeking it. It's a slow attrition, a wearing away of the death penalty, not a sweeping moral or political judgment."

Norma Carey applauded the decision as a step in the right direction -- away from the death penalty.

"I think overall that this is a positive move for us as a nation and a state because when we kill for whatever reason, we kill," she said as she walked along a Phoenix street. "We are beginning to apply our spiritual principles more."

As for the 89 death row inmates affected by Tuesday's decision, today was just another day.

"They were pleased but they understand the Supreme Court may be looking at the issue and they'll have to wait another year. For them right now it just means another year of waiting," Baich said. (source: Washington Post)

A look at faces awaiting execution---89 on Ariz. death row may get life instead

One of the men on Arizona's death row showed up at a friend's home with flowers, then killed four members of the family, including a 5-year-old, in a frenzy of violence.

3 of those sentenced to die slaughtered a 4-year-old boy at Christmas time to cash in on his $5,000 insurance policy. Another abducted a 9-year-old girl on a bicycle, then raped and murdered her.

Their crimes are chilling, and their guilt isn't in question. Still, 89 condemned prisoners, including those profiled today, must be resentenced by juries or have their prison terms commuted to life because of a Tuesday court ruling.

The 89 range in age from 21 to 87. There is only 1 woman. The majority are White.

At least one, Robert Comer, has asked to be put to death.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the resentencings on Tuesday in the aftermath of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that said juries, not judges, must decide whether a defendant lives or dies.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, county prosecutors and victims are disappointed with the decision. Goddard vowed to appeal it to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is scheduled to hear arguments next spring.Dan Levey, the governor's adviser on victims' rights, said victims' families are frustrated.

"They begin to wonder when it's going to happen, if it ever will," he said of executions.

The youngest prisoner on death row is Christopher Huerstel, 21, who, with another man, shot 3 employees to death at a Tucson Pizza Hut on Jan. 17, 1999. The oldest, Viva LeRoy Nash, will be 88 on Wednesday.

Nash, who is believed to be the oldest man on death row in the country, was condemned June 27, 1983, after killing a coin-shop employee in 1982.

Rudi and Michael Alpelt

The German brothers have been on death row for more than a dozen years for the 1988 murder of Cynthia Monkman, 39.

Monkman met Michael, her husband, at a Mesa nightclub in October 1988. Michael, then 25, was wearing a tuxedo and dripping in gold chains and rings. Newly arrived from Germany, he bragged about his financial successes, and Cynthia, a nutrition counselor, fell in love with the 6-foot-7-inch man from Dusseldorf.

They were married 3 weeks later, on Oct. 28, 1988, at a Las Vegas wedding chapel.

By Christmas Eve, she was dead. A passerby found her stabbed and nearly decapitated in the desert near Apache Junction. Michael filed a missing-person report, but he and his brother, Rudi, then 28, soon became suspects.

The brothers' sentences put them in the international spotlight because Germany opposes the death penalty.

An associate told investigators that the brothers had driven Cynthia to the desert and stabbed her to collect on a $400,000 life insurance policy her husband had taken out on her two days earlier.

The brothers, who had criminal histories in Germany, were convicted of 1st-degree murder in separate trials and sent to death row: Michael on Aug. 10, 1990; Rudi on Jan. 8, 1991.

Debra Milke, James Styers and Robert Mark Scott

4-year-old Chris Milke thought his mother's roommate was taking him to see Santa Claus at MetroCenter mall on Dec. 3, 1989.

Instead, it was his last day.

Styers, Milke's roommate, picked up his friend, Scott, and drove Chris to the desert near 99th Avenue and Happy Valley Road. There, Styers shot the boy to death hoping to cash in on a share of a $5,000 life insurance policy.

Scott went along, expecting to be paid $250 so he could file a disability claim.

Styers, now 56, filed a missing-person report, claiming that they had taken the boy to 2 drugstores, a pizza parlor and the mall. But when no one reported seeing them at any of those locations, Scott, 55, led police to the boy's body.

Milke, 39, admitted to police that she arranged the murder because her son would be better off dead than to grow up like his father.

She was convicted of 1st-degree murder and condemned on Jan. 8, 1991. Styers and Scott, also convicted of 1st-degree murder, have been on death row since Feb. 14. 1990, and April 22, 1991, respectively.

Richard Lynn Bible

9-year-old Jennifer Wilson had set out on June 6, 1988, with nothing more in mind than riding her bicycle on a Flagstaff Forest Service road.

But Bible, then 26 and a convicted sexual predator, had other plans. He drove by Jennifer in a truck and forced her bicycle off the road. He took her to a hill near his home and raped her. He then smashed her in the face, beating her to death.

Convicted of 1st-degree murder, Bible, now 41, was sent to death row on June 12, 1990.

But Jennifer's frightening death was not forgotten. 6 years later, state lawmakers fulfilled a promise to keep certain sexual predators locked up even after they have served their prison sentences. Arizona has joined other states that send sexual predators likely to repeat their crimes to the state hospital for treatment.

Richard Djerf

Djerf went on a 7-hour frenzy of violence, experimenting with various methods of killing before he resorted to shooting and stabbing to death 4 members of a former friend's family.

The judge who sentenced him to death in 1996 said Djerf "relished" the time he spent killing the Luna family to get revenge against his friend for burglarizing his apartment.

Djerf admitted killing Albert Luna Sr., 46; his wife, Patricia, 40; and their 2 children, 17-year-old Rochelle, whom he also raped; and 5-year-old Damien on Sept. 14, 1993. The only surviving member of the family was Albert Jr., Djerf's former friend.

"It was all my fault, all my fault," Djerf told an Arizona Republic reporter in 1995 before he was sentenced to death.

"I'm not crazy. I don't hear voices. I didn't have a terrible childhood. I just did what I did."

On the day of the killings, Djerf showed up at the Luna home with flowers, then forced himself in at gunpoint. He told The Republic he hadn't planned the killings.