Post by carolinem on Sept 29, 2007 6:11:25 GMT -5
A Matter of Life and Death - Where cases diverge
At far ends of spectrum, one DA has no qualms seeking death. The other avoids it.
By SONJI JACOBS
A two-hour drive southeast in Middle Georgia, Ocmulgee District Attorney Fred Bright won seven death sentences in roughly the same period, more than any Georgia prosecutor.
The two men stand on either side of Georgia's death penalty divide, an analysis by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows.
From 1995 through 2004, Bright sought death in 21 of 31 murders in which he could under the law and tried 12 capital cases.
Morgan, on the other hand, never took a capital case to trial if he could avoid it. He filed notices to seek death at a rate slightly below the state average, but he offered the killers a plea deal every time.
Of those 25 killers, 15 were sentenced to life without parole during the 10 years analyzed by the newspaper. "I was always thankful when they took life without parole," Morgan said.
A DeKalb jury last voted for a death sentence in 1989.
Morgan, who left office in 2004, is one of several Georgia prosecutors who routinely agreed to lesser sentences for crimes that would have gone to a death-sentencing trial in circuits such as Bright's.
District attorneys in Georgia have the sole discretion to choose when to pursue a death sentence. The law specifies how they may do so, but prosecutors then must rely on their own judgment.
Each weighs key factors differently: Was the crime brutal? How strong is the evidence? How old is the defendant? They also consider the time required for the death penalty, which requires months or even years of additional pretrial hearings, as well as a separate sentencing trial. The preparation can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
More often than not, even when death is sought, the case ends in a plea bargain. District attorneys also know that, with few exceptions, a defendant can only get life without parole if they file a notice of intent to seek death. Their subjective judgments can lead to vastly disparate decisions in prosecuting killers.
"Where the system has its greatest vulnerability is that it's in the hands of 49 individuals who are using their set of values," said Bob Keller, former Clayton County district attorney.
Some district attorneys see that as a virtue. Gwinnett's Danny Porter does not believe sentences must be uniform between circuits. Voters, he said, choose a district attorney who represents their values.
"In a lot of ways, the elected officials are a reflection of their
community, and that's probably the way it should be," he said.
In pursuit of justice
Bright believes similar types of murders should result in similar sentences. He knows he cannot set standards for the entire state, but he tries to establish consistency in his eight-county circuit.
"In death penalty cases, more than any other case, it is critical that the defendants are treated the same if they commit the same crime," Bright said.
That, Bright said, is why he almost always pursues the death penalty in certain cases, such as killing a police officer or two or more victims.
In 1994, Joshua Daniel Bishop beat Leverett Morrison, 43, to death and stole his car. During the investigation, Bishop confessed that he had murdered another man two weeks earlier.
Bishop was charged but never tried for that crime, but Bright told the jury about it during the sentencing phase of the trial for Morrison's murder. The jury sentenced Bishop to death. "I sent Bishop to death row because he killed two people," Bright said.
For years, juries in the Ocmulgee Circuit have favored death sentences. Joe Briley, Bright's predecessor, sent more than a dozen people to death row, earning the nickname, "Death Row Joe." Most of those sentences were overturned on appeal.
Bright, unlike other DAs, said he would not let a defendant's youth stop him from seeking death. Five of the seven men he has sent to death row were 18, the minimum legal age for execution , or 19 at the time of their crime.
While he gives a victim's family input, he said he could envision pursuing the death penalty in a heinous crime even if they were opposed.
Otherwise, he said, "What you'd be saying to the defendant is, 'It's the luck of the draw.' "
In contrast to other prosecutors, he said he has never met a family who disagreed when he had decided to seek the death penalty.
Bright also said he never asks a jury to impose a sentence he could not vote for.
"I don't argue deterrence," he said. "I just argue justice, that this crime merits the death penalty, demands the death penalty, that the only justice is the death penalty."
Wrestling with death
Morgan will not say that he opposes capital punishment.
But life without parole, he contends, is better for a victim's family and for society. It saves "years and years and years of uncertainty, " he said, about when or if the killer will be executed and saves taxpayers the cost of lengthy appeals.
Morgan approached the death penalty understanding that he had to enforce the law but struggling with its moral implications.
"Should the state be in the business of executing people for whatever reason?" he said. "I always wrestle with that."
If he believed the death penalty deterred crime, Morgan said he would have been more comfortable with imposing it.
"It doesn't deter crime," Morgan said. "It only deters crime for that individual, and we can lock him up for life, without parole."
Only four defendants rejected Morgan's offer of a plea deal instead of a death trial. Each decided to take a chance with a jury, and three wound up with life without parole.
In one of those four cases, Morgan took the unusual step of dropping the death penalty after the killer was found guilty. Robert Lewis Rush Jr. had carjacked Tamileo Kinte Odister, a college freshman, stolen his shoes and shot him in the head.
Rush, like Bishop in the Ocmulgee circuit, had been charged but not convicted of a second murder ‹ the shooting of Carolyn Thomas, 43, in her Fulton County flower shop. But before the DeKalb jury that convicted Rush could consider a possible death sentence, Morgan offered a deal for life without parole. Odister's mother helped persuade him.
"I didn't want no more killing," Bettina Odister-Allen told the
Journal-Constitution in 1999.
Tom Clegg, Morgan's former assistant, said he believes DeKalb prosecutors offered plea bargains even in heinous murder cases because jurors there have been reluctant to give a death sentence.
"They're better-educated, more forgiving and not as pro-law-and- order as jurors in other parts of the state," said Clegg, now a criminal defense attorney.
That rationale led DeKalb to offer plea bargains to some of the county's worst killers, such as Razsan Jefferson, whose 2000 slaying of Jamie Patrice Mulligan, 20, was "probably the worst single case I've seen in DeKalb," Clegg said.
Jefferson robbed Mulligan and locked her in the trunk of her car. Mulligan, a college student, was still alive when it was set on fire.
Prosecutors offered life without parole, Clegg said, because they thought a DeKalb jury would be unlikely to sentence Jefferson to death and because he showed remorse.
Morgan also allowed murderers who killed several people to plead guilty for life without parole, a deal that Bright said would be highly unlikely in his circuit.
Andre Jerome Idlett, for example, killed his girlfriend, her lover and her 3-year-old daughter. He pleaded guilty in exchange for life without parole.
'Pure serendipity'
Sentencing disparities also occur in rural court circuits where district attorneys are often perceived as tougher on crime, the Journal-Constitution found. Several rural prosecutors rarely or never sought the death penalty.
In the South Georgia Circuit in southwest Georgia, the prosecutor filed a notice of intent to seek death in only one case that went to court between 1995 and 2004. But former district attorney J. Brown Moseley eventually withdrew his death notice against three robbers who shot and beat an elderly man and woman to death at a country store.
That case "probably deserved the death penalty," Moseley said, but the elderly man's daughter did not want a death trial. Moseley accepted guilty pleas for life with parole from all three defendants.
In Houston County, prosecutors brought only one capital case between 1995 and 2004. They sought death for Amos Smith, who beat Annetta Livingston, 69, with a paint can until she died, but they backed off because tests showed he was mentally retarded.
Houston district attorney Kelly Burke, who has three capital cases pending, said he refrained from seeking death several times because of weak evidence.
At least twice, he told the Journal-Constitution, he declined because the victim's family was opposed: "My experience tells me that when the victim's family doesn't want the state to impose death, it will be very difficult to get death."
John C. McAdams, a Marquette University political science professor, argues district attorneys should not be expected to administer the death penalty the same way.
"It's completely unrealistic, " McAdams said.
But without uniformity between court circuits, contends defense attorney Bruce Harvey, a killer's chances of facing the death penalty can be "pure serendipity. "
"It's just pure geography," he said, "and that's just wrong."
At far ends of spectrum, one DA has no qualms seeking death. The other avoids it.
By SONJI JACOBS
A two-hour drive southeast in Middle Georgia, Ocmulgee District Attorney Fred Bright won seven death sentences in roughly the same period, more than any Georgia prosecutor.
The two men stand on either side of Georgia's death penalty divide, an analysis by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows.
From 1995 through 2004, Bright sought death in 21 of 31 murders in which he could under the law and tried 12 capital cases.
Morgan, on the other hand, never took a capital case to trial if he could avoid it. He filed notices to seek death at a rate slightly below the state average, but he offered the killers a plea deal every time.
Of those 25 killers, 15 were sentenced to life without parole during the 10 years analyzed by the newspaper. "I was always thankful when they took life without parole," Morgan said.
A DeKalb jury last voted for a death sentence in 1989.
Morgan, who left office in 2004, is one of several Georgia prosecutors who routinely agreed to lesser sentences for crimes that would have gone to a death-sentencing trial in circuits such as Bright's.
District attorneys in Georgia have the sole discretion to choose when to pursue a death sentence. The law specifies how they may do so, but prosecutors then must rely on their own judgment.
Each weighs key factors differently: Was the crime brutal? How strong is the evidence? How old is the defendant? They also consider the time required for the death penalty, which requires months or even years of additional pretrial hearings, as well as a separate sentencing trial. The preparation can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
More often than not, even when death is sought, the case ends in a plea bargain. District attorneys also know that, with few exceptions, a defendant can only get life without parole if they file a notice of intent to seek death. Their subjective judgments can lead to vastly disparate decisions in prosecuting killers.
"Where the system has its greatest vulnerability is that it's in the hands of 49 individuals who are using their set of values," said Bob Keller, former Clayton County district attorney.
Some district attorneys see that as a virtue. Gwinnett's Danny Porter does not believe sentences must be uniform between circuits. Voters, he said, choose a district attorney who represents their values.
"In a lot of ways, the elected officials are a reflection of their
community, and that's probably the way it should be," he said.
In pursuit of justice
Bright believes similar types of murders should result in similar sentences. He knows he cannot set standards for the entire state, but he tries to establish consistency in his eight-county circuit.
"In death penalty cases, more than any other case, it is critical that the defendants are treated the same if they commit the same crime," Bright said.
That, Bright said, is why he almost always pursues the death penalty in certain cases, such as killing a police officer or two or more victims.
In 1994, Joshua Daniel Bishop beat Leverett Morrison, 43, to death and stole his car. During the investigation, Bishop confessed that he had murdered another man two weeks earlier.
Bishop was charged but never tried for that crime, but Bright told the jury about it during the sentencing phase of the trial for Morrison's murder. The jury sentenced Bishop to death. "I sent Bishop to death row because he killed two people," Bright said.
For years, juries in the Ocmulgee Circuit have favored death sentences. Joe Briley, Bright's predecessor, sent more than a dozen people to death row, earning the nickname, "Death Row Joe." Most of those sentences were overturned on appeal.
Bright, unlike other DAs, said he would not let a defendant's youth stop him from seeking death. Five of the seven men he has sent to death row were 18, the minimum legal age for execution , or 19 at the time of their crime.
While he gives a victim's family input, he said he could envision pursuing the death penalty in a heinous crime even if they were opposed.
Otherwise, he said, "What you'd be saying to the defendant is, 'It's the luck of the draw.' "
In contrast to other prosecutors, he said he has never met a family who disagreed when he had decided to seek the death penalty.
Bright also said he never asks a jury to impose a sentence he could not vote for.
"I don't argue deterrence," he said. "I just argue justice, that this crime merits the death penalty, demands the death penalty, that the only justice is the death penalty."
Wrestling with death
Morgan will not say that he opposes capital punishment.
But life without parole, he contends, is better for a victim's family and for society. It saves "years and years and years of uncertainty, " he said, about when or if the killer will be executed and saves taxpayers the cost of lengthy appeals.
Morgan approached the death penalty understanding that he had to enforce the law but struggling with its moral implications.
"Should the state be in the business of executing people for whatever reason?" he said. "I always wrestle with that."
If he believed the death penalty deterred crime, Morgan said he would have been more comfortable with imposing it.
"It doesn't deter crime," Morgan said. "It only deters crime for that individual, and we can lock him up for life, without parole."
Only four defendants rejected Morgan's offer of a plea deal instead of a death trial. Each decided to take a chance with a jury, and three wound up with life without parole.
In one of those four cases, Morgan took the unusual step of dropping the death penalty after the killer was found guilty. Robert Lewis Rush Jr. had carjacked Tamileo Kinte Odister, a college freshman, stolen his shoes and shot him in the head.
Rush, like Bishop in the Ocmulgee circuit, had been charged but not convicted of a second murder ‹ the shooting of Carolyn Thomas, 43, in her Fulton County flower shop. But before the DeKalb jury that convicted Rush could consider a possible death sentence, Morgan offered a deal for life without parole. Odister's mother helped persuade him.
"I didn't want no more killing," Bettina Odister-Allen told the
Journal-Constitution in 1999.
Tom Clegg, Morgan's former assistant, said he believes DeKalb prosecutors offered plea bargains even in heinous murder cases because jurors there have been reluctant to give a death sentence.
"They're better-educated, more forgiving and not as pro-law-and- order as jurors in other parts of the state," said Clegg, now a criminal defense attorney.
That rationale led DeKalb to offer plea bargains to some of the county's worst killers, such as Razsan Jefferson, whose 2000 slaying of Jamie Patrice Mulligan, 20, was "probably the worst single case I've seen in DeKalb," Clegg said.
Jefferson robbed Mulligan and locked her in the trunk of her car. Mulligan, a college student, was still alive when it was set on fire.
Prosecutors offered life without parole, Clegg said, because they thought a DeKalb jury would be unlikely to sentence Jefferson to death and because he showed remorse.
Morgan also allowed murderers who killed several people to plead guilty for life without parole, a deal that Bright said would be highly unlikely in his circuit.
Andre Jerome Idlett, for example, killed his girlfriend, her lover and her 3-year-old daughter. He pleaded guilty in exchange for life without parole.
'Pure serendipity'
Sentencing disparities also occur in rural court circuits where district attorneys are often perceived as tougher on crime, the Journal-Constitution found. Several rural prosecutors rarely or never sought the death penalty.
In the South Georgia Circuit in southwest Georgia, the prosecutor filed a notice of intent to seek death in only one case that went to court between 1995 and 2004. But former district attorney J. Brown Moseley eventually withdrew his death notice against three robbers who shot and beat an elderly man and woman to death at a country store.
That case "probably deserved the death penalty," Moseley said, but the elderly man's daughter did not want a death trial. Moseley accepted guilty pleas for life with parole from all three defendants.
In Houston County, prosecutors brought only one capital case between 1995 and 2004. They sought death for Amos Smith, who beat Annetta Livingston, 69, with a paint can until she died, but they backed off because tests showed he was mentally retarded.
Houston district attorney Kelly Burke, who has three capital cases pending, said he refrained from seeking death several times because of weak evidence.
At least twice, he told the Journal-Constitution, he declined because the victim's family was opposed: "My experience tells me that when the victim's family doesn't want the state to impose death, it will be very difficult to get death."
John C. McAdams, a Marquette University political science professor, argues district attorneys should not be expected to administer the death penalty the same way.
"It's completely unrealistic, " McAdams said.
But without uniformity between court circuits, contends defense attorney Bruce Harvey, a killer's chances of facing the death penalty can be "pure serendipity. "
"It's just pure geography," he said, "and that's just wrong."