12A NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2007
GOVERNMENT
Supreme Court slows down executions Kentucky inmates say lethal injection method is unconstitutional
BY MARK SHERMAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Stop executions for a while, and perhaps they can be stopped forever. That calculation has been part of capital punishment opponents' strategy for decades.
The Supreme Court-inspired slowdown in executions offers the first nationwide opportunity in more than 20 years to test whether the absence of regularly scheduled executions will cause some states to abandon the death penalty and change public attitudes about capital punishment.
Recent decisions by judges and elected officials have made clear that most executions will not proceed until the Supreme Court rules in a challenge by two death row inmates to the lethal injection procedures used by Kentucky. The inmates say Kentucky's method creates the risk of pain severe enough to be cruel and unusual punishment, banned by the Eighth
Amendment.
Similar procedures are used by Texas, the far-and-away leader in lethal injections, and the 16 other states that have executed prisoners in the past two years.
It is clear the high court will not go so far as to outlaw the use of lethal injections. That issue is not even before the court in the Kentucky case.
Rather, the justices could
delaying executions, not preventing them," said Ronald Tabak, a New York-based lawyer with the Skadden Arps firm who has represented death row inmates.
"We're probably looking at delaying executions, not preventing them."
Tabak said states that enforce
RONALD TABAK Lawyer with Skadden Arps firm
decide whether Kentucky's procedures violate the Constitution and what standard the courts should use to evaluate the risk prisoners will feel pain when they are put to death.
No matter how the court rules, it appears there will be few, if any, prisoners executed before the court rules, probably by late June.
"We're probably looking at
the death penalty now had a chance to review capital punishment procedures. The American Bar Association has for the past 10 years called for such a review.
"The ABA's
position is unless you have fair practices, executions should not resume," said Tabak, who has worked with the lawyers' organization on this issue.
But Douglas Berman, a sentencing expert at the Ohio State University law school, said the possibility exists for more dramatic action.
"The abolitionists will say if we
have no executions for six months to a year, and the universe is not imploding and murder rates are not going through the roof then it becomes easier to say, 'Why do we even need the death penalty? Let's just get rid of it,'" Berman said.
"Texas and other high-execution states aren't going to get there anytime soon, but the argument against capital punishment gets even more force in those states squeamish about the death penalty in the first instance," Berman said.
Questions about the administration of lethal injections are only part of the issue.
Death-penalty opponents also have raised doubts about the competence of some court-appointed defense lawyers and pointed to the rise in the number of exonerations through DNA evidence of people already convicted of crimes.
Nearly 1,100 people have been put to death since 1977, and more than 3,000 others are currently on death row.
The University of Kansas CIVIC ENGAGEMENT WEEK
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Dole Leadership Prize Lecture
October 21-27, 2007
Dole Leadership Prize Lecture
Congressman John Lewis I Lied Center 1:7:30 p.m.
Honor our MU volunteers by being time to visit the following memorials:
Vermont Memorial, Kornell Memorial, Minneapolis
Memorial, St. Joseph's Hospital
Civil Leadership Breakfast at the Dale Institute of Politics
Breakfast for campus leaders and potential leaders. WIL focus on the importance of civic engagement. Sponsored by the Student
Advisory Board (SAB), and Student Senate. 8:00 - 9:15 AM
Visit the Dole Institute of Politics (on West Campus) and see the World War II Kansai Veterans Memory Wall
Monday, October 22, 2007
Register to vote on Wescoe Beach
Spend hour by SLAB, DUB A1 : 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Register to vote on Beach Beech
Sponsored by VOLB, DAB SIB A 11:00 AM. M - 1:00 PM.
Alameda Café
Serve breakfast to in-need and homeless population of Lawrence
Fifth United Method Church, 946 Vermont Street
Sponsored by Community for Outreach (COD) 8:30 - 9:00 a.m.
Study group at the Dole Institute - Austin
"Presidential Politics from the truest" 1:400 - 8:30 p.m.
Sustainability Awareness Day
Learn about efforts to make RU environmentally, economically and socially responsible. Mid sessions will feature presentations on current operations and initiatives. Mid sessions include a sustainability recognition program and a campaign "Honor Hall Sponsored by the Center for Sustainability Burgee Union 1:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Register to vote on Wesley Beach
Sponsored by SLAB, Dole SAB, 11:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Register to vote on Wescoce Beach
Sponsored by SLAB, Dote SAB
1:10 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Study group at the Dole institute - Jennifer Schmidt
*Women in Politics: Career Studies* 1:400 - 5:30 p.m.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Tea Time
Enjoy free tea, malt, and engage in conversation
Spendred by Student Union Activities (SUA)
Kauai Union 1:30 a.m.
Sustainability Awareness Day
Time TIME Movie Screening
*MM Smith College to Washington
Sponsored by SLAB, SLAB
Karlson Lifetime 1:00 a.m.
Dil Kurtis, Former Anchor of CBS Morning News
will moderate a forum on political parties.
Dept Institute: 7:30 o.m.
Friday, October 26, 2007
**Staff Calls**
Serve breakfast to in-need and homeless population of Lawrence
First United Methodical Church, 945 Vermont Street
Sponsored by CECO 1: 6:30 - 9:00 a.m.
Jubilee Café
Register to vote on Welcome Beach
Sponsored by SAB, Dob SAB 11:10 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
*Make A Difference Day*
businesses, businesses and individuals are invited to make a difference by volunteering for one of our services. Our own service project contact Roger H Hill Volunteer Center to match your interests with a project of your choice.
Sponsored by CCD; BLAG; and the Roger H Volunteer Center, a service of the Long Way Island Douglass County
Civil Engagement Week at the University of Louisville is brought to you by the Student Legislative Awareness Board and the TU College Institute.
CRIME
Police find murderer after 35 years on run
BY TRAVIS LOLLER ASSOCIATED PRESS
PULASKI, Tenn. — Few in this small Tennessee town can believe the woman they knew as Linda McElroy was capable of murder.
Her neighbors and friends learned this week that she was really fugitive Linda Darby — who was convicted of killing her husband but escaped 35 years ago from a life sentence at an Indiana prison.
Some have known her for decades and are genuinely convinced she's not a cold-blooded killer. She claims she is innocent and wants her husband's true killer found and punished.
Bill Hatfield, 54, said he's known Darby for 20 years and "she wouldn't hurt a flea." He said he hopes to start a letter-writing campaign urging Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels to review the case and consider a pardon.
"She's cleaned our house for 15 years and has a key to the house. I'd let her in tomorrow," said Hatfield, who works for the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.
"She's never done anything but help people," he said. "She used to care for my elderly parents, staying at night from 7 to 7, and she had the full run
Elaine Jones, a 55-year-old retired nurse who said she has known Darby for about 30 years, said she thought Darby incapable of murder.
She and her husband ran a junk and antiques shop for a number of years, friends said. More recently, Darby worked cleaning houses and sitting with elderly people.
Instead, she knocked on a stranger's door in Indianapolis, telling the woman who answered that her cuts and scratches were from a fight with her boyfriend.
"She's cleaned our house for 15 years and has a key to the house. I'd let her in tomorrow."
Giles County Sheriff Kyle Helton has said Darby, 64, led a flawless life during her 30-plus years in Pulaski.
Darby told The Giles Free Press in an interview this week that when she escaped prison her first thought was to be with her children again, but she soon realized that authorities would find her if she went to them.
At trial her 9-year-old daughter by a previous marriage, Terri Dixon, testified that on the night of the murder her mother had left a motel room where she was staying with her five children on a return trip from visiting relatives. Police also said they found a shotgun at the motel that was consistent with the murder weapon.
In Indianapolis she met Willie McElroy, the man who would become her third husband. Later, the couple moved to his hometown of Pulaski, where they raised their two children and watched eight grandchildren grow up.
of the house. She cared for my mother just like she was her own mother."
BILL HATFIELD
Pulaski, Tenn., resident
According to news reports at the time, the couple had been subjected to vandalism and threats before the murder. Police later attributed the incidents to Linda Darby, claiming the couple had been under financial pressure that was causing a breakup of their marriage, something she denied.
Two years later, in 1972, she climbed over a barbed-wire fence at the Indiana Women's Prison and fled.
Her defense attorney at the trial put no witnesses on the stand, and instead attacked what he called "tainted evidence" and "rehearsed witnesses." That strategy did not work and it took a jury less than two hours to find Darby guilty of first-degree murder.
Darby was convicted of fatally shooting her second husband, Charles Darby. Police said she left his body in a bedroom at their home in Hammond, Ind., and set the house on fire to cover up the crime.
"We need to do something to show support," she said. "I know she didn't do it, and somebody don't have that in them — this is a person I've known since
the late '70s — without getting in trouble or showing some signs of instability"
Officials at the Giles County Sheriff's Department said Friday that Darby had been removed from their custody by Indiana authorities, but they did not know where she was being taken. A spokesman for the Indiana State Police and a spokeswoman for the Indiana Department of Corrections were unable to say late Friday where Darby was being held. It was not immediately clear if she had a lawyer.
Willard Plank, chief investigator with the Indiana Department of Correction, said a computer database created by the Department of Homeland Security helped detectives find Darby. As Linda Jo McElroy, she used a similar date of birth and social security number to her real ones. But there also were other clues that he said he could not talk about.
Once Indiana investigators became suspicious that McElroy was Darby, they sent a photograph and fingerprints to Pulaski police who positively identified her.
Darby told Nashville television station WSMV-TV she was innocent and fled prison because she did not want to serve time for another person's crime.
"I'm not a murderer," she said. "I just don't know how they ever convicted me. I really don't. But I didn't do it."