"Inmate 'Who Liked to Kill' Set For Execution Tuesday": Allan Turner of the Houston Chronicle, reports today on a Texas murderer scheduled for execution tomorrow. In 1998 Samuel Bustamante picked up a hitch hiker, Rafael Alvarado, stabbed him 10 times and left him in a ditch to die along the side of the road. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected Bustamante's plea this morning based on the assertion that he is mildly mentally retarded. Bustamante's attorneys are now asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. All three of Bustamante's accomplices have been released after each having served eight years for aggravated robbery. Bustamante had priors including theft, burglary, and possession of a prohibited weapon. Shortly after his conviction in the Alvarado case, Bustamante pled guilty to killing a 60-year-old homeless man. "He liked to kill," said Fort Bend County Assistant District Attorney Fred Felcman, who prosecuted Bustamante. "People said a dog walked into a bar one time and he took his knife-and just gutted it...He liked to kill. He bragged about it."
Flaws Found in National Child Abuse Registry: This AP story yesterday discusses flaws in the national child abuse registry Congress authorized in 2006. Congress passed the registry in response to the abduction and murder of a Florida boy in 1981. More than 40 states have the abuse registries. The lists of names are accessible to the public, and are often used by employers at day-care centers, schools, adoption agencies, etc. The national database, however has been progressing slowly. In 2008, a federal appeals court found the registry system unconstitutional because there is no way for the innocent to clear their names. Suspected abusers are given no opportunity to defend themselves prior to being listed. A person's name is placed on the registry based on the assertions of a child protection investigator that the person committed an act of abuse of neglect. According to a Health and Human Services report, "Strong due process protections could necessitate significant changes to CPS investigation processes in some states that could be costly to implement and may discourage participation in a national registry.
"State's Death Penalty: A Hollow Promise?": San Diego Union-Tribune staff writer, John Wilkens, reported yesterday on California's dysfunctional capital punishment process. Since the state reinstated the death penalty 32 years ago, 86 condemned inmates have died in California, but only 13 were by execution. There's no doubt that capital punishment in California is "dysfunctional." Opponents of the death penalty claim that California spends an average of $137 million per year on the death penalty, which includes trials, legal appeals, and inmate housing. However, when RAND was asked to study the costs, they found it couldn't be done reliably with the budget available. As of now, California has the largest death row of any state, 700 condemned inmates, and the majority of them have been there for more than a decade. DP opponents want California will shift to a sentence of LWOP as the maximum punishment, based on estimates that this will save funds. Natasha Minsker, death penalty policy director for the Northen California chapter of the ACLU says, "There's broad consensus in California that the death penalty is broken. The best way to fix it is permanent imprisonment." The story notes that the last murderer executed in California was Clarence Ray Allen, who while being permanently imprisoned for an earlier murder, arranged to have three people killed. Our own Kent Scheidegger disagrees with Minsker. "We shouldn't be sacrificing justice for cost issues," he said. "We should be bringing down the costs so we can afford justice----so we can give the worst murderers the penalty they deserve. That should be the discussion. The death penalty in California is a hollow promise at present, but it doesn't need to be. We need to change the way the courts do their reviews."
Flaws Found in National Child Abuse Registry: This AP story yesterday discusses flaws in the national child abuse registry Congress authorized in 2006. Congress passed the registry in response to the abduction and murder of a Florida boy in 1981. More than 40 states have the abuse registries. The lists of names are accessible to the public, and are often used by employers at day-care centers, schools, adoption agencies, etc. The national database, however has been progressing slowly. In 2008, a federal appeals court found the registry system unconstitutional because there is no way for the innocent to clear their names. Suspected abusers are given no opportunity to defend themselves prior to being listed. A person's name is placed on the registry based on the assertions of a child protection investigator that the person committed an act of abuse of neglect. According to a Health and Human Services report, "Strong due process protections could necessitate significant changes to CPS investigation processes in some states that could be costly to implement and may discourage participation in a national registry.
"State's Death Penalty: A Hollow Promise?": San Diego Union-Tribune staff writer, John Wilkens, reported yesterday on California's dysfunctional capital punishment process. Since the state reinstated the death penalty 32 years ago, 86 condemned inmates have died in California, but only 13 were by execution. There's no doubt that capital punishment in California is "dysfunctional." Opponents of the death penalty claim that California spends an average of $137 million per year on the death penalty, which includes trials, legal appeals, and inmate housing. However, when RAND was asked to study the costs, they found it couldn't be done reliably with the budget available. As of now, California has the largest death row of any state, 700 condemned inmates, and the majority of them have been there for more than a decade. DP opponents want California will shift to a sentence of LWOP as the maximum punishment, based on estimates that this will save funds. Natasha Minsker, death penalty policy director for the Northen California chapter of the ACLU says, "There's broad consensus in California that the death penalty is broken. The best way to fix it is permanent imprisonment." The story notes that the last murderer executed in California was Clarence Ray Allen, who while being permanently imprisoned for an earlier murder, arranged to have three people killed. Our own Kent Scheidegger disagrees with Minsker. "We shouldn't be sacrificing justice for cost issues," he said. "We should be bringing down the costs so we can afford justice----so we can give the worst murderers the penalty they deserve. That should be the discussion. The death penalty in California is a hollow promise at present, but it doesn't need to be. We need to change the way the courts do their reviews."
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