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Calif. Inmate's Stay of Execution Denied
With his execution just hours away, one of Morales' attorneys, former Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr, then pleaded for clemency from Schwarzenegger. But the governor refused.
Calif. Inmate's Stay of Execution Denied
By LISA LEFF, Associated Press Writer 12 minutes ago
SAN QUENTIN, Calif. - A man convicted of raping and murdering a 17-year-old girl was set to die by lethal injection early Tuesday after the
U.S. Supreme Court refused to grant a stay and Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger again denied his request for clemency.
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Supreme Court Justice
Anthony Kennedy reviewed the case, then sent it to the full court, which denied Michael Morales' final appeal on Monday evening, according to court spokesman Ed Turner.
With his execution just hours away, one of Morales' attorneys, former Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr, then pleaded for clemency from Schwarzenegger. But the governor refused.
"Based on the record and totality of circumstances in this case, Morales' request for reconsideration and request for a hearing are denied," Schwarzenegger said in a statement.
Morales, 46, was scheduled to die by lethal injection at 12:01 a.m. at San Quentin State Prison for killing Terri Winchell of Lodi 25 years ago.
The execution was delayed for at least an hour to give anesthesiologists additional training, prison spokesman Vernell Crittendon said.
Morales appealed Monday to the Supreme Court to block his execution, claiming that the testimony of an inmate used in his conviction is false, and that California's three-drug death cocktail, and the way it is administered, amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose recommended that California employ two anesthesiologists — one in the execution chamber with Morales and another nearby — to ensure the inmate is unconscious before the two remaining drugs are injected.
Fogel issued the order after studying the medical logs of executed inmates and finding that there were "substantial questions" about whether prisoners were conscious and feeling unacceptable levels of pain.
On Sunday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Morales' argument that Fogel's order is not enough, a decision upheld by the Supreme Court on Monday.
Another petition rejected by the courts had the support of Ventura County Superior Court Judge Charles McGrath, who presided over Morales' 1983 trial.
McGrath said he no longer believed the testimony of jailhouse informant Bruce Samuelson, who testified that Morales boasted of the assault and made obscene references to the victim. Samuelson told investigators that the two men spoke in Spanish, a language Morales said he doesn't speak.
"New information has emerged to show the evidence upon which I relied in sentencing Mr. Morales to death — Mr. Samuelson's testimony — is false," McGrath wrote in a statement Morales' lawyers submitted to the appeals court, to the California Supreme Court and in its petition for clemency to Schwarzenegger.
The California Supreme Court rejected that challenge without comment.
___
Associated Press Writer David Kravets in San Francisco contributed to this story.
By LISA LEFF, Associated Press Writer 12 minutes ago
SAN QUENTIN, Calif. - A man convicted of raping and murdering a 17-year-old girl was set to die by lethal injection early Tuesday after the
U.S. Supreme Court refused to grant a stay and Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger again denied his request for clemency.
ADVERTISEMENT
click here
Supreme Court Justice
Anthony Kennedy reviewed the case, then sent it to the full court, which denied Michael Morales' final appeal on Monday evening, according to court spokesman Ed Turner.
With his execution just hours away, one of Morales' attorneys, former Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr, then pleaded for clemency from Schwarzenegger. But the governor refused.
"Based on the record and totality of circumstances in this case, Morales' request for reconsideration and request for a hearing are denied," Schwarzenegger said in a statement.
Morales, 46, was scheduled to die by lethal injection at 12:01 a.m. at San Quentin State Prison for killing Terri Winchell of Lodi 25 years ago.
The execution was delayed for at least an hour to give anesthesiologists additional training, prison spokesman Vernell Crittendon said.
Morales appealed Monday to the Supreme Court to block his execution, claiming that the testimony of an inmate used in his conviction is false, and that California's three-drug death cocktail, and the way it is administered, amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose recommended that California employ two anesthesiologists — one in the execution chamber with Morales and another nearby — to ensure the inmate is unconscious before the two remaining drugs are injected.
Fogel issued the order after studying the medical logs of executed inmates and finding that there were "substantial questions" about whether prisoners were conscious and feeling unacceptable levels of pain.
On Sunday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Morales' argument that Fogel's order is not enough, a decision upheld by the Supreme Court on Monday.
Another petition rejected by the courts had the support of Ventura County Superior Court Judge Charles McGrath, who presided over Morales' 1983 trial.
McGrath said he no longer believed the testimony of jailhouse informant Bruce Samuelson, who testified that Morales boasted of the assault and made obscene references to the victim. Samuelson told investigators that the two men spoke in Spanish, a language Morales said he doesn't speak.
"New information has emerged to show the evidence upon which I relied in sentencing Mr. Morales to death — Mr. Samuelson's testimony — is false," McGrath wrote in a statement Morales' lawyers submitted to the appeals court, to the California Supreme Court and in its petition for clemency to Schwarzenegger.
The California Supreme Court rejected that challenge without comment.
___
Associated Press Writer David Kravets in San Francisco contributed to this story.
For more information:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/california_exec...
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IMC Network
Execution delayed to give doctors time to rehearse new roles in lethal injection
Stacy Finz, Bob Egelko and Jim Doyle, Chronicle Staff Writers
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Michael Morales was a 21-year-old gangster and drug user ... Terri Winchell, a popular high school student, was murder... Denis Paul of El Cerrito and Ruth Enero of Modesto embrac...
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His court appeals exhausted, Michael Morales spent Monday largely by himself at San Quentin State Prison as the state prepared to execute him for raping, bludgeoning and stabbing a 17-year-old girl to death near Lodi in 1981.
Morales met with members of his legal team and was "very cooperative and upbeat" as the clock wound down to his scheduled execution early today at San Quentin, said Elaine Jennings, spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
The execution had been scheduled for 12:01 a.m. But just before 11:30 p.m., warden Steven Ornoski ordered a delay of about an hour to allow more time for prison guards and two anesthesiologists to rehearse their roles in the lethal injection, said Lt. Vernell Crittendon, a prison spokesman. The anesthesiologists were present by federal court order to monitor Morales and make sure he was unconscious as he was being put to death.
Morales had no visits from family or friends Monday but said his final goodbyes to them by telephone after being taken to a death-watch cell near the lethal injection chamber at 6 p.m., Crittendon said. He said Morales had discouraged relatives from coming to see him.
"He wanted to make clear to his loved ones that this is not necessarily a sad affair,'' Crittendon said. "He wanted to be remembered for the good times they had in the past, as opposed to the event that is happening tonight.''
He said Morales had oatmeal for breakfast and ordered Top Ramen soup and a couple of candy bars from the prison canteen for lunch, but couldn't finish the candy and asked that the leftovers be given to another inmate.
Morales, whose lawyers said he had become devoutly religious in prison, did not request the presence of a spiritual adviser, Jennings said.
About 250 anti-death-penalty protesters assembled at the gate outside the prison. Earlier in the day, three protesters were arrested for blocking the gate.
Morales, 46, of Stockton, was convicted of raping and murdering Terri Winchell, whose battered body was found in a vineyard in a remote area of San Joaquin County. Morales never denied his guilt and said he had been recruited for the attack by his cousin. The cousin is serving a life sentence.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Morales' final appeals Monday afternoon.
In one appeal, Morales' lawyers argued that his conviction for capital murder was the product of a jailhouse informant's false testimony that Morales had admitted planning the killing. A federal appeals court dismissed that appeal Sunday, saying the informant's testimony was corroborated by other witnesses and noting that Morales had raised the issue in an earlier appeal.
The second appeal challenged the adequacy of a federal judge's unprecedented order last week that required the state to put a medical professional in the death chamber to make sure Morales was unconscious from the effects of the sedative sodium pentothal before paralyzing and heart-stopping drugs were injected to end his life. The appeals court said Sunday that two anesthesiologists whom the state retained had all the authority they needed to stop the execution if Morales was conscious and in pain.
After the Supreme Court rejection, Morales' lawyers made a final plea to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to reconsider his denial of clemency. Kenneth Starr, the former Whitewater special prosecutor who is on Morales' legal team, noted that the judge who sentenced Morales to death in 1983 had recently endorsed clemency. Starr said this would be the first time in California history that a governor had spurned such a recommendation by the trial judge.
Three hours later, Schwarzenegger replied that he saw no reason to reconsider.
Death penalty opponents who gathered outside the prison included retired Episcopal priest Lyle Grosjean of San Francisco, who had led a group of about 15 people on foot across the Golden Gate Bridge.
"We're against any gratuitous violence,'' said Grosjean, who has protested executions at San Quentin since 1959. "The death penalty doesn't have to happen.''
Ruth Enero of Modesto, who accompanied Grosjean, said it was her 12th execution-eve walk. "I know that executing Michael Morales does not do anything to resurrect Terri Winchell,'' she said.
Brian Chalk of Sacramento, Winchell's youngest brother, said he sighed as he entered the prison with two of his three brothers to witness the execution and saw the protesters.
"I'm feeling fine about this tonight,'' said Chalk, 34. "We're ready for this thing to happen.''
Morales was 21 when he murdered Winchell on Jan. 8, 1981. He was a gangster and drug user with a record of petty crimes, had been kicked out of his parents' home at 15, and had dropped out of high school and fathered three children.
According to trial testimony, his cousin Ricky Ortega recruited him to attack Winchell, a popular high school senior with a straight-A average who was an accomplished singer. Winchell's boyfriend was secretly in a relationship with Ortega, who was gay.
Morales' lawyers say the plan was not to kill Winchell but to frighten her out of any thought of revealing Ortega's sexuality by briefly choking her. But when he accompanied Ortega in a car to pick up Winchell, Morales, high on PCP and cheap wine, carried not just a belt but also a claw hammer and a 7-inch knife.
In an isolated area north of Lodi, Morales, sitting in the back seat, reached forward with his belt and started strangling Winchell, prosecution witnesses said he told them. When the belt broke, he started hitting her in the head with the hammer.
After 23 blows, he carried her, unconscious and dying, out of the car, dragged her to a vineyard, raped her and stabbed her four times.
Police tracked down Ortega the next day. He pointed them to Morales, who confessed to investigators.
Morales was convicted in 1983 of two counts of capital murder: murder by torture, which was overturned on appeal, and murder by lying in wait.
One prosecution witness was Morales' housemate, Patricia Flores, who said Morales had practiced with his belt around her neck and had later described the killing. An inmate who did time in jail with Morales, Bruce Samuelson, testified that Morales had bragged about the murder, referred to Winchell with sexual vulgarities, and asked him to kill Flores and another witness.
Ortega, tried separately, was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
As his appeal wound through the courts, Morales became a changed man in prison, according to friends and relatives. He resumed academic studies, became religious and took up art, producing portraits and landscapes sold in the prison store.
"I've done my best over the years to strip off the old personality with all its flaws and shameful practices, and put on a new personality. One shaped by good morals and strong values,'' Morales said last month in a letter to Schwarzenegger, part of his application for clemency.
Morales' lawyers also cited Samuelson's statement 10 years after the trial that he and Morales had discussed the crime in Spanish -- proof that the jailhouse informant's testimony was a lie, they said, because Morales speaks no Spanish.
That persuaded Morales' trial judge, Charles McGrath, to join the appeal for clemency, saying he would have set aside the jury's death verdict if he had known of the informant's falsehoods.
But claims that the death sentence was based on perjured testimony failed to sway federal courts, which found no evidence that authorities had deliberately planted Samuelson next to Morales or knowingly presented lies to the jury.
Morales would be the third prisoner put to death in a little more than two months in California and the 14th since executions resumed in 1992 after a 25-year hiatus.
Dane Gillette, death penalty coordinator for state Attorney General Bill Lockyer, said the recent cluster of executions did not signal a speedup in the implementation of California's death penalty. Instead, he said, it merely reflected the fact that a few cases more than 20 years old cleared the federal courts around the same time.
There are 644 other inmates on the state's Death Row, the nation's largest. Only one other inmate's case has advanced far enough for a possible execution date later this year, Gillette said -- Mitchell Sims, convicted of murdering a Domino's Pizza deliveryman in Glendale (Los Angeles County) in 1986.
Sims used to work for Domino's in South Carolina, and was also sentenced to death in that state for killing two company employees before he came to California.
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