texacution

Texas woman set to be 500th execution in state

JUAN A. LOZANO, AP

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — Texas, the nation's busiest death penalty state, is set to mark a solemn moment in criminal justice Wednesday with the execution of convicted killer Kimberly McCarthy.

If McCarthy is put to death in Huntsville as planned, she would become the 500th person executed in Texas since the state resumed carrying out the death penalty in 1982. The 52-year-old also would be the first woman executed in the U.S. since 2010.

McCarthy's attorney, Maurie Levin, said she has exhausted all efforts to block the execution, after denials by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

"If there was something to appeal, I would," said Levin.

Texas has carried out nearly 40 percent of the more than 1,300 executions in U.S. since the Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume in 1976. The state's standing stems from its size as the nation's second most populous state as well as its tradition of tough justice for killers.

With increased debate in recent years over wrongful convictions, some states have halted the practice entirely. However, 32 states have the death penalty on the books. Still, it's clear the debate over capital punishment has touched Texas, with lawmakers providing more sentencing options for juries and courts narrowing the cases for which death can be sought.

McCarthy faces execution for the 1997 robbery, beating and fatal stabbing of retired college psychology professor Dorothy Booth. Booth had agreed to give McCarthy a cup of sugar before she was attacked with a butcher knife at her home in Lancaster, about 15 miles south of Dallas. Authorities say McCarthy cut off Booth's finger to remove her wedding ring.

Police also had linked two other slayings to McCarthy, a former nursing home therapist who became addicted to crack cocaine.

In her appeals, McCarthy contended prosecutors improperly excluded black jurors and that her lawyers failed to challenge the moves at trial or in early appeals. McCarthy is black, and Booth was white. All but one of the 12 jurors at McCarthy's trial were white.

In January, McCarthy had been moved to a small holding cell a few steps from the Texas death chamber when a Dallas judge moved her execution to April. That timing then was reset for June when Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins said he wanted to await the outcome of capital punishment-related bills before lawmakers in Austin.

On Tuesday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals declined to reconsider its denial a day earlier of McCarthy's appeal, saying her claims should have been raised previously.

Levin, a University of Texas law professor, said because the court's ruling focused on a procedural and not a substantive issue, the case cannot be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"The shameful errors that plague Ms. McCarthy's case — race bias, ineffective counsel and courts unwilling to exercise meaningful oversight of the system — reflect problems that are central to the administration of the death penalty as a whole. For this to be the emblem of Texas' 500th execution is something all Texans should be ashamed of," Levin said.

McCarthy declined to speak with reporters as her execution date neared.

Anti-death penalty groups planned to protest outside the Walls Unit in Huntsville, where McCarthy is set to receive a lethal injection Wednesday evening.

"The whole world is looking at Texas," said Gloria Rubac, with the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement in Houston.

McCarthy would be the 13th woman nationwide and the fourth in Texas put to death since 1976. In the same period, more than 1,300 men have been executed nationwide, 496 of them in Texas. Virginia is a distant second, nearly 400 executions behind.

Federal statistics show that over the past three decades women account for about 10 percent of convicted murderers. According to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, there were 63 women on death row in the U.S. as of Jan. 1, representing 2 percent of the nation's 3,125 condemned prisoners.

Prosecutors showed that McCarthy stole Booth's Mercedes and drove to Dallas, pawned the wedding ring she had removed from the woman's severed finger for $200 and then went to a crack house to buy cocaine. Evidence also showed she used Booth's credit cards at a liquor store.

Booth's DNA was found on a 10-inch butcher knife recovered from McCarthy's home.

McCarthy blamed the crime on two drug dealers, but there was no evidence either existed.

Blood DNA evidence also tied McCarthy to the December 1988 slayings of 81-year-old Maggie Harding and 85-year-old Jettie Lucas. Harding was stabbed and beaten with a meat tenderizer, while Lucas was beaten with both sides of a claw hammer and stabbed.

McCarthy, who denied any involvement in the attacks, was indicted but not tried for those slayings.

McCarthy is a former wife of Aaron Michaels, founder of the New Black Panther Party, and he testified on her behalf. They had separated before Booth's slaying

(ah good old Texas if you can’t kill women closing clinics there’s always the old fashioned way.)

vote

High court voids key part of Voting Rights Act

MARK SHERMAN, AP

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act cannot be enforced unless Congress comes up with a new way of determining which states and localities require federal monitoring of elections.

The justices said in 5-4 vote that the law Congress most recently renewed in 2006 relies on 40-year-old data that does not reflect racial progress and changes in U.S. society.

The court did not strike down the advance approval requirement of the law that has been used, mainly in the South, to open up polling places to minority voters in the nearly half century since it was first enacted in 1965. But the justices did say lawmakers must update the formula for determining which parts of the country must seek Washington's approval, in advance, for election changes.

Chief Justice John Roberts said for the conservative majority that Congress "may draft another formula based on current conditions."

The decision comes five months after President Barack Obama, the nation's first black chief executive, started his second term in the White House, re-elected by a diverse coalition of voters.

The high court is in the midst of a broad re-examination of the ongoing necessity of laws and programs aimed at giving racial minorities access to major areas of American life from which they once were systematically excluded. The justices issued a modest ruling Monday that preserved affirmative action in higher education and will take on cases dealing with anti-discrimination sections of a federal housing law and another affirmative action case from Michigan next term.

The court warned of problems with the voting rights law in a similar case heard in 2009. The justices averted a major constitutional ruling at that time, but Congress did nothing to address the issues the court raised. The law's opponents, sensing its vulnerability, filed several new lawsuits.

The latest decision came in a challenge to the advance approval, or preclearance, requirement, which was brought by Shelby County, Ala., a Birmingham suburb.

The lawsuit acknowledged that the measure's strong medicine was appropriate and necessary to counteract decades of state-sponsored discrimination in voting, despite the Fifteenth Amendment's guarantee of the vote for black Americans.

But it asked whether there was any end in sight for a provision that intrudes on states' rights to conduct elections, an issue the court's conservative justices also explored at the argument in February. It was considered an emergency response when first enacted in 1965.

The county noted that the 25-year extension approved in 2006 would keep some places under Washington's oversight until 2031 and seemed not to account for changes that include the elimination of racial disparity in voter registration and turnout or the existence of allegations of race-based discrimination in voting in areas of the country that are not subject to the provision.

The Obama administration and civil rights groups said there is a continuing need for it and pointed to the Justice Department's efforts to block voter ID laws in South Carolina and Texas last year, as well as a redistricting plan in Texas that a federal court found discriminated against the state's large and growing Hispanic population.

Advance approval was put into the law to give federal officials a potent tool to defeat persistent efforts to keep blacks from voting.

The provision was a huge success because it shifted the legal burden and required governments that were covered to demonstrate that their proposed changes would not discriminate. Congress periodically has renewed it over the years. The most recent extension was overwhelmingly approved by a Republican-led Congress and signed by President George W. Bush.

The requirement currently applies to the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia. It also covers certain counties in California, Florida, New York, North Carolina and South Dakota, and some local jurisdictions in Michigan. Coverage has been triggered by past discrimination not only against blacks, but also against American Indians, Asian-Americans, Alaska Natives and Hispanics.

Towns in New Hampshire that had been covered by the law were freed from the advance approval requirement in March. Supporters of the provision pointed to the ability to bail out of the prior approval provision to argue that the law was flexible enough to accommodate change and that the court should leave the Voting Rights Act intact.

On Monday, the Justice Department announced an agreement that would allow Hanover County, Va., to bail out.

trial

Prosecutors want to admit calls in Zimmerman trial

KYLE HIGHTOWER, AP

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) — Past police dispatcher calls made by George Zimmerman should be presented to jurors at his second-degree murder trial since they show his state of mind and provide context to his fatal encounter with 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, a prosecutor argued Tuesday.

Prosecutor Richard Mantei told a Florida judge the five calls are central to the prosecution's argument that Zimmerman committed second-degree murder since it shows his growing ill will at people he viewed as suspicious who were walking through his neighborhood. In each of the calls, which were played for Judge Debra Nelson with the jurors out of the courtroom, Zimmerman described the suspicious characters as black males.

The calls made in the six months before Zimmerman fatally shot Martin on Feb. 26, 2012, reflect the neighborhood watch volunteer's growing frustration with repeated break-ins at his gated community of townhomes and plays into the prosecution's theory that his view of Martin as a suspicious character was "the straw that broke the camel's back," Mantei said.

Defense attorney Mark O'Mara argued that the calls were irrelevant and that no previous incidents matter except the seven or eight minutes prior to when Zimmerman fired the deadly shot into Martin's chest.

"They're going to ask the jury to make a leap from a good, responsible, citizen behavior to seething behavior," O'Mara said of the prosecution's depiction of Zimmerman's actions.

Nelson said she would make a ruling after reviewing prior cases.

Zimmerman, 29, could get life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder for gunning down Martin as the black teenager, wearing a hoodie on a dark, rainy night, walked from a convenience store through the gated townhouse community where he was staying. Zimmerman is pleading not guilty, claiming self-defense.

The case took on racial dimensions after Martin's family claimed that Zimmerman had racially profiled the teen and that police were dragging their feet in bringing charges. Zimmerman, who identifies himself as Hispanic, has denied the confrontation had anything to do with race.

Prosecutors on Tuesday called the former coordinator of the Sanford Police Department's neighborhood watch program who testified how she had worked with Zimmerman to set up a watch program in his neighborhood, The Retreat at Twin Lakes.

When asked by prosecutor John Guy if neighborhood watch participants should either follow or engage with suspicious people, she answered "no."

"They are the eyes and ears of law enforcement," said Wendy Dorival, the Sanford Police manager. "They're not supposed to take matters into their own hands."

But Dorival said she was impressed with Zimmerman's professionalism and dedication to his community and asked him to join another program, Citizens on Patrol, which trained residents to patrol their neighborhoods. He declined.

"He seemed like he really wanted to make changes in his community, to make it better," Dorival said.

The prosecution began opening statements Monday in the long-awaited murder trial with shocking language, repeating obscenities Zimmerman uttered while talking to a police dispatcher moments before the deadly confrontation.

The defense opened with a knock-knock joke about the difficulty of picking a jury for a case that stirred nationwide debate over racial profiling, vigilantism and Florida's expansive laws on the use of deadly force.

Guy portrayed the then-neighborhood watch volunteer as a vigilante, saying, "Zimmerman thought it was his right to rid his neighborhood of anyone who did not belong."

Defense attorney Don West told jurors a different story: Martin sucker-punched Zimmerman and then pounded his head against the concrete sidewalk, and that's when Zimmerman opened fire.

( racial profiling as much as we may wish it otherwise happens, it happens every day, it begins with our youth Taught suspicion, taught fear, it is in our movies, it is in our music, it is  in the thousand unspoken assumptions made silently and secretly every day, we are shocked when we see it, but sadly we are not surprised.  was this a case of racial profiling?  It sure looks like it, what would be the reaction if the victim of this crime had also been Hispanic, or Asian or white?  The idea that Zimmerman may have felt a man walking in his neighborhood warranted suspicion  is one thing, the deadly actions he took are another,  the question I must ask is this, If Zimmerman was so quick to act with deadly force, not in some lawless frontier, not in some war torn desolation but in a relatively nice place, a place where there is rule of law what does that say about us as a people? What does it say about our so called civilization? )

cambodia

Former Cambodian official convicted in absentia

SOPHENG CHEANG, AP

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — A former Cambodian governor was convicted in absentia Tuesday of shooting and wounding three garment workers and was sentenced to 18 months in prison, an outcome that rights groups say highlights the impunity of the country's political elite.

Chhouk Bandith, former governor of Bavet town in southeastern Cambodia, has been on the run for months and was not present at his trial.

The former official fled after the Feb. 20 attack in which he was named the prime suspect in shooting three female protesters. The women were seriously wounded by the gunshots while demonstrating outside their factory with about 1,000 other workers for better working conditions and benefits.

A prosecutor in December dropped the charges against Bandith, saying there was no evidence to prove he was the gunman. The move sparked outrage among rights groups and in March was overturned on appeal, paving the way for his trial.

On Tuesday, the Svay Rieng provincial court convicted Bandith of unintentionally wounding the protesters. Human rights groups had criticized the charge as too lenient and had called for a stiffened charge of attempted murder.

Rights groups welcomed the conviction but condemned the light sentence, saying that several witnesses saw Bandith open fire into the crowd of protesters.

"The sentence is little more than a slap on the wrist, and is emblematic of Cambodia's pervasive culture of impunity for the well-connected elite," said a joint statement issued by the Cambodian Community Legal Education Center and Licado, the League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights.

The rights groups called on authorities to find and arrest Bandith so that he can serve his sentence and pay restitution to the victims. Bandith was ordered to pay 38 million riel ($8,500) in compensation to the three women.

Cambodia's judiciary is widely regarded as corrupt and susceptible to political manipulation. International human rights groups accuse the government of using the judiciary to silence its critics and to attack human rights defenders and say the courts regularly fail to deliver justice to the country's people, particularly the poor.

Cambodia's garment industry is the main foreign exchange earner for the poor Southeast Asian country. It employs more than half a million workers, most of whom are women. Garment exports last year totaled $4.6 billion, up from $4.3 billion the previous year.

india

Mass cremation for people killed in India flooding

RAFIQ MAQBOOL, AP

GAUCHAR, India (AP) — Authorities prepared Tuesday to cremate the bodies of hundreds of people who perished in monsoon flooding in northern India, as soldiers attempted to rescue tourists and pilgrims who remained stranded in a remote town.

Truckloads of wooden logs were loaded onto air force transport planes and flown to the temple town of Kedarnath to be used in a mass funeral and cremation for the flood victims.

Troops are also trying to rescue about 5,000 people who remain stranded in Badrinath town eight days after torrential rains triggered landslides and flooding in Uttarakhand state.

Bad weather has hampered rescue efforts, with air force helicopters unable to take off due to poor visibility, Group Capt. Sandeep Mehta said.

"There is a dense cloud cover over the mountains and we've had to suspend helicopter rescue sorties," Mehta said.

So far the army has rescued about 90,000 people from hundreds of villages and small towns hit by the floods. Entire towns were flattened by landslides that were followed by floods. Roads were washed away and telecommunication links snapped, cutting off many parts of the state.

In the town of Gauchar, which is the center of rescue and relief operations, authorities made arrangements to send about a dozen Hindu priests to Kedarnath.

At least 600 bodies were found buried in silt in and around the Kedarnath temple, one of Hinduism's most revered pilgrim sites.

Health experts say there are dangers of disease outbreaks unless the bodies are cremated. Medical teams are taking DNA samples and photographs of the unidentified bodies before they are cremated.

The federal health ministry said Tuesday it has sent more than 1 million chlorine tablets to purify drinking water supplies in Uttarakhand. The ministry has also sent several teams of doctors to help flood survivors.

Every summer, hundreds of thousands of devout Hindus make a pilgrimage known as the Char Dham Yatra to four temple towns in Uttarakhand. The pilgrims usually return before monsoon rains begin in July. But this year they were caught by unprecedented heavy rains and flash floods

legend

I Am Legend' author Richard Matheson dies at 87

DERRIK J. LANG, AP

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Richard Matheson, the prolific sci-fi and fantasy writer whose "I Am Legend" and "The Shrinking Man" were transformed into films, has died. He was 87.

A spokesman for the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films said Matheson died Sunday in Los Angeles. No other details were provided.

With a career spanning more than 60 years, Matheson crafted stories that deftly transitioned from the page to both the big and small screens. Several of his works were adapted into films, including 1953's "Hell House," 1956's "The Shrinking Man," 1958's "A Stir of Echoes" and 1978's "What Dreams May Come."

Matheson's 1954 sci-fi vampire novel "I Am Legend" inspired three different film adaptations: 1964's "The Last Man on Earth" starring Vincent Price, 1971's "Omega Man" starring Charlton Heston and 2007's "I Am Legend" starring Will Smith.

Matheson was also responsible for writing several episodes of "The Twilight Zone," as well as editions of "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour," ''Rod Serling's Night Gallery," ''The Martian Chronicles" and "Amazing Stories." His "Twilight Zone" installments included "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," which featured William Shatner as an airplane passenger who spots a creature on a plane's wing, as well as "Steel," which inspired the 2011 film "Real Steel" starring Hugh Jackman.

"I loved Richard Matheson's writing, and it was a huge honor getting to adapt his story 'Button, Button' into a film," posted "Donnie Darko" and "The Box" director Richard Kelly on Twitter on Monday.

Matheson influenced several generations of storytellers. Among them were Stephen King, who dedicated his 2006 novel "Cell" to Matheson, and Steven Spielberg, whose first feature-length film was the made-for-TV movie "Duel," based on the Matheson short story of the same name.

"Richard Matheson's ironic and iconic imagination created seminal science-fiction stories and gave me my first break when he wrote the short story and screenplay for 'Duel,'" said Spielberg in a statement. "His 'Twilight Zones' were among my favorites, and he recently worked with us on 'Real Steel.' For me, he is in the same category as (Ray) Bradbury and (Isaac) Asimov."

Matheson was scheduled to receive the visionary award at the Academy of Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Films' Saturn Awards on Wednesday. The organization said the award will be presented posthumously and the 39th annual ceremony would be dedicated to Matheson.

"We are heartbroken to lose a writer of towering talent, unlimited imagination and unparalleled inspiration," said Robert Holguin, the academy's president. "Richard was a genius whose visions helped bring legitimacy and critical acclaim to science fiction and fantasy. He was also a longtime supporter of the academy, and everyone associated with the Saturn Awards feels emptier today to learn of this enormous loss."

Matheson is survived by his wife and four children.

(he was legend)

ecigs

UK to start regulating e-cigarettes as medicines

MARIA CHENG, AP

LONDON (AP) — Britain will start regulating electronic cigarettes and other products containing nicotine as medicines, according to the country's top regulator.

E-cigarettes are battery-operated products that turn nicotine into a vapor that is inhaled by the user.

In a statement Wednesday, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency said it would treat e-cigarettes as medicines "so that people using these products have the confidence they are safe, are of the right quality and work."

E-cigarettes and other nicotine products will be licensed in the U.K. from 2016, giving manufacturers time to ensure their products comply with all standards for medicines. The UK regulator says e-cigarettes aren't recommended for use until then but it will not ban them entirely.

"While it's best to quit completely, I realize that not every smoker can and it is much better to get nicotine from safer sources such as nicotine replacement therapy," Britain's Chief Medical Officer Sally Davies said in a statement. "It's only right (e-cigarettes) are properly regulated to be safe and work effectively."

Cigarettes are exempt from the regulation.

Last week, Britain's independent health watchdog said smokers unable to go cold turkey should be encouraged to use nicotine products like gum and patches to help them cut down. It hadn't recommended e-cigarettes because they weren't yet regulated. Experts say smokers are at risk from the toxins and tar in cigarettes, not the nicotine.

Smoking is the biggest cause of preventable deaths in England, killing about 80,000 people every year. Once e-cigarettes and other nicotine products are licensed by the U.K. regulator, they will be available for sale as over-the-counter medicines. Britain said it will now push for European law to recognize nicotine products as medicines.

Some manufacturers said they were concerned about the new classification. Damien Scott, commercial manager of e-cigarette maker SKYCIG, said the products are currently self-regulated to ensure they meet consumer standards.

"Medical regulation which could restrict access to these lifestyle products is entirely unjustified," he said.

In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration announced in 2011 that it would regulate e-cigarettes as tobacco products and won't try to regulate them under stricter rules for medical drug-delivery devices following a legal battle.

The FDA plans to assert regulatory authority over the fast-growing category in the near future, however.

E-cigarettes could also still be regulated as drugs or drug-delivery devices, if they are "marketed for therapeutic purposes" — for example, as a stop-smoking aid.

AP Tobacco Writer Michael Felberbaum contributed to this report from Richmond

( first they tell us cigarettes are bad, can’t smoke indoors, shouldn’t smoke in public, now the e-cigarette which is the futuristic way to feed the nicademons is also being potentially driven into the closet as a “medicine” and “therapeutic”  is smoking a health hazard? Sure it is, it can kill ya, but it’s still your choice is the e-cigarette medicine? No. not in my opinion, whether I’m smoking an actual tobacco cigarette or an e-cigarette what’s actually the difference? )