London Lass
01-07-2009, 06:37 AM
PENNSYLVANIA:
Erie man leaves death row----Mental disability leads to reprieve
A man sentenced to die for strangling an Erie woman in 1994 is poised to step off death row because of recent legal rulings that ban the execution of the mentally retarded.
Inmate Jose A. Marrero will appear via videoconference Thursday in Erie County Court to trade his sentence of death for one of life with no chance for parole.
In exchange for the reprieve, Marrero -- a Cleveland native convicted of strangling 68-year-old Elizabeth E. Smith in her westside apartment -- has agreed to give up all further appeals, the prosecution said.
The Erie County District Attorney's Office struck the deal with Marrero's lawyers, who are with the nonprofit Defenders Association of Philadelphia, after a panel of experts hired by the prosecution concluded Marrero, 40, suffers from mental retardation, District Attorney Brad Foulk said.
Foulk said prosecutors were reluctant to agree to let Marrero leave death row. However, he said, they were convinced they could not rebut the evidence of his mental retardation.
"We could not meet our burden," Foulk said.
He said the prosecution made the decision in consultation with the family of Smith, the victim.
"These appeals linger on and one, and take a heavy toll on the victim's family," he said.
Convicted in 1994
A jury sentenced Marrero to death in October 1994 after the panel found he strangled Smith in her West 16th Street apartment in January 1994. Smith, who depended on an oxygen tank to breathe, had given Marrero odd jobs to do while he was in Erie looking for work.
Police said Marrero confessed to the killing.
Marrero's death sentence has been put on hold for years, however, over the question of whether he is mentally retarded and therefore should be spared execution.
One specialist who examined Marrero in 1999, as part of the appeals, diagnosed him as mildly mentally retarded with an IQ in the mid-50s. The American Psychiatric Association defines mental retardation as "significantly subaverage intellectual functioning," with an IQ of approximately 70 or less.
For more than a decade, prosecutors successfully fought off Marrero's legal challenges based on his mental capacity.
The federal courts had yet to issue a definitive ruling on the issue, and Pennsylvania remained one of 20 states that allowed the execution of mentally retarded defendants.
But in 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered its landmark decision in the case of Atkins v. Virginia, ruling for the 1st time that execution of mentally retarded defendants violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.
Based on that decision and a subsequent state court ruling barring the execution of mentally retarded defendants, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court set aside Marrero's death sentence in November 2006.
It sent the case back to Erie County for a hearing, at which Judge Shad Connelly, who presided at Marrero's trial, was supposed to determine Marrero's mental capacity. The hearing never occurred.
After a lengthy investigation that included the evaluation of Marrero by a panel of medical experts, the Erie County District Attorney's office concluded it would not be able to prove in court that Marrero is not mentally retarded.
It then reached the agreement with Marrero's lawyers.
2 from Erie still on death row
Marrero is being held at the State Correctional Institute at Greene County, near Waynesburg. He will appear for his hearing Thursday from there via videoconference.
Marrero is the 3rd Erie County convicted murderer to win release from death row.
Allan Lee Pursell, 49, was removed from death row in February 2002 as a result of his appeal of his 1984 conviction for the torture and murder of 13-year-old Christopher Brine. Pursell is serving a life sentence with no chance of parole at the State Correctional Institution at Albion.
Joseph Szuchon, 59, left death row in June 2002 after an Erie County jury declined to resentence him to death for the 1981 murder of his former girlfriend, Judy Snyder. He is serving a life sentence with no chance of parole at the State Correctional Institution at Dallas.
David Copenhefer, 61, and Stephen Treiber, 39, are the only 2 Erie County defendants still facing the possibility of a death sentence. Treiber was sentenced to die for murdering his 2-year-old daughter in an arson in Millcreek Township in March 2001.
Copenhefer faces the death penalty for the 1988 kidnapping and murder of Sally Weiner, a 37-year-old wife and mother of 2 from Corry.
Treiber and Copenhefer are at SCI Greene County.
Pennsylvania last executed an inmate in 1999 -- Philadelphia torture-killer Gary Heidnik, The state has 225 inmates on death row.
(source: Erie Times-News)
http://people.smu.edu/rhalperi/updates.html
Erie man leaves death row----Mental disability leads to reprieve
A man sentenced to die for strangling an Erie woman in 1994 is poised to step off death row because of recent legal rulings that ban the execution of the mentally retarded.
Inmate Jose A. Marrero will appear via videoconference Thursday in Erie County Court to trade his sentence of death for one of life with no chance for parole.
In exchange for the reprieve, Marrero -- a Cleveland native convicted of strangling 68-year-old Elizabeth E. Smith in her westside apartment -- has agreed to give up all further appeals, the prosecution said.
The Erie County District Attorney's Office struck the deal with Marrero's lawyers, who are with the nonprofit Defenders Association of Philadelphia, after a panel of experts hired by the prosecution concluded Marrero, 40, suffers from mental retardation, District Attorney Brad Foulk said.
Foulk said prosecutors were reluctant to agree to let Marrero leave death row. However, he said, they were convinced they could not rebut the evidence of his mental retardation.
"We could not meet our burden," Foulk said.
He said the prosecution made the decision in consultation with the family of Smith, the victim.
"These appeals linger on and one, and take a heavy toll on the victim's family," he said.
Convicted in 1994
A jury sentenced Marrero to death in October 1994 after the panel found he strangled Smith in her West 16th Street apartment in January 1994. Smith, who depended on an oxygen tank to breathe, had given Marrero odd jobs to do while he was in Erie looking for work.
Police said Marrero confessed to the killing.
Marrero's death sentence has been put on hold for years, however, over the question of whether he is mentally retarded and therefore should be spared execution.
One specialist who examined Marrero in 1999, as part of the appeals, diagnosed him as mildly mentally retarded with an IQ in the mid-50s. The American Psychiatric Association defines mental retardation as "significantly subaverage intellectual functioning," with an IQ of approximately 70 or less.
For more than a decade, prosecutors successfully fought off Marrero's legal challenges based on his mental capacity.
The federal courts had yet to issue a definitive ruling on the issue, and Pennsylvania remained one of 20 states that allowed the execution of mentally retarded defendants.
But in 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered its landmark decision in the case of Atkins v. Virginia, ruling for the 1st time that execution of mentally retarded defendants violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.
Based on that decision and a subsequent state court ruling barring the execution of mentally retarded defendants, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court set aside Marrero's death sentence in November 2006.
It sent the case back to Erie County for a hearing, at which Judge Shad Connelly, who presided at Marrero's trial, was supposed to determine Marrero's mental capacity. The hearing never occurred.
After a lengthy investigation that included the evaluation of Marrero by a panel of medical experts, the Erie County District Attorney's office concluded it would not be able to prove in court that Marrero is not mentally retarded.
It then reached the agreement with Marrero's lawyers.
2 from Erie still on death row
Marrero is being held at the State Correctional Institute at Greene County, near Waynesburg. He will appear for his hearing Thursday from there via videoconference.
Marrero is the 3rd Erie County convicted murderer to win release from death row.
Allan Lee Pursell, 49, was removed from death row in February 2002 as a result of his appeal of his 1984 conviction for the torture and murder of 13-year-old Christopher Brine. Pursell is serving a life sentence with no chance of parole at the State Correctional Institution at Albion.
Joseph Szuchon, 59, left death row in June 2002 after an Erie County jury declined to resentence him to death for the 1981 murder of his former girlfriend, Judy Snyder. He is serving a life sentence with no chance of parole at the State Correctional Institution at Dallas.
David Copenhefer, 61, and Stephen Treiber, 39, are the only 2 Erie County defendants still facing the possibility of a death sentence. Treiber was sentenced to die for murdering his 2-year-old daughter in an arson in Millcreek Township in March 2001.
Copenhefer faces the death penalty for the 1988 kidnapping and murder of Sally Weiner, a 37-year-old wife and mother of 2 from Corry.
Treiber and Copenhefer are at SCI Greene County.
Pennsylvania last executed an inmate in 1999 -- Philadelphia torture-killer Gary Heidnik, The state has 225 inmates on death row.
(source: Erie Times-News)
http://people.smu.edu/rhalperi/updates.html