CCADP in the News
CCADP News Archives including appearances from Newspapers, Online News, Radio and T.V.
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Visit the CCADP's Audio/Video Archives: Media appearances, death penalty news reports and more

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      Radio / TV / Internet Broadcasts . . .
              
'CCADP ONLINE' at the 2nd World Congress Against The Death Penalty
Hosted by Dave Parkinson and Tracy Lamourie of the Canadian Coalition Against The Death Penalty.
Guests include exonerated death row prisoners Juan Melendez and Darby Tillis.  (Length: 12:50)

WATCH VIDEO WITH REAL PLAYER

WATCH VIDEO WITH WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER

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July 31, 2004 - The Peter Warren Show - CKNW 980 AM, Vancouver, B.C. 
The CCADP's Dave Parkinson was the guest for a half hour listener call in segment discussing banning the execution of juveniles.
Click here to listen to the program in Windows Media Player

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Test of Faith - With Valerie Pringle
(Recorded 2003) Aired March 1, 2004 - 10:00pm Vision TV (repeated March 2nd during the day)
Repeated program again on September 20, 2004
Hot Seat Guest: Robert Blecker, New York Law School Professor.  Panel Guests: David Parkinson , co-director of the Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty;
Krista Taves, ministerial leader of the Unitarian Fellowship of Northwest Toronto; Michael Adams, president of the Environics group of research and communications companies, and author of Fire and Ice: The United States, Canada and the Myth of Converging Values. Hour long program in front of a studio audience.

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    For over 25 years the fifth estate has been Canada's premier investigative documentary program.

The Fifth Estate - CBC National Network (coast to coast)
Repeat of original program that aired in November 2003 on CBC
Click here to view a short clip from the program in Windows Media Player
From CBC's website: "Should inmates on Death Row have access to the Internet? A well-meaning Canadian couple got involved in the debate by providing Death Row inmates with their own websites, but controversy exploded when people saw what a few of those inmates, some of America's most despicable, did next. "  The CCADP's Dave Parkinson and Tracy Lamourie take on the state of Arizona's attempt to ban prisoners from their webpage and are the main focus of Canada's hour long premier investigative documentary program on the CBC.

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      Newspapers / Magazines / Internet
                and Print publications

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HOTEL OF THE DOOMED
NEW YORK POST - By ANGELA MONTEFINISE
 
December 19, 2004 -- IT'S late at night, and every thing's dark and quiet, except for the occasional sound of a guard's footsteps.
Michael Wayne Hunter is sleeping in his 5-by-9-foot cell.

He hears a sudden scream, then bells and whistles, and jumps out of his steel-frame bed.

An inmate, Ron Fuller, has piled his belongings on his bunk and set fire to them.

"From six cells away, I could feel the heat radiating on my mind, when I stuck my mirror outside my cell bars to see what the commotion was about," Hunter recalls.

He watches guards pull Fuller out of the flames — his "unfocused eyes were spinning wildly, the hair on his chest and arms singed away."

Although Fuller survived the suicide attempt, Hunter says many don't — and it's a good thing.

Life is bleak on Death Row at California's San Quentin State Prison — Scott Peterson's new home.

"Often it's easy to see the mental deterioration, suicide seems inevitable, and it's almost a relief when the condemned man ends his misery-filled existence," Hunter says.

It's a life of monotony and routine that begins with a hot breakfast served on paper plates inside cells, say some of the 641 Death Row inmates in essays and artwork posted on a Canadian Web site.

"The food isn't terrible," says Hunter, who gunned down his dad and stepmom in 1981. "It's better than the food I was served on aircraft carriers during the four years I spent in the United States Navy."

From there, prisoners who are designated grade A — not a threat to themselves or others — can go into one of the outdoor yards for about four hours to play basketball, lift weights, play cards or relax.

Grade B inmates only get the pleasure three times a week for a total of 10 hours.

The yards, surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards, are always cramped with prisoners, all wearing state-issued denim blue pants and chambray shirts.

"When you stand on the off-white concrete floor of one of the six exercise yards and gaze up at the yellow wall on one side and the guards with their rifles on the other, you feel as if you've fallen into a kiln that traps in both the heat of the sun's rays and the bodies of society's outcasts," Hunter says. "On any given day, 40, 50, 60 or more prisoners are crammed onto each yard."

Before going to a yard, inmates are always strip-searched.

"The guard hung a pair of handcuffs on the barred door and proceeded down the tier inquiring as to who was going to the exercise yard today," writes Gregory Calvin Smith, a 10-year inmate on Death Row who raped and killed a 16-year-old girl.

"Everyone loathed getting stripped and searched whenever they left their cell, but it was procedure on Death Row. Going outside was a privilege, the price was condemned degradation."

Some inmates don't bother paying the price — they don't like the yard because it's too dangerous.

Fights break out all the time between prisoners who form makeshift gangs or who show "'tude," or attitude, according to Hunter, and guards often use guns to break up the melee.

"I've seen many prisoners wounded by bullets or bullet fragments," Hunter writes.

Inmates eat a bag lunch — with a sandwich, a bag of chips or trail mix, a piece of fruit and a powdered drink — before yard time is up.

Inmates are then shuffled back to their cells, which are furnished with beds, stainless-steel toilets and sinks.

Inmates can buy books, magazines and typewriters from the commissary to keep themselves entertained, or can participate in arts-and-crafts programs from their cells.

But they can only leave their cells for religious observances, doctor and dentist appointments and visits.

"In my years locked in the box that I call home, I've come to know every flaw in the paint, every crevice on the floor and walls," Hunter says. "It's familiar to me no matter the season or how the light filters through the filthy windows of the cell block."

The visiting room is open Thursday through Sunday at the prison on San Francisco Bay. Grade A inmates can have visitors for two hours. Grade Bs can receive visitors for only 90 minutes, and only through Plexiglas. All visitors must be approved by the prison.

"The Death Row visiting room . . . has murals on its walls painted by a condemned artist," Hunter writes. "This is the only place inside San Quentin where Death Row prisoners and guards mingle together without bars between them or chains on the condemned.

"Children run around playing tag between the chairs, a cheerful atmosphere reigns much more reminiscent of a group of vacationers in a departure lounge waiting to board a charter flight to Hawaii than an annex of the Death House."

One thing breaks the monotony — executions.

They usually happen just after midnight. Lawyers run around trying to pull off 11th-hour stays while reporters wait outside, discussing what the condemned inmate requested as a last meal. As long as the meal is available and less than $50, the state provides it.

For five days before the execution date, the condemned inmate is put in a new cell and granted priority visiting privileges. He is monitored constantly to make sure he doesn't commit suicide.

Family members, spiritual advisers and friends visit.

Finally, it's time for the condemned to take his last 13 steps, to the chamber.

"The day of an execution is the most quietest [sic] day on Death Row," says Steve Champion, who has been on Death Row for 22 years for the murder of two people in an attempted robbery.

"The usual early morning banter — pots and pans being hustled about by guards preparing to serve breakfast, the morning ritual of roll call as someone shouts good morning to friends, the sounds of TVs and radios being switched on — all lie smothered as if the pending doom has the ability to suck oxygen right from the air."

Only 10 San Quentin inmates have been executed since the death penalty was reinstated in California in 1978.

All have been by lethal injection or gas in San Quentin's apple-green execution chamber.

Inmate Glen Cornwell, a murderer with eight attempted-robbery charges, remembers the 1998 execution of his friend Thomas Thompson, put to death for the 1981 murder of Ginger Fleischli.

"This morning was a very special time for me," Cornwell remembers. "I knew [Tom] would have to walk by to take his last shower. I'm in cell 15, and being condemned, for his last five days he's been in cell one. So I knew he would have to pass by. With that in mind, I stayed up all night, meditating, lounging, and waiting for him to come by.

"Looking, he said, 'I love you brother,' standing bent over because of the handcuffs he must wear in order to come out of his cell. I swear it was like he was carrying a heavy burden on his back, maybe even an invisible cross . . . After he'd gone, all I could do was stand at the bars with tears rolling down my cheeks." After the execution, it's "business as usual," Champion says.

These personal stories of life at San Quentin are posted on a site run by the Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty, located at www.ccadp.org/sanq.

Put up in 1998, inmates mail personal information, stories and artwork to the site, which posts them not to "garner sympathy" for the inmates, but to make citizens "responsible for who we're killing," according to Tracy Lamourie, site co-founder.

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Conn. serial killer implores judge to let him die
But Michael Bruce Ross, who has confessed to strangling eight young women
and girls, will have to undergo at least one more psychiatric evaluation.
Friday, December 10, 2004 - BY KAREN LEE ZINER - Providence R.I. Journal Staff Writer

NEW LONDON, Conn. -- Serial killer Michael Bruce Ross wants to keep his date
with death on Jan. 26, and yesterday he implored a judge to allow that.


Journal photo / John Freidah

Edwin Sheely, father of murder victim Leslie Shelly, speaks with reporters
in New London, Conn., yesterday after a competency hearing for serial killer
Michael Ross.

But New London Superior Court Judge Patrick Clifford ordered that Ross
undergo one more psychiatric evaluation before being allowed to die by
lethal injection. The judge did not order the execution postponed.

Clifford set a hearing date for Dec. 28, and said he had asked forensic
psychiatrist Dr. Michael Norko to evaluate Ross, prepare a report and
testify. Norko previously testified to Ross's competency in 1995.

The judge also set a hearing date for next Wednesday on motions filed by
Ross' former public defenders, who are seeking a stay of execution until the
court determines whether Ross is competent to waive legal challenges.

When Clifford announced his decision, Ross shook his head, dropped his head
onto his hands, then wiped away tears with a white handkerchief.

"I want to bring this to a conclusion," said Ross, 45, an Ivy League
graduate who is on death row and has confessed to killing six young women
and teenage girls from Connecticut in the 1980s, five of whom he raped. He
has also confessed to raping and strangling two other women in New York,
nearly strangling a North Carolina woman, and committing numerous other
rapes and assaults.

His execution would be the first in New England since 1960.

"I am hoping that January 26 will be a signpost that they [the victims'
family members] can say, 'That was the day I began letting go of the anger,'
" Ross said. " . . . I know a lot of people disagree with that, but I don't
think that's irrational. I hope this court will accept that."

Clifford questioned Ross for more than half an hour. In a crisp, tan prison
suit, his hair pulled back into a curled ponytail, Ross articulated his
knowledge of case law -- particularly as it relates to the death penalty.

Clifford asked, "Have you decided any potential appeals or collateral relief
you might have since this motion for consideration was filed?"

Ross replied, "I'm aware there are a number of issues that can be raised. .
. . I think they still hold out hope that I'll change my mind . . ."

Ross also said he was aware of a recent petition filed with the U.S. Supreme
Court by his former public defenders -- whom he said he had fired -- and
added, "I'm quite surprised they were allowed to do that."

Clifford said, "You do not wish to file any other appeals?"

"No," said Ross, shaking his head.


Hartford Courant file photo

Michael Ross, shown in 1995, is schedules to be executed on Jan. 26.

After that discussion, Clifford said Ross "appears competent, he's educated,
articulate, insightful -- in sum, it certainly appears he is able to make a
rational choice."

"But I'm unsure whether right now, he is suffering some kind of mental
disorder. I believe I need an expert to evaluate him, file a report, and
testify to that," said Clifford. He said that in anticipation of that, he
had contacted Norko.

Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell said this week that she would not grant Ross a
reprieve, and will veto any proposed legislation to repeal the death
penalty.

T.R. Paulding Jr., Ross' standby counsel, told the court he knew that
"[Ross' decision] is a decision that many many people disagree with or don't
understand. But it's very well thought out."

Paulding said he believes Ross is telling the truth when he says he wants to
die to spare his victims' families further grief. And, he added, "I'm as
confident as anyone that the exam will show that he's competent," and the
execution will go forward as scheduled.

"He is trying to do the right thing," said Paulding. "Clearly, with Michael
Ross, there are traits of goodness. There are traits of Christianity."

Edwin Shelly, whose daughter Leslie was 14 when Ross kidnapped and killed
her and her friend April Brunais on Easter Sunday in 1984, said, "I agree
with him. If he wants to die, let him die."

Shelly said he plans to witness the execution. "Oh yes," Shelly said, "and I
want him to know I'm standing just on the other side of the window."

Michael Malchik, a retired Connecticut State Police homicide detective who
caught Ross and elicited his confession, said he strongly advocates the
death penalty in this case.

"I realize we have to be very careful with the death penalty, but we're
working on the 21st year of Michael Ross," said Malchik.

"He's been convicted and sentenced to death by two different juries. It's
bordering on ludicrous." Malchik said he believes that Ross "is very
manipulative . . . he's running a game on us."

Much has changed since Ross was first sentenced to death in 1984.

The electric chair that originally was supposed to deliver Ross' fatal jolt
has been replaced by a chemical cocktail, delivered through the defendant's
veins while he's strapped to a gurney.

New technology allows Ross to have his own Web page on the Internet, which
includes some of the numerous articles he has written on the death penalty.

In one article, "On God's Death Row," Ross wrote, ". . . I will know, to
within a few minutes, the exact day and time that I will die. I will know
the exact day and time that I will meet Christ. And while I expect that this
may sound strange, this has been a great blessing to me."

Paulding told Judge Clifford that a psychologist and a psychiatrist are
visiting Ross daily, in part to help him face his impending death.

Paulding said after the hearing that as Ross prepares to die, he also has "a
lot of mundane things to take care of. Things like funeral arrangements,
where he will be cremated, and where his ashes will be sprinkled."

With reports from The Associated Press

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The Varsity - Issue: 9/27/04
Death penalty an issue "of the future"
By SHIVMA MAHARAJ

The Second World Congress Against the Death Penalty will be held in Montreal from October 6 to 9, but organizers were at U of T this week to drum up support and invite students along.

The congress will be attended by advocates from around the globe for the abolition of the death penalty. The first congress was held in June 2001 in Strasbourg, France, and lead to the creation of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty. It also designated October 6 as World Day Against the Death Penalty. Both Congresses were organized by Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort (ECPM) and Penal Reform International (PRI).

To raise awareness of the upcoming congress in Toronto, a panel discussion on the death penalty was held at Hart House last Friday, and was organized by the U of T chapter of ECPM. The discussion was led by the Toronto delegation to Montreal which included Tracy Lamourie and David Parkinson, co-directors of the Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty (CCADP), Dr. Carolyn Strange, Professor of Criminology at U of T, Kent Roach, Professor of Law at U of T, Ben Peterson, Director and co-founder of Journalists for Human Rights (JHR), and Michel Taube, Chairman of ECPM.

Canada was chosen as the site for the second conference because it is one of the countries where the death penalty has been abolished, but also because of its relationship to the United States, Cuba and several Caribbean islands where executions are still carried out.

"It is important [for Canada] to have a small voice in the death penalty debate," said Lamourie. Peterson added that Canada is not "immune from the effects" of that debate and that there is no reason to be complacent.

Dr. Strange said that while the death penalty has been abolished in Canada, it remains an issue "of the present and the future." She emphasized the need for constant vigilance becauseas recently as 1995, she said, 75 percent of Canadians still supported the death penalty even though the last execution was in 1962.

Part of the goal of the Montreal conference is to urge countries like Canada to pass legislation that prevents the extradition of accused people to countries where they risk being executed, and also to welcome refugees fleeing the death penalty. Furthermore, the congress hopes to persuade abolitionist countries to sanction the Second Protocol of the Pact of Civil Laws, which is an officially recognized document of the United Nations and prohibits executions.

For Taube, the primary objective is to sensitize people to the issue of the death penalty, and to clarify the reasons for its abolition. As part of this awareness initiative, said Taube, students are highly encouraged to attend the congress, participate in the forums, and adopt a declaration of students against the death penalty. There will also be a march through the streets of Montreal to protest executions.

A student delegation from the U of T chapter of ECPM will be attending the Congress, led by its President Cecilia Fantoni. It is hoped that by raising consciousness about the death penalty the congress will influence non-abolitionist countries to eliminate it.

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Inmate Web sites have the look of innocence
Pages claim injustice, ask for money
May 23, 2004,  By ALLAN TURNER - Houston Chronicle

With its catchy slogan and colorful graphics, its warm testimonials from friends and co-workers, its happy family snapshots and stiffly posed military portrait, Steve Peace's Web site could be the work of a politician yearning for public office.

It's not.

Peace, 43, a one-time oil worker, is a convicted killer serving 45 years for the murder of security guard Dimas Garcia, who was shot 14 times at a North Houston auto dealership. The site was posted by Houston commercial photographer Pam Francis, who expected it would bolster her friend's bid for a new trial.

State District Judge Brock Thomas dashed that hope last week, denying Peace's request after a two-hour hearing. But www.freestevepeace.com and its assertion "Unjustly accused. Unjustly convicted." live on -- a dramatic example of how new technology can provide an international soap box for would-be criminal justice reformers.

Hundreds of Web pages, many featuring men on Texas' death row, crowd cyberspace with claims of innocence. The Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty alone has provided free Internet sites to more than 500 condemned prisoners. Even more use the Canadian pages to solicit pen pals.


Postings have formidable power

"Anybody who champions inmates' rights can see the benefit of the Internet," said Houston prison activist Ray Hill. "It provides the opportunity to access millions beyond our field of vision. We're not going to encounter these people in line at the supermarket, but they're real and they have opinions."

Death row inmates and their supporters, Hill said, "live in a constant state of desperation because no one wants to hear them."

"Come up with a catchy design, a logo, and there's a chance you can interest people in reading about your case," he said. "The Internet was a natural."

The persuasive power of such Internet postings can be formidable, suggested University of Houston communications professor Garth Jowett.

"It has created the ability to communicate on a highly intimate level," he said. "It gives people the impression that a message has been specifically tailored to them."

If accepted uncritically, Jowett warned, such messages can "become incredible weapons, dangerous loose cannons" exploited by propagandists.


Sites can devastate crime victim families

Andy Kahan, the mayor's victims' rights advocate, believes that is precisely what happens as inmate advocates proselytize via computer.

"They use the Internet to promote their causes, usually with distortions," Kahan said. "There's little by way of checks and balances. You never see a correction or a disclaimer telling you to feel free to check out the facts. It's made to seem that this is what happened. This is the truth."

Kahan also said that the Web sites can be emotionally devastating for crime victim's families.

"They feel like they've been gutted all over again by the system," he said.

Hill, a former inmate who hosts KPFT-FM's weekly prison radio program, said the first prisoner-related Web sites, posted by European anti-death penalty activists, appeared about a decade ago and began appearing with greater frequency about seven years ago.

In Houston, death penalty opponent Ward Larkin, a computer industry worker, began offering inmates free Web sites in 1995 after visiting death row.

"It was my choice to post their information," he said, "and I did so only after I had researched their cases thoroughly. ... I didn't anticipate changing anyone's mind, I just wanted to allow them to inform themselves."

Although he occasionally posted material for inmates he thought guilty, he nonetheless reserved veto power over the stuff that got online, he said. Inmates whose sites insulted their victims' families were rejected, as was one inmate's planned Internet campaign to establish a monarchy.

"I told him that I essentially support democracy," Larkin explained.


Potshots at Bush and state of Texas

The Canadian anti-death penalty coalition posted its first site, on behalf of a Pennsylvania death row inmate, in 1998.

"The way we see it," said spokeswoman Tracy Lamouri, "is that we're shining a light on a dark section of society that people don't normally get to see."

Lamouri's site, which primarily features condemned inmates from Africa, the Caribbean and the United States, mixes prisoner profiles with politics. It takes potshots at President Bush and labels Texas, which leads the nation in executions, as being "Like A Whole Other Country."

Lamouri said her group has investigated -- and vouched for -- the claims of only a few inmates posted on its site. The other sites contain unverified prisoner postings, she said.

Among Texas killers with high profiles on the Canadian pages are Craig Ogan, a self-proclaimed genius and occasional Drug Enforcement Administration informer who was executed in 2002 for killing a Houston police officer, and Calvin Burdine, whose conviction for killing his Houston housemate was overturned in 2001 because his lawyer slept through portions of his trial.

Burdine, who spent 18 years on death row, remains in prison after he pleaded guilty to murder and two other crimes in a plea deal but ultimately could be paroled.

Other featured Texans include Carl Brooks, condemned for kidnapping, robbing and murdering a San Antonio man, who claimed he "maybe killed some insects, birds, snakes, fish, roaches and rats, but no human," and John Alba, a Collin County man who repeatedly shot his wife, who is described on his Web page as "a good and kind man."

Some of the Web sites solicit donations and accept credit card contributions.

Texas inmates do not have access to the Internet, said prison system spokeswoman Michelle Lyons, and all Web sites, many of which contain letters from inmates, are posted by sympathizers on the outside.

Giorgio Nobili, a 66-year-old death penalty opponent in Milan, Italy, said via e-mail that he posted his site for twice-convicted Houston killer Eugene Broxton after he corresponded with the inmate and became convinced "he is not culpable of the crime he was accused (of)."

Broxton, 49, was condemned for the 1991 murder of a 20-year-old woman in a Channelview motel. The victim's husband was shot in the head but survived.

In three years, about 8,000 people have visited the site. Some, at Nobili's prompting, have sent the inmate money.

Nobili said that through writing Broxton he "discovered a great, generous, intelligent, good man full of interests and (able) to speak with me about everything."



Francis, Peace met when she had flat tire

Francis said she met Peace while scouting photo jobs in downtown Houston. Driving in the 3600 block of Travis Street, Francis encountered an elderly motorist driving erratically. When the woman stopped at Holy Rosary Catholic Church, Francis, Peace -- who was working with a street crew nearby -- and several other people approached her to find out what was wrong.

The woman had driven from Richmond with a flat tire.

"Steve had his crew change the tire," Francis said. "Then he watched her car and wrote her a note warning her not to drive back to Richmond on the spare. ... He gave me his card, and later I called him to check on the old woman. We had lunch and he told me his story."

Peace, then under indictment in Garcia's murder, told her that he was innocent and that his high-powered attorney had assured him of a "slam-dunk" acquittal.

Despite that assurance, Peace was convicted of the crime in March. Francis then went into action, posting the Web site to build support for a new trial. To finance the effort, she held marathon pet photography sessions each weekend in May.

Last week, Peace's new lawyer, Chris Flood, argued that inadequate counsel in the first trial and improper questioning by a prosecutor justified a new trial. He contended that the prosecutor cleverly circumvented a rule banning hearsay testimony to get a Texas Ranger to imply Peace had confessed the crime to his family.

After Assistant District Attorney Denise Nassar's point-by-point rebuttal, in which she insisted the trial had been fair and the rules observed, the judge immediately denied Flood's motion for a new trial.

Garcia's family, who remained in Mexico City when he came to work in Houston in 1986, could not be reached for comment.

Francis said Peace's supporters now will try to raise money for an appeal.

"Injustice just drives me crazy," she said. "After that joke of a trial, I had to do something. If it weren't for me, there would have been no help. He came from a poor family. He was the hero of the family. He was the one who took care of everybody. Now the hero is in jail."

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CCADP in the News
CCADP News Archives including appearances from Newspapers, Online News, Radio and T.V.
|    1998    |    1999    |    2000    |    2001    |    2002    |
   |    2003    |    2004    |    2005    |    2006    |    2007    |  

Visit the CCADP's Audio/Video Archives: Media appearances, death penalty news reports and more



The CCADP offers free webpages to over 500 Death Row Prisoners
Contact us for more information.

"The Eyes Of The World Are Watching Now"

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This page was last updated July 25, 2006                 Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty
This page is maintained and updated by Dave Parkinson and Tracy Lamourie in Toronto, Canada