By TRACY JOHNSON
P-I REPORTER

A man who tortured and killed a young woman in the SeaTac area 16 years ago once again faces the prospect of becoming the next man in Washington to be executed.

The U.S. Supreme Court reinstated a death sentence Monday for Cal Coburn Brown for the murder of 21-year-old Holly Washa, setting up what could be his final chance for the courts to spare his life.

In a 5-4 ruling, the high court overturned the reprieve Brown got from a federal appeals court in late 2005, sending the case back to the state.

The next legal issue to be settled in the case is whether a King County jury heard enough about Brown's mental problems before deciding he should die.

State Assistant Attorney General John Samson said the next round at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is essentially Brown's last shot to challenge his death sentence.

"We believe that Mr. Brown received a fair trial," Samson said. "This was a case involving the kidnapping, rape, torture and murder of an innocent young woman by an individual who has not shown any remorse."

If Brown, 49, loses, he could become the fifth man executed in Washington since the state restored the death penalty in 1981, and the first to be executed for a King County crime in more than 40 years.

Brown's lawyer, Gil Levy, said he and attorney Suzanne Lee Elliott might have sharply limited avenues to pursue new appeals.

Their first focus is their argument at the appeals court that Brown's trial lawyers should have called a psychiatrist to testify about his bipolar disorder and how medication could have helped him.

"His bipolar disorder contributed substantially to the commission of the crime," Levy said.

On Monday, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and the court's conservative wing found that the judge in Brown's 1993 trial did not improperly excuse a potential juror, as the appeals court decided when it threw out Brown's death sentence.

The potential juror had "serious misunderstandings about his responsibility as a juror" and may have been unwilling to impose a death sentence, Kennedy wrote.

The high court found that the appeals court should have given the benefit of the doubt to the trial judge in Brown's case.

Trial judges are in a better position to assess a prospective juror's demeanor and qualifications, wrote Kennedy, who was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

Dissenting, Justice John Paul Stevens said a person's opinion that "a life sentence without the possibility of parole in all but the most heinous cases" does not mean he can't be a fair juror and follow the law.

King County prosecutors were pleased with the court's decision, which "recognized that the trial lawyers and the trial judge were in the best position to assess this particular juror's suitability to serve on the case," spokesman Dan Donohoe said.

Brown kidnapped Washa on May 23, 1991, from the parking lot of a SeaTac hotel, where she'd just quit a part-time job. He got her to pull over by implying something was wrong with her car.

He robbed her and took her to a nearby motel, where prosecutors say he tied her up, sexually assaulted her repeatedly and shocked her with an electrical cord. Prosecutors say he then forced her into the trunk of her car the next night, cut her throat, then left her car near the airport.

Brown then flew to Palm Springs, Calif., authorities say, and got together with a woman he'd met a week earlier on a plane and ended up raping, robbing and nearly killing her, too.

Brown's attorneys say the man had been recently paroled from an Oregon prison and didn't get adequate supervision or the medication he needed to help control his behavior.

Samson, however, said the man killed Washa simply because he enjoyed it.

An interesting decision out of New Mexico In a two-defendant death-penalty case in New Mexico (State v. Good & Dominguez) the trial court has ruled the New Mexico Capital Felony Sentencing Act (CFSA) unconstitutional based on data of the Capital Jury Project showing that about half of death-penalty case jurors pre-decide the issue of penalty before the penalty phase even begins. The Court found the CFSA unconstitutional but he did not dismiss the death penalty but rather ordered separate juries for guilt-innocence and, if necessary, penalty. Once the judge announced his ruling the district attorney withdrew its notice of intent to seek death. The opinion is available at:

http://capitaldefenseweekly.com/library/TGarciaCJP.pdf

By Cassy Stubbs, Posted June 18, 2007, The Huffington Post

Among the many factors in the debate about the death penalty is whether capital punishment deters violent crime. Although solid research indicates that there is no valid evidence of such deterrence, recent attention has been given to a few flawed studies concluding that the death penalty does deter murder.

A June 10 Associated Press article pointed to statistical studies that claimed to directly link numbers of executions with numbers of murders prevented, including a 2003 study from the University of Colorado at Denver and studies from 2003 and 2006 by researchers at Emory University. But follow-up studies by top social scientists soundly reject those conclusions as well as the flawed methodology used to reach them. Jeffrey Fagan, a professor at Columbia Law School and an expert on statistics, testified to Congress that the Emory and Denver studies were "fraught with numerous technical and conceptual errors," and "fail[ed] to reach the demanding standards of social science."

The truth is that it might be impossible to determine a true statistical relationship between homicides and executions because the number of executions is so small compared to the number of homicides. But what we can say with certainty is that there is no legitimate statistical evidence of deterrence.

John Donohue, Yale Law School professor and Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and Justin Wolfers, Wharton School of Business professor and Research Affiliate at the NBER, analyzed the same data used in the Emory and Denver studies, as well as other studies by the same researchers and many other nationwide reports. They found that if anything, executions increase homicides, concluding: "The view that the death penalty deters is still the product of belief, not evidence ... On balance, the evidence suggests that the death penalty may increase the murder rate."

Donohue and Wolfers analyzed data from the 2006 study by the Emory researchers using non-death penalty states as a control group, a basic statistical tool used to study causation not used in the Emory study. When they compared death penalty states with non-death penalty states, they found no evidence of any effect of executions on murder rates, either up or down. Donohue and Wolfers also analyzed the data from the 2003 Emory study that concluded that each execution prevented 18 murders and found that the reduction or increase in murders was actually more dependent on other factors used in the study than whether or not the states had the death penalty. For example, when Donohue and Wolfers slightly redefined just one of the factors included by the Emory researchers, they found that each execution caused 18 murders.

Donohue and Wolfers also recomputed data from the Denver study of select states to account for overall crime trends, a factor not included in the Denver study, and reached inconclusive results. For two states included in the Denver study that had abolished the death penalty, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, Donohue and Wolfers found that the homicides rates actually fell after capital punishment was ended.

Other studies also refute the deterrence theory. For example, researchers Lawrence Katz, Steven Levitte and Ellen Shustorovich analyzed state data between 1950 and 1990 and did not find a correlation between the death penalty and crime rates. Moreover, one of the Emory researchers, Joanna Shepherd, published a state study of her own and found that while the death penalty deterred murder in six states, it actually increased murder in 13 states, and had no effect on the murder rate in eight states.

Other statistical analyses show that states with the death penalty do not have the lowest murder rates in the country. In fact, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, states without the death penalty have consistently lower murder rates than states with the death penalty, even when comparing neighboring states. In addition, while southern states account for over 80 percent of the executions in this country, they have consistently had the highest murder rate of the nation's four regions.

Comparing American and Canadian statistics is also telling. While Canada has not had a single execution since 1972 and the United States has executed over 1,000 people in that time, the homicide rates in the United States and Canada have closely tracked each other. If anything, Canada's experience suggests that ending executions leads to a drop in the murder rate.

As the death penalty debate continues, it will inevitably be filled with the emotion and passion that have historically and rightly characterized it. But when it comes to analyzing data and reaching statistical conclusions that are used to affect our nation's policy and legislation on a matter as dire as capital punishment, it is critical that the research use statistically valid methodology. When we come across studies that are as specific as to tie a number of executions to a number of prevented murders, a healthy skepticism is in order, especially in the face of substantial countervailing evidence. This is, after all, a matter of life and death.

Associated Press - June 28, 2007 12:45 PM ET

TACOMA, Wash. (AP) - The Pierce County prosecutor has decided not to seek the death penalty against a man accused of raping, beating and strangling a 76-year-old woman in Tacoma.

If convicted of aggravated murder 32-year-old Joseph Anthony Neal would spend the rest of his life in prison, without parole.

Neal has pleaded not guilty for the killing six years ago at the home of Elizabeth Crawford. Police say Neal had done yard work for Crawford.

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 15, 2007; A02

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, under political siege for his handling of the U.S. attorney firings and other issues, is to get expanded powers to hasten death penalty cases under regulations being developed by the Justice Department.

The rules would give Gonzales the authority to approve "fast-track" procedures by states in death penalty cases, enabling them to carry out sentences more speedily and with fewer opportunities for appeal if those states provide adequate representation for capital defendants.

Such powers were previously held by federal judges, but a provision of the USA Patriot Act reauthorization bill approved by Congress last year hands the authority to the attorney general.

Under the regulations, death row inmates would have six months, instead of a year, to file appeals in the federal courts, and federal judges would have less time to consider petitions in capital cases.

The proposed changes, reported yesterday by the Los Angeles Times, would hand new authority to Gonzales as leading Democrats and some Republicans have called for his resignation and questioned his truthfulness. Earlier this month, Congress gave Gonzales greater powers in overseeing the government's warrantless wiretapping program.

The leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), asked Gonzales in a letter sent earlier this month to delay implementing the new death penalty rules until October at the earliest, "to guarantee adequate representation of death row prisoners before certification occurs."

Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the department has extended the time for public comment to Sept. 24 "to ensure ample opportunity" for advocacy groups to lodge objections.

Some Democratic lawmakers have questioned Gonzales's judgment about the death penalty, including his refusal to hear the concerns of a federal prosecutor in Arizona, Paul K. Charlton, who argued against pursuing a death sentence in a case in which no body had been recovered.

Charlton and several other U.S. attorneys were fired last year in part because of clashes with Gonzales and his aides over death penalty issues, according to documents and testimony. Both Gonzales and his predecessor, John D. Ashcroft, have supported the aggressive use of death penalty authority in the federal courts.

Many prosecutors and GOP lawmakers have long complained that death penalty cases are needlessly delayed during the federal appeals process. In 1996, Congress implemented a system of "expedited review" for death penalty cases, but required federal courts to first determine that individual states had good systems in place to provide legal representation for defendants.

The arrangement languished amid legal challenges, however.

The department's proposed rules to implement the statute, initially circulated in June, have since come under sharp attack from many defense lawyers and advocacy groups, including the Judicial Conference of the United States, a policymaking body of the federal courts.

Kathryn Kase, a Houston lawyer who serves on the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers' death penalty committee, said the Justice Department's proposed regulations are "severely lacking" because they do not provide enough oversight to ensure that defendants are receiving adequate legal counsel.

"In our judgment they allow states to . . . claim they have a capital representation case that is functional, when in fact it might not be functional at all," Kase said. "It may not prevent people from being wrongfully sentenced to death."

Kase and other defense lawyers also say the underlying legislation is faulty because it allows Gonzales, who is the nation's chief prosecutor, to effectively determine the pace of executions.

But Roehrkasse said the rules are narrowly tailored and he noted that Gonzales's decisions about the state programs can be reviewed by a federal appeals court.

The moves toward speedier federal executions come as the number of executions nationwide has dropped, in part because of moratoriums aimed at ensuring that innocent defendants are not wrongfully put to death or subjected to cruelty.

The number of executions fell from a peak of 98 in 2000 to 53 last year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Several states have halted executions in recent months because of legal challenges to the use of lethal injection.

Last updated September 27, 2007 10:02 p.m. PT

By DAVID AMMONS
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

OLYMPIA -- The state Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence of convicted serial killer Robert Yates Jr., refusing to throw out capital punishment on the grounds that prosecutors are inconsistent in dealing with mass murderers.

In an 8-1 ruling, the state's highest court refused to overturn Yates' conviction and death sentence for shooting two Tacoma prostitutes and suffocating them by tying plastic grocery bags over their heads.

Yates, a blue-collar smelter worker and Air National Guard helicopter pilot, also faces a 408-year sentence for murdering 13 women in Spokane, Walla Walla and Skagit counties, all prostitutes he killed in the same manner as the Tacoma women.

Yates had asked the court to take a fresh look at how capital punishment is applied in Washington, pointing to the life sentence drawn by the Green River Killer, Gary Ridgway, who pleaded guilty to killing 48 women.

Yates also stressed that in a plea bargain with Spokane County, he himself got life in prison for slaying 13 women but a death sentence for killing two Tacoma women.

That disparity shows that Washington state allows "disproportionate, freakish, wanton and random" application of the death penalty, Yates' lawyers told the high court last fall.

Yates also contested Pierce County's decision to withdraw from what he called a deal with Spokane prosecutors to take the death penalty off the table in exchange for a guilty plea and information about his victims.

But the high court swept away all of his points, saying prosecutors' discretion to seek the death penalty as they see fit doesn't pose a basic constitutional flaw in how the state applies capital punishment.

Yates, 55, is on death row at the state penitentiary at Walla Walla

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/333494_yates28.html

The case in question originated in Kentucky. The contention is the most popular “three-drug cocktail“ method of lethal injection can be botched by incompetent executioners. It can fail to work properly, causing the condemned to die in silent, paralytic agony. The technique is to issue three drugs in sequence: sodium thiopental, to bring unconsciousness; pancuronium bromide, to stop breathing; and potassium chloride, to stop the heart.

Whatever the court rules, Washington will be affected, being one of the 37 states that prescribes lethal injection as its favored method of execution. The condemned in this state may also choose to be hanged, the traditional technique, but that's not proven popular.

The main effect of any ruling, at most, will be to rearrange some wording in a statute or regulation and provide defense attorneys new angles of argument. It will not affect executions, because we don't actually do those. We have a statutory death penalty, of course. We have trials, hearings, we occasionally condemn people. Then, generally, they sit for decades in isolation at the penitentiary in Walla Walla while lawyers work on appeals and stays. The death penalty in Washington is hypothetical. It may be useful for political and legal purposes, but as an actual means of executing the condemned it is useless. That's what happens when you have a death penalty that is never used.

This is a sparse record. Since the death penalty was reauthorized by the Supreme Court in 1976, Washington has executed four people. First was Westley Allen Dodd from Vancouver, whose hobby was kidnapping, torturing and murdering small boys. He volunteered to go to the gallows in 1993. He preferred hanging, he said, because that was a technique he used himself. In 1994 came Charles Rodman Campbell of Everett, who slit the throats of a mother and her 8-year-old daughter. He was hanged against his will after 12 years of appeals. He rejected lethal injection as part of his defense strategy. The last two — Jeremy Sagastegui in 1998 and James H. Elledge in 2001 — were executed by lethal injections they took voluntarily, after waiving appeals.

So, in more than 30 years the state has executed one person who did not choose to go. There now are eight prisoners on death row but, naturally, no pending executions. None is expected in the soon.
Never mind the Supreme Court. Don't switch to whatever lethal chemicals it deems constitutional. Washington has no business having a death penalty on its books if it chooses not to use it. Its only practical effect now is to waste court time and drain the public treasury through interminable legal maneuver. It is morally suspect because it is inconsistently imposed — you can murder more than 50 women for sport, as Gary Ridgway the Green River Killer did, and escape it. It provides no deterrent, and not just because we don't actually do it. The only justification left is the need for vengeance, which we obviously don't find compelling enough to actually go through with it.

This state should give up the death penalty. The Legislature should look at this pending Supreme Court ruling as an opportunity to erase it. It serves no good purpose.

Tracy Warner's column appears Tuesday through Friday. He can be reached at warner@wenworld.com or 665-1163.