Texas Executions: GW Bush Has Defined Himself, Unforgettably, As Shallow And Callous |
| by Anthony Lewis |
| BOSTON-There have been questions all along about the depth and seriousness of George W. Bush. They have been brought into sharp focus now by a surprising issue: the way the death penalty is administered in Texas. In his comments on that subject Governor Bush has defined himself, unforgettably, as shallow and callous. In his five years as governor of Texas, the state has executed 131 prisoners -- far more than any other state. Mr. Bush has lately granted a stay of execution for the first time, for a DNA test. In answer to questions about that record, Governor Bush has repeatedly said that he has no qualms. "I'm confident," he said last February, "that every person that has been put to death in Texas under my watch has been guilty of the crime charged, and has had full access to the courts." That defense of the record ignores many notorious examples of unfairness in Texas death penalty cases. Lawyers have been under the influence of cocaine during the trial, or been drunk or asleep. One court dismissed a complaint about a lawyer who slept through a trial with the comment that courts are not "obligated to either constantly monitor trial counsel's wakefulness or endeavor to wake counsel should he fall asleep." This past week The Chicago Tribune published a compelling report on an investigation of all 131 death cases in Governor Bush's time. It made chilling reading. In one-third of those cases, the report showed, the lawyer who represented the death penalty defendant at trial or on appeal had been or was later disbarred or otherwise sanctioned. In 40 cases the lawyers presented no evidence at all or only one witness at the sentencing phase of the trial. In 29 cases, the prosecution used testimony from a psychiatrist who -- based on a hypothetical question about the defendant's past -- predicted he would commit future violence. Most of those psychiatrists testified without having examined the defendant: a practice condemned professionally as unethical. Other witnesses included one who was temporarily released from a psychiatric ward to testify, a pathologist who had admitted faking autopsies and a judge who had been reprimanded for lying about his credentials. Asked about the Tribune study, Governor Bush said, "We've adequately answered innocence or guilt" in every case. The defendants, he said, "had full access to a fair trial." There are two ways of understanding that comment. Either Governor Bush was contemptuous of the facts or, on a matter of life and death, he did not care. At the heart of the problem is the Texas way of providing lawyers for defendants too poor to hire their own, as most are in death cases. There is no state system. Judges assign lawyers -- often lawyers who have contributed to their election campaigns. "The State of Texas is a national embarrassment in the area of indigent legal services," a committee of the State Bar of Texas says in a report just approved. Again, Governor Bush has shown no concern about this reality. He vetoed a bill, passed by the legislature, that would have let Texas counties set up a limited public defender program for the poor. Capital punishment, long favored by a majority of Americans, has become a national issue again because of concern about the fairness of its administration. Gov. George Ryan of Illinois, a Republican, imposed a moratorium on executions in that state after 13 men on death row were shown to be innocent. Pat Robertson and other conservatives have called for a national moratorium. The most complete study ever done of the death penalty process, by Prof. James S. Liebman and others at Columbia University, was published the other day. It showed that two-thirds of death convictions or sentences were upset on appeal for such reasons as incompetent defense lawyers or prosecutors who bent the rules. To all this George Bush is seemingly indifferent. Or perhaps not entirely. If he were not running for president, it is doubtful that he would just now have granted his first stay of execution. Next week Gary Graham, convicted of murder on the testimony of a single witness who said she saw him at night from 30 to 40 feet away, is due to be executed. Will Governor Bush care? |
Sept. 16, 2006 The Sun-Sentinel By Linda Kleindienst TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Florida's death penalty system is plagued with problems of fairness, accuracy and racial disparity in sentencing, according to a new report by a group of Florida lawyers and jurists. Working under the auspices of the American Bar Association's Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project, the group studied the state's capital punishment system for more than 18 months before releasing their recommendations Saturday. The report criticized the state for: the number of innocent inmates sent to await execution; a racial disparity that shows those convicted of killing a white victim are far more likely to get a death sentence; the lack of oversight and funding for attorneys who handle Death Row appeals; and a death sentencing process that requires majority, not unanimous, jury agreement. "Florida has released more people from Death Row than any other state, which suggests the system has serious problems," said Christopher Slobogin, a University of Florida law professor who chaired the eight-member group. "It is small comfort that no one recently executed in Florida has been proven innocent, since some of them were not able to present all the proof they had and efforts at exoneration usually end once the person is dead." Funding for the study came from the ABA and the European Union. Members of the team included a circuit judge, a state attorney, a former Florida Supreme Court justice and a former public defender, many of them death penalty supporters. The report identified 11 problem areas in the state system, including the high number of inmates found innocent and released from Death Row, 22 since 1973 - more than any state in the nation. Combined, those exonerated spent about 150 years in prison before being released. "There is much work to be done to insure that innocent people are not put to death," said Mark Schlakman, program director for the Center for the Advancement of Human Rights at Florida State University and a member of the study group. As of Friday, there were 377 inmates on Florida's Death Row. Some of the exonerated inmates were cleared by new DNA testing. "There is a difficult balance between swiftness and fairness, but the governor has been a great proponent of extending the time on DNA testing. He also signed into law a measure that did away with the deadline altogether," said Alia Faraj, spokeswoman director for Gov. Jeb Bush. After reviewing previous death penalty studies, including one done by the Florida Supreme Court, the report noted that those convicted of killing white victims are far more likely to receive a death sentence and be executed than those convicted of killing non-white victims. Since 1979, when Florida reinstated the death penalty, none of the 60 executed have been white defendants who killed African-American victims. While U.S. Supreme Court decisions in recent years have stressed the importance of unanimous jury decisions to impose the death penalty, Florida's law requires only a simple majority. Last year, state Supreme Court Justice Raoul Cantero urged the Legislature to make the change, suggesting that Florida's death penalty law could be open to attack. But the Legislature this year refused to budge. The bill to require unanimity was filed by state Rep. Jack Seiler, D-Wilton Manors, but was stymied by election year politics. "We need to realize that the more efficient our death penalty system is, the more accurate it is, the better off we all are as a society," said Seiler, who supports the death penalty. Attorney General Charlie Crist, the Republican candidate for governor, has urged the Legislature not to make any changes, suggesting it might weaken the state's law. He has called the current system constitutional and appropriate to punish the guilty "as well as deter potential future murderers." It takes a unanimous jury vote to convict a person of first degree murder, but Crist said the same is not required in the sentencing phase because Florida's juries only make recommendations on life or death, they do not impose the sentence. "Florida law requires that the jury and judge hear and consider all factors that might make a convicted murderer a candidate for life in prison instead of receiving the death penalty," Crist wrote legislative leaders late last year. "Therefore, the jury's recommendation is an informed action representing the collective wisdom of 12 everyday Florida citizens." The team that wrote the report measured Florida law, procedure and practices against protocols developed by the ABA to evaluate fairness and accuracy in the imposition of the death penalty. While the ABA has recommended a moratorium on executions until all states have eliminated flaws in their system, the Florida report takes no position on a moratorium. The group has recommended the state establish commissions to investigate wrongful convictions and to review claims of factual innocence while also suggesting the state adopt new standards for the qualifications of and payment for death row appeals attorneys, create new rules on the relevance of mental disability and make the clemency process more transparent. "Our justice system seeks to provide a fair way of making accurate decisions about innocence and guilt," said ABA President Karen J. Mathis. "In death penalty cases, where people's lives are on the line, it is particularly important that we do all we can to ensure that the system is fair." | ||||||||||
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Florida Death Penalty System Criticised
Mark Weisenmiller
TAMPA, Florida, Sep 26 (IPS) - An influential lawyer's group in the United States has strongly criticised Florida's death penalty system, calling it ambiguous and secretive.
The American Bar Association (ABA) Death Penalty Moratorium Project also stated in a detailed, 450-page report that Florida has the highest number - 22 -- of innocent death row prisoners who have been exonerated since 1973.
That alarming number prompted the ABA to study Florida's justice system first. It eventually plans a review of 16 states in all. The report, funded by the influential law association and the European Union, identified 11 problem areas in total. Among its findings:
·The state of Florida did not provide adequate legal counsel to its poor prisoners after they have been convicted.
·Florida is the only U.S. state which does not require juries to vote unanimously on capital punishment cases.
·The southern state shows a racial disparity, making a non-white far more likely to be sentenced to death for killing a white victim than a white prisoner to be convicted for killing a person of colour.
·Florida has a high number of inmates - an estimated 50 percent -- with severe mental disabilities on death row. Some of them, the report stated, were disabled at the time of the offence; others became ill after conviction and sentencing.
·Florida's clemency process is full of "ambiguity and secrecy."
The ABA issued its report four days before Florida executed Clarence Hill, 48, the inmate who sought to block his death in an appeal to the US Supreme Court in January. Hill's death was the first execution in Florida in 2006. Moreover, the state this week has set Oct. 25 as an execution date for Denny Rolling, who was found guilty of murdering five college students 16 years ago.
"The people in charge of the death penalty have made mistakes. No one likes to admit that they made a mistake and the ABA report shows that. There's no accountability in the (state's death penalty) system," Mark Elliott, spokesman for the anti-capital punishment organisation Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty told IPS.
The ABA panel reviewed previous death penalty studies, including one by the state's own Supreme Court, and concluded that defendants convicted of killing whites are more likely to receive death sentences that those found guilty of murdering a non-white.
None of the 60 prisoners executed by the state of Florida since 1979, when the state re-instated capital punishment, have been white defendants found guilty of killing a black victim. A 2003 Amnesty International report found that even though blacks and whites are murder victims in nearly equal numbers in the U.S., some 80 percent of inmates executed since 1973 have been killed for murders involving white victims.
In 2000, Gov. John Ellis "Jeb" Bush appointed a commission to investigate racial bias among the state's death row inmates. Then-Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist, who currently is running for Governor in the November elections, "did nothing with the commission's report. He kept things at status quo," Mark Schlakman, director of the Centre for the Advancement of Human Rights at Florida State University and a member of the panel told IPS.
The first of four key recommendations by the ABA, then, is the creation of two commissions independent of each other. One committee would specialise in studying the underlying causes of wrongful convictions in death penalty cases. The other would be comprised of a panel of judges that would review claims of factual innocence in existing cases.
The 22 Florida death row inmates exonerated so far have served a total of 150 years in prison for crimes they did not commit, Christopher Slobogin, a University of Florida law professor who led the eight-member team told IPS.
The ABA panel also recommended that Florida eliminate its statutory lawyer fee of $3,500 which must be paid by the defendant.. Instead, the state should allow for greater options in obtaining payments for services rendered. Moreover it wants state-appointed attorneys to meet minimum nationally-recognised requirements for lawyers defending death row prisoners.
Moreover, the state must immediately require a jury's capital punishment verdict to be unanimous and must drop a law that allows judges to overrule a jury decision, the panel recommended. In 2005, a state Supreme Court Justice urged the Florida legislature to amend its law requiring unanimity, saying Florida's death penalty rules could be open to attack. That bill did not pass.
One recommendation that Slobogin said could be implemented quickly is that the jury instructions by judges presiding over capital punishment cases should be uniform throughout Florida.
"It's important to know that our report does not come out for or against the death penalty," Slobogin told IPS. "Our point was to bring out the concerns and needs and some problems with the death penalty in Florida with some recommendations to address these issues."
The ABA panel was comprised of death penalty opponents as well as supporters and included a circuit judge, a state attorney, a former Florida Supreme Court justice and a former public defender.
"The composition of the team was important," Schlakman said, because the panel wanted to include all perspectives. It is believed to be the first comprehensive and impartial study of the death penalty as it is operated in Florida.
State officials said they would study the report, but have not yet promised to implement the changes.
"We're looking at the report...but I believe that the death penalty process here (in Florida) is protected by an appeals process that is extensive. It can go on for ten years," Gov. Bush told reporters.
It is doubtful that Gov. Bush will implement the recommendations in the report, as he will be leaving office, due to term limits, after this November's election. That job will fall to either Jim Davis of Tampa, the Democratic candidate for Governor, or Crist, the Republican candidate for Governor.
In the past, Crist has urged the legislature not to make any changes in the law because it might weaken it. He has called the state's current regulations necessary in order to "deter potential future murderers."
Still, Elliott, the death penalty opponent, added that the report "should be a wake-up call for both Governor Bush and whoever the new Governor will be to start to listen to people who have various viewpoints about the death penalty."
"It's a non-partisan problem, no matter if a Democrat or Republican is Governor, for not investigating problems that have long been in the system," he added. (END/2006)
Module 20 Problem Solving and Creativity
Torrance framework for Creative Thinking
A common framework for creative thinking processes is described by Torrance (1979)
Fluency – refers to the production of a great number of ideas or alternate solutions to a problem.
Implies understanding, not just remembering information that is learned.
Flexibility - refers to the production of ideas that show a variety of possibilities or realms of thoughts. It involves the ability to see things from different points of view, to use many different approaches or strategies.
Elaboration – is the process of enhancing ideas by providing more details. Additional detail clarity improves interest in, and understanding of, the topic.
Originality – involves the production of ideas that are unique or unusual. It involves synthesis or putting information about a topic back together in a new way.
Creative Problem Solving
Van Gundy’s ‘6x2 stages’ form or Brandsford’s IDEAL model.
Stage 1: Mess Findings: Sensitive yourself (scan, search) for issues (concerns, challenges, opportunities, etc.) that need to be tackled.
· Divergent Technique –brainstorming to identify desirable outcomes
· Convergent Technique- includes the identification of hot spots
Stage 2: Data findings: Gather information about the problem
· Divergent Technique- includes five Ws and H and listing of wants, sources, and data.
· Convergent Technique- Mind mapping to sort and classify the information gathered.
Stage 3: Problem findings: convert a fuzzy statement of the problem into a broad statement more suitable for idea finding.
· Divergent Technique- techniques include asking ‘why’?
· Convergent Technique – reformulation of problem-statement to meet the criteria that they contain only one problem and no criteria, and selection of the most promising statement
Stage 4: Idea finding: generate as many ideas as possible
· Divergence using any of a very wide range of idea gathering technique. The general rules of Classic Brainstorming (such as deferring judgment) are likely to-pin all of these.
· Convergence can again involve hotspots or mind-mapping, the combining of different ideas, and short-listing of the most promising handful, perhaps with some thought for the more obvious evaluation criteria, but not over-restrictively.
Stage 5: Solution findings: Generate and select obvious evaluation criteria (using an expansion/contraction cycle) and develop (which may include combining) the short listed ideas from Idea Finding as much as you can in the light of these criteria.
Stage 6: Acceptance findings: How can the suggestion you have just selected be made up to standard and put into practice? Shun negatively, and continue to apply deferred judgment- problems are exposed to be solved, not to dishearten progress. Action plans are better develop in small groups of 2-3 rather than a large group. Particularly for people problems it is often worth developing several alternative action plans.
Submitted by: JACIN GENLAN NARAGA
BSED2 SOCIAL STUDIES
Educational Technology 2 is concern in integrating technology into teaching and learning. In which the course objectives are:
1. To provide education in the use of technology in instruction by providing knowledge and skills on technology integration-in-instruction to learners
2. To impart learning experiences in instructional technology-supported instructional planning.
3.To acquaint students on Information Technology or IT related learning theories with the computer as a tutor
4. To learn to use and evaluate computer-based educational resources.
5. To engage learners on practical technology integration issues including managing IT classrooms, use of the Internet for learning, cooperative learning through the use of information technology
6. To inculcate higher-level thinking and creativity among students while providing them knowledge of IT-related learning theories.
I am already aware on how the computer work. But in my part not mainly an aide for teaching but for entertainment and communication. In educational technology subject, it enhance my computer learning in more purposeful way. In some programs like excel, I use excel for business purposes before and its normal for me to use formulas,and now in edtech 2 my teacher teach us into more deeper one. But the most thrilling part in this subject is being the pioneering students in the college of education here in the UB to do online class. At first engaging in this kind of activity is not easy since many are hesitant to join the evolution of teaching process. I know we are the experimental class in which they will know weither this one is a succes or failure. Using blogspot as a means of establishing an online class is not easy one because most of us are not familiar on how blogspot work. In my part it took me many hours to discover and learn how blogspot suppose to work. My blogspot is my link to the future. Creating this blogspot allow me to store my knowledge that i could impart to my future students.
(to be continued)
