American justice system strikes again

[Essendon]

Kenneth Foster's Fate

Peter Rothberg

The Nation -- In less than three weeks Kenneth Foster, an African American man sentenced to death in 1997 for the murder of Michael LaHood, is scheduled to be executed in Texas.

LaHood's actual killer, Mauriceo Brown, was executed in 2006. Foster, who was in a car about 100 yards from the crime when it was committed, was convicted under the controversial Texas state "law of parties", under which the distinction between principal actor and accomplice in a crime is abolished. The law can impose the death penalty on anybody involved in a crime where a murder occurred. In Foster's case he was driving a car with three passengers, one of whom, Brown, left the car, got into an altercation and shot LaHood dead. Texas is the only state that applies this statute in capital cases, making it the only place in the United States where a person can be factually innocent of murder and still face the death penalty.

Foster maintains that he did not know that Brown would either rob or kill LaHood. According to an Amnesty International investigation, there is evidence not heard at trial that the murder was an unplanned act committed by Brown, as the latter himself claimed before his execution.

In 2005, a federal district judge found a "fundamental constitutional defect in Foster's sentence" and ruled that Foster's jury had not been asked to determine if he had any intent to kill LaHood, and that this failure represented a misapplication of the law. However, the state of Texas appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which overturned the decision.

The crazy thing about this case is that no one argues that Foster killed the victim. As the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's award-winning columnist Bob Ray Sanders wrote, the case "is further proof of how cruel, capricious, unjust and utterly insane our death penalty laws have become....Because of this tainted system, whether you believe in capital punishment or not, a man who did not plan or commit a murder will die August 30 unless somebody -- a judge, the Board of Pardons and Paroles and/or the governor-- has the heart and the guts to stop it."

You can help these folks get up the guts at freekenneth.com. Find updates on the case and urge members of the Texas legislature to stay Foster's execution and ask for a re-trial based on new evidence.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20070810/cm_thenation/4221949

Texas... :rolleyes:

[burntgorilla]

Wow. I don't know how anyone can be in favour of that. Even if you're pro death penalty, and Foster did know the guy would kill the other one, that still doesn't warrant a death penalty.

[steveksux]

Seems like if he didn't turn the guy in afterwards, he's an accessory after the fact. I think either that or felony murder can get the guy pretty close to if not the same sentence as the perp in many jurisdictions.

ANy lawyers care to comment? Sounds crazy to laymen, but to lawmen?

I agree it doesn't sound right if the actual murderer did it on the spur of the moment, and nobody else had any idea it was going to happen, that they were about to be involved in anything illegal. You can't be required to be psychic. But there's a lot left out of the article, which is an opinion piece with a specific point of view. an axe to grind. So I wouldn't hurt to get more facts before deciding. Presumably that extra info is available to the courts on the appeals, but they may not revisit any questions of fact during appeals, only questions of procedure. So that may not matter even.

Still, bottom line is did the guy turn him in later, or cover for him? Makes him an accomplice if he chooses wrong.

Randy

[burntgorilla]

Seems like if he didn't turn the guy in afterwards, he's an accessoryBut there's a lot left out of the article, which is an opinion piece with a specific point of view. an axe to grind. So I wouldn't hurt to get more facts before deciding.

That's true. But I think that being an accessory to a crime is very different to actually committing it. Prison time yeah, but not the death penalty.

[bowerbird]

I agree with Stevesux - there could be more to this than we currently know from this one piece. Was it a gang related murder? Was it a drug deal gone wrong?

But even if it was on these bare facts alone there would not and should not be enough to execute the man.

[JD3]

As I understand, if seen as a conspirator, they are equally guilty. So, that is what had to be proven or accepted by the jury:

To convict Kenneth Foster of capital murder under the law of parties, the prosecution had to prove that there was a conspiracy between him and Brown to rob LaHood, and that Foster should have anticipated that murder might have occurred during the robbery. The prosecution’s key witness was Julius Steen. Although Steen testified that he had not been sure of Brown’s intent when he left the car and that there had been no discussion in the car about committing a robbery, he said that « it was kind of like, I guess understood what was probably fixing to go down. » Asked by the prosecutor if he had understood that when Brown got out of the car, there was going to be a robbery, Steen testified that « I would say I kind of thought it ». He also said that he was not sure of Foster’s understanding in this regard. Affirming the death sentence in 1999, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals observed that the case against Foster « rested largely on Steen’s testimony as an accomplice ». The prosecution had pointed to the two earlier robberies committed at gunpoint as a reason Foster should have anticipated that a murder could have occurred. Neither Julius Steen nor DeWayne Dillard (who did not testify at the trial) was interviewed by Kenneth Foster’s trial lawyers. This was because each was facing charges in other cases, and their own lawyers refused to allow them to be interviewed while those cases were still pending. Since the trial, both have given statements. Dillard testified at a state appeal that before the shooting, Kenneth Foster had told him that he wanted Brown and Steen to stop committing the robberies, and because Dillard had known the two longer, asked him to persuade them to stop. Dillard testified that he himself had believed there would be no more robberies because he had taken his gun back after the two earlier crimes. He said that the four were heading back to his home when they came to a dead end and, after turning the car around, had stopped when they saw Mary Patrick apparently flagging them down. Dillard testified that Brown had grabbed the gun but that Foster was unlikely to have seen that ; that there was no agreement or plan to rob anyone ; and that no one had encouraged Brown to do what he did. He said that after the shot was heard, Foster had appeared surprised and panicked and started to drive away, but Dillard had told him to stop and wait for Brown.

Julius Steen signed an affidavit in 2003 clarifying his trial testimony, clarification that had not been elicited by the defence because their cross-examination was inevitably weak due to their lack of pre-trial contact with this witness. Steen recalled that it was only when he had seen Mauriceo Brown standing opposite Michael LaHood that he understood « what might be going down. At that point, and not before, I thought that Brown might be robbing the man ». He stated that « There was no agreement that I am aware of for Brown to commit a robbery at the LaHood residence. I do not believe that Foster and Brown ever agreed to commit a robbery. In my opinion, I don’t think that Foster thought that Brown was going to commit a robbery. When Brown got back in the car, we were all shocked. Even Brown looked shocked. I don’t think that Brown knew why he shot the man and was surprised that he did ». In a recent appeal, Foster’s lawyer has argued : « Foster clearly did not anticipate what Brown himself did not foresee. Brown clearly acted on his own independent impulse, and not pursuant to the imaginary robbery conspiracy that has trapped Kenneth Foster on death row ».

http://www.amnestyinternational.be/doc/article11480.html