NCADP   
1436 U Street,   
NW Suite 104   
Washington DC    
20009   

888-286-2237   
[email protected] 

Alabama 

Pernell Ford (AL)-B/?   executed 
June 2, 2000…1:00am (EST) 
Pernell Ford was scheduled for execution in July of 1999, but was granted a stay when the issue of his competency was raised. 
Tried for the 1983 murder of a handicapped woman and her daughter, Ford, who has a long history of mental problems, insisted on representing himself. He was 18 at the time of the killings.  In closing arguments, he wore a white sheet wrapped around him like a toga, and declared himself a prophet.  He called on the jury to repent, demanded that the bodies of the victims be brought into the courtroom so he could resurrect them, and called on God to destroy the courtroom. 
In 1999, Ford dropped his appeals.  An attorney with the Equal Justice Initiative was allowed to continue to represent him in competency considerations.  She said that he now claims that he is able to move through concrete walls and leave death row using a process he calls “translation”.  He claims to be a member of the Holy Trinity, have wives and children around 
the world and millions of dollars in Swiss bank accounts.  Ford was diagnosed with mental disorders at age six and from ages 9-15 was periodically institutionalized. 
State mental health experts allow that Ford suffers from mental disorders, but stop short of saying he is incapable of making decisions concerning his fate.  Attorney Davis says Ford suffers from depression and schizophrenia. 
 

Florida: 

Thomas Provenzano (FL)    executed 
June 22, 2000…7:00am (EST) 

Bennie Demps (FL) b/?   executed 
June 7, 2000…7:00am (EST) 
“I thought that was great. A lot of them thought they would get life. They 
didn’t.” Gordon Oldham remembers his time as district attorney in Florida 
when he had sent more than 50 people to death row. One of them was 
Bennie Demps. 
In 1971, Bennie was sentenced to death for murdering two persons during a 
robbery. When capital punishment was declared unconstitutional in 1972, his 
sentence was commuted to life in prison.  Two years later, however, Bennie 
again found himself on trial for his life. 
Together with two other prisoners Bennie was involved in the stabbing of 
Alfred Sturgis. Although it is clear that Bennie was holding Sturgis while 
another inmate stabbed him, he was the only one of the three who received a 
death sentence.  A number of other questionable circumstances exist in 
Bennie’s case as well: 

-There is evidence that Mr. Hathaway, another prisoner and the key witness 
 for the prosecution, is mentally ill. 

-Another eye-witness testified under oath that Hathaway was lying but later 
 he withdrew his testimony after the state reduced  his sentence. 

-Bennie was without legal repressentation for many years as a result of the 
 de-funding of Florida’s Capital Resource Center in 1995. 

-During his life Bennie was also influenced by a drug addiction which, 
 according to a psychologists, “may have resulted in the kind of brain damage 
 suggested by the current test results.” 
 

Feltus Taylor-B/?   executed 
June 6, 2000…7:30pm (EST) 
In 1992 Feltus Taylor was convicted of and sentenced to death for the murder of Donna Ponsano.  Ms. Ponsano was 31 years old at the time of her 
murder.  Both Feltus Taylor and Donna Ponsano were workers at a fried 
chicken restaurant in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  Taylor had been hired and 
fired at the restaurant a couple of times and had apparently come back to his former work place to rob it.  Not only was Ms. Ponsano killed but another worker, Mr. Keith Clark was shot in the head four times and survived.  He now needs a wheelchair to get around. 
During Mr. Taylor’s trial he was misadministered a medication which he must take for a psychotic disorder.  As a result of this, during the sentencing phase of his trial Mr. Taylor had a violent outburst during which he turned over the counsel table in the court room.  This happened of course in full view of the jury.  Mr. Taylor’s attorney was not even aware that his client took medication for such a disorder.  Mr. Taylor has received five stays of his execution.  The most recent stay came from Justice Scalia at the U.S. Supreme Court.  The U.S. Supreme Court has since refused to hear Taylor’s appeal and now another execution date has been set. 
Feltus Taylor will now be executed by the State of Louisiana on June 6, 2000.  This whole episode has been and still is very painful for many in this city.  We are saddened when we think about the loss suffered by the relatives and friends of Ms. Ponsano.  We want to also acknowledge the pain and suffering endured each day by Mr. Clark.  There are other victims of this murder as well.  These are the relatives and friends of Mr. Taylor. 
We are opposed to the killing of Mr. Taylor.  We dissent from the majority 
opinion that while it is wrong for individuals to kill it is okay for the state to kill.  When the state kills a murderer the state allows the murderer to set the standard for behavior.  If the standard response to killing is to kill again then the chain of death will never end. To ask for a commutation of the death sentence of Feltus Taylor write to: 
(note: this Alert was produced by the Lousiana Coalition To bolish The death Penalty) 
 

Maryland 

Eugene Colvin-El (MD)-B/W    commuted to life in prison 
week of June 12, 2000 
Can a person who is 5′ 7″ tall and weighs 155 lbs step through a door which opens only 4 inches?   According to the theory of Baltimore County prosecutors, that’s exactly how Eugene Colvin-El entered Lena Buchman’s house on September 9, 1980.  This, despite the fact that police reports show the door was blocked by a metal container and was void of Eugene’s 
fingerprints. 
The only physical evidence linking Eugene to the murder of Lena Buchman is a lone fingerprint, found on the outside of her basement window.  No one saw Eugene enter Ms. Buchman’s home.  He has steadfastly maintained his innocence. 
Combine the prosecution’s weak case against Eugene with Maryland’s (and especially Baltimore County’s) atrocious record on race bias in capital sentencing and the result is a compelling argument that this case merits a closer look.  13 of the 17 inmates on Maryland’s death row are black men convicted for killing whites, and 7 of those 13 were prosecuted in Baltimore County. 
Maryland abolitionists need your help now.  Steady pressure has been applied to Governor Parris Glendening in support of a moratorium and Eugene’s execution date has only added fuel to the fire.  Please contact Governor Glendening and ask him to spare Eugene’s life and impose an immediate moratorium on executions in Maryland. 
 

Bert Hunter (MO)-W/?   executed 
June 28, 2000…1:01am (EST) 
Frustrated by years of intolerable prison conditions, Bert Hunter wrote a short incendiary letter to the Missouri Supreme Court in which he insulted the court and pleaded with them to set an execution date “to end this (prison mistreatment) nightmare.”  Several other men on Missouri’s death row are at the end of their court appeals and have been waiting much longer than Bert for their execution dates to be set.  On May 24, 2000, less than one week after the court received his letter, the court scheduled Bert’s execution for June 28. 
Bert Hunter’s latest act of desperation is part of a long series of suicidal behavior.  In 1988, he attempted to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head.  The following year, he again attempted suicide by pleading guilty to murder and begging the court to execute him as soon as possible. 
At the time he pled guilty he was extremely depressed over his prison conditions.  He described the conditions as “atrocious.”  He had been placed in isolation in a small cell at a time when he was undergoing withdrawal from an extensive cocaine addiction.  He attempted to commit suicide while waiting for his court date.  The prison placed him on suicide watch. 
    After a stay at a prison psychiatric facility, Bert Hunter was taken from a solitary confinement cell to court to waive his constitutional right to a lawyer, waive his right to a jury trial, and plead guilty in a capital case.  He exclaimed that his life was not worth living.  He told the court he had suicidal tendencies.  Bert distrusted the legal system and refused any assistance 
from a lawyer.  He gave the court inconsistent statements of the deaths of the two victims that did not match his previous statements and did not match the medical examiner’s autopsy report.  The court expressed doubt about the factual basis for the plea.  Nonetheless, the court allowed him to represent himself, accepted his guilty plea and convicted him of two counts of first-degree murder. 
Long before a sentence was to be imposed, Bert decided he wanted to live. He asked the court to withdraw his guilty plea on the ground it was entered under duress.  The court refused to set aside his plea, refused to allow him to have a trial by jury, and sentenced him to death. 
Bert Hunter was suicidal at the time he pled guilty. He soon changed his mind, decided he wanted to live, and requested a trial by a jury of his peers.  All doctors who had examined him concluded he was self destructive at the time of his plea. 
The court was more than happy to go along with Bert’s suicidal request to end his life, but refused to grant his constitutional right to a trial.  It is improper for the state to grant the death wish of a frustrated suicidal citizen.  It is frightening that the court would not allow this man to have a trial. 
Bert Hunter should not be executed.  The state should not be in the business of assisting suicide. Ask the Governor of Missouri to set aside the execution date pending an investigation of these facts: 

(note: this execution alert was written by the “Eastern Missouri Colition to Abolish the Death Penalty”) 
 

Oklahoma 

James Robedeaux (OK)-N/W   executed 
June 1, 2000…1:00am (EST) 
James Robedeaux, a diabetic who has gone nearly blind in prison and requires thrice-weekly kidney dialysis, is slated for execution for the 1985 murder of his girlfriend. 
Nancy McKinney disappeared under suspicious circumstances on eptember 22, 1985, and pieces of her body were subsequently discovered in three separate locations.  Though not tied directly to the crime by eyewitnesses or physical evidence, strong circumstantial evidence convincingly implicated Robedeaux. 
But it is precisely the uncertainty that raises serious concerns about Robedeaux’s sentence – not because he isn’t the killer, but because there’s no evidence he committed first-degree murder. 
The jury at trial was not permitted to consider a conviction other than first-degree murder.  That is, it did not have the option of finding Robedeaux guilty of second-degree murder or manslaughter, but only a choice between convicting him of a capital crime or letting him walk. 
Supreme Court precedent holds that “when the evidence unquestionably establishes that the defendant is guilty of a serious, violent offense – but leaves some doubt with respect to an element that would justify conviction of a capital offense – the failure to give the jury the ‘third option’ of conviction on a lesser include offense … cannot be tolerated in a case in which the 
defendant’s life is at stake.”  A three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit court even overturned the sentence of another Oklahoma death row inmate on these very grounds last December. 
But Robedeaux chanced to draw a less sympathetic panel, which issued a ruling whose effect was to say that Robedeaux had no right to such protection because he had the temerity to contest his guilt.  The panel judged that the only options the jury could be given were to accept the prosecution’s theory (capital murder) or the defense’s (complete innocence), and sneered that Robedeaux had never offered evidence to show that he might have killed accidentally or in the heat of the moment. 
Of course, the state has never offered any evidence that he killed with “malice aforethought” either.  But consistency, much less explicit and longstanding constitutional precedent, may or may not matter to any given three-judge panel of the federal bench. 
 
 

Roger Berget (OK)-W/W   executed 
June 8, 2000…1:00am (EST) 
Roger James Burget was sentenced to death by an Oklahoma jury in 1987 for his role in the kidnaping and murder of Rick Patterson. 
Substantial confusion about the facts of Roger’s case remains to this day.  Most troubling is the question of whether or not Roger was the gunman in Patterson’s murder.  When he and his partner, Mikell “Bulldog” Smith were taken into custody, Roger denied being the shooter.  He even agreed to testify against Smith in exchange for life in prison.  Then, after meeting with Smith in jail, Roger not only changed his mind about the plea agreement, but also claimed that in fact he was the triggerman.  Both men were condemned to death, but Smith’s sentence was reversed to life imprisonment on appeal. 
There are, however, two aspects of Roger’s case which cannot be disputed.  First, he received inadequate assistance of counsel both in his decision to plead guilty and in his sentencing hearing.  In a signed affidavit, Roger’s trial lawyer admitted that he did not put his best foot forward on the case because “my other clients facing a death sentence very much wanted to live, while Roger did not much seem to care.”  Significant mitigating circumstances were ignored such as Roger’s model behavior as a prisoner and his mental health history.  According to his attorney, “I simply did not understand the importance of mental health evidence to present a full picture…this entire area was left univestigated.” 
Second, Roger was the product of an extremely dysfunctional home.  He grew up in South Dakota in constant fear of his physically abusive and alcoholic father.  Before he hit his teens, Roger tried to escape the violence by leaving home to live in a nearby abandoned house.  His mother brought him food there until his father uncovered their plan and severely beat them 
both.  At the age of 14, Roger suffered serious head injury as a result of a car accident.  One year later, he was sentenced to a term in an adult prison for robbery. 
Taken together, these facts present a compelling case for clemency.  Please contact the Oklahoma officials listed below and make sure that Roger Berget’s case is not ignored. 
 

William Bryson (OK)-B/?   executed 
June 15, 2000…1:00am (EST) 
William Bryson isn’t a juvenile offender, but only by a few weeks – and his crime was certainly immature enough to fit the description.  When he was still a minor, Bryson began a love affair with his married neighbor, Marilyn Plantz, who allowed him to drive her car and entertained him and his friends with alcohol and drugs while her husband worked his night shift. 
Claiming that her husband was abusive, Mrs. Plantz convinced her teenaged lover and his friends to kill Mr. Plantz for $300,000 in insurance. 
Several schemes were hatched, pondered, and abandoned, and at least one was unsuccessfully attempted.  A potential cohort was offered money to carry out the crime. 
Late one night after these plans came to grief, Bryson, Mrs. Plantz and a friend named Clinton McKimble gathered at her house.  Mrs. Plantz supplied beer, crack cocaine and baseball bats, the latter of which were employed by Bryson and McKimble to beat the unfortunate Mr. Plantz senseless.  In a vain attempt to make the homicide look like an accident, the two carried their victim to his truck and set fire to it; the fire actually caused the death, although Mr. Plantz was likely unconscious at the time.  After the murder, Bryson and McKimble bragged to friends about it, with Bryson saying he planned to move out of town and buy a house with Mrs. Plantz. 
It was not to be.  Bryson and the surviving Plantz share a residence on Oklahoma’s death row; both were convicted of first-degree murder and a suite of associated crimes, receiving a total of 125 years in prison in addition to the capital sentence.  Clinton McKimble testified against them and received a life sentence. 
Deeply remorseful, Bryson admitted to the crime when interrogated by police and attempted suicide in his cell.  By the account of his attorney and a psychiatrist, he straddled the border of competency during his trial, sometimes delusional and of little help to his defense.  Unfortunately, the gurney is likely to be the denouement of Bryson’s short and pathetic story. 
 

Texas 

Ricky McGinn (TX) – W/W   stay of execution 
June 1, 2000…7:00pm (EST) 
The state of Texas is planning to execute Ricky McGinn for the 1993 murder of his stepdaughter, Stephanie Flanery. 
Ricky lived together with his wife and her two daughters in Brown County, Texas.  At 6:30pm on May 22, 1993, Ricky noticed that his stepdaughter, who had gone for a walk several hours earlier, was missing.  After searching for her for three hours, Ricky called the police.  Three days later, Stephanie’s lifeless body was found in a ditch.  A month later, Ricky was indicted for capital murder based on the discovery of human blood and an ax in the family car. 
Ricky’s first attorney, Pete Gomez, initially agreed to represent him for $14,000.00, but then changed his mind and asked for $200,000.00.  When Ricky said he couldn’t afford that, Gomez refused to take his case.  McGinn’s second attorney, Robert Spence, was appointed by the trial court.  He died in a car accident just days before Ricky’s trial was set to begin. 
Ben Dowl Suddereth, Ricky’s third attorney was only given a few days to prepare for trial.  In the end, the jury deliberated for only forty-five minutes (including a lunch break) before sentencing Ricky to death. 
Ricky McGinn’s case is a good example of how poorly the Texas criminal justice system operates.  Like dozens of others on Texas’ death row, Ricky fell through the cracks of an indigent defense system that George W. Bush continues to under-fund and ignore. 
 

Thomas Mason (TX)-W/W    executed 
June 12, 2000…7:00pm (EST) 
“They ate lunch and convicted him in an hour and 25 minutes.” said prosecutor Robert Perkins proudly. Thomas Mason, a Dallas construction worker, was convicted for murdering his estranged wife’s mother and grandmother in 1991. 
At trial, Thomas Masons’ court appointed attorneys did not call any witness on behalf of their client.  He was sentenced to death after two psychiatrists testified that he would be a continuing threat to society. 
 

John Burks (TX)-B/L   executed 
June 14, 2000…7:00pm (EST) 
Initially, Aaron Bilton and John Burks were both charged with the 1989 murder of Jessie Contreras.  But, the day before Burks’ trial, after intense plea negotiations, Bilton turned state’s evidence in exchange for complete immunity from prosecution.  His testimony was the key to Oklahoma’s successful bid to send John Burks to death row. 
The only problem with Bilton’s story is that nobody can corroborate it.  There were no eyewitnesses to Jessie Contreras killing other than the killer(s). 
In fact, all of the post-conviction evidence uncovered by Burks’ appellate attorney contradicts Bilton’s testimony.  On the one hand, several witnesses have come forward claiming that Bilton was not even at the crime scene on the night of the murder.  On the other hand, Burks’ attorney can produce witnesses who claim they overheard a man named Bishop McComell confess to the Contreras’ murder.  He can even show that McComell owned the kind of gun used in the shooting. 
In the end, there just seem to be too many questions to allow Burks’ execution to go forward. 
 
 

Paul Selso Nuncio (TX) – L/?    executed 
June 15, 2000…7:00pm (EST) 
Paul Selso Nuncio was sentenced to death for fatally beating and strangling a 61-year-old Plainview, Texas woman in March of 1995. 
Since he was a boy, Paul’s behavior has been indicative of mental illness.  His parents testified at a post-conviction hearing that Paul saw things that were not there, talked to imaginary people and had trouble differentiating between right and wrong. 
After being arrested for murder, police reported that Paul seemed disoriented and confused.  At his arraignment and throughout his trial, Paul continually smiled and laughed at inappropriate times. 
But, despite all this strange behavior, Paul’s trial attorney failed to request a psychological examination of his client.  A total of three mental health experts, two of which testified at Paul’s trial without having examined him, stated at a post-conviction hearing that had they known about the defendant’s strange behavior and history of mental problems they would have recommended a pre-trial psychological evaluation.  As it was, the jury that sent Paul to death row never had a clue that he might suffer from mental illness. 
Since his conviction, Paul’s condition has worsened.  A psychologist who interviewed him in 1997, reported that he “expressed crazy ideas and made schizophrenic scribblings.”  He boasted about his bank accounts and investments, none of which actually exist.  And he often stared at the walls and laughed inappropriately. 
Abolitionists around the world know that Governor George W. Bush has no qualms about executing the mentally ill.  That makes it all the more important that you register protest on behalf of Paul Selso Nuncio. 
 

Shaka Sankofa (TX) – B/W    executed 
June 22, 2000…7:00pm (EST) 
Shaka Sankofa (formally known as Gary Graham) was convicted and sentenced to death for allegedly murdering Bobby Lambert at the age of  seventeen. 
The star eyewitness for Harris County prosecutors was Bernadine Skillern – a woman who watched the crime take place from her car about 30 or 40 feet from the scene. 
Two weeks after the Lambert’s murder, Ms. Skillern could not pick Shaka out of a photo line-up.  She told officers that “the photo of Gary Graham looked like the suspect [she] saw on the night of the offense except the complexion of the suspect [she] saw was darker and his face thinner.” 
At trial, however, Ms. Lambert testified that she saw the gunman when he turned toward her “for a spilt second, maybe a second.”  She then identified Shaka in open court.  He was convicted solely on the strength of this testimony. 
Almost twenty years later, Shaka’s appellate attorneys have uncovered compelling evidence that points to their client’s innocence.  To begin with, there were at least eight other eyewitnesses to the crime, none of whom were interviewed by Shaka’s trial attorneys.  Four of these eyewitnesses confidently stated that Shaka was not the shooter, the others could not be sure.  On top of that fact, five people were willing to testify that Gary was with them, several miles away, at the time of the murder. The fact that none of this was discovered during pre-trial investigation raises serious questions about the adequacy of Shaka’s trial attorneys. 
Shaka has been within days of execution twice, once in 1993 when he was spared by a 30 day reprieve from then Governor Ann Richards, and again in 1999 when the U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay so it could examine his treatment under the 1996 Anti-terrorism & Effective Death Penalty Act. 
Save Mumia Abu-Jamal, Shaka is one of the best known death row inmates in America today.  For that reason, the Harris County District Attorney’s office wants to be sure Shaka keeps his date with the gurney in the Walls Unit. 
To find out more about how you can help save Shaka’s life, visit the NCADP’s “Save Shaka” website by logging on to our homepage at www.ncadp.org. 
 

Jessy San Miguel (TX) – L/?   executed
June 29, 2000…7:00pm (EST) 
Jessy San Miguel was all of 19 when he and a 17-year-old classmate knocked over an Irving, Tex., Taco Bell.  Arrested by chance later that evening and interrogated separately and without attorneys, the two gave remarkably consistent accounts of the evening’s events. 
According to Jessy and his friend, Jerome Green, the two executed a robbery carefully planned to avoid hurting anyone. 
After entering the store wearing ski masks, they cut the phone lines, forced the manager to open the safe, and put all three employees in a walk-in locker.   Anticipating a clean job with no casualties, they negotiated a 30-minute head start on their getaway with the manager. 
Unfortunately, one of the employees had arranged for a friend to pick her up.  It’s not clear exactly how events unfolded but that friend, Son Nguyen, apparently jumped up and frightened Jessy, who gunned down all four people in a panic.  Jerome told investigators recently that “The first thing he said to me was ‘The Chinese guy jumped me, the Chinese guy jumped 
me.'” Forensic evidence showed Nguyen was hit in the shoulder with his arm raised. 
Jerome also told that story to police in his interrogation, but the thin blue line saw fit to leave such mitigating information out of the confession it drew up for him to sign.  Because the statement was intentionally gerrymandered, and Jerome himself was not available to testify, Jessy’s similar claim that he had killed in a moment of panic appeared simply self-serving. 
It’s an open question what Jessy’s attorney would have done with this information if he had it, however, based on his strange performance in the trial’s sentencing stage. 
Rather than deploy the ample mitigating evidence of Jessy’s young age and troubled upbringing – his father and two subsequent stepfathers were all violently abusive towards Jessy and his mother, and the last of the three forced Jessy to fight him in the garage on a regular basis – he attempted to inculcate the notion that his ethnicity made him intrinsically combative. 
At about the time President Bush was reveling in unprecedented approval ratings for burying his persistent “wimp” image in the sands of Mesopotamia, witnesses at Jessy’s hearing were being probed with such queries as, “Being macho and not letting people push you around is … part of the Mexican-American culture, isn’t it?” 
The state, which would never have been permitted to make such an appalling argument, listened with glee as witness after witness confirmed that Mexican-Americans just can’t help but fight.  The only exception: a white classmate of Jessy’s who flatly denied that “being macho and standing up for yourself [is] more important in their culture than it is in your culture.” 
Not merely racist, this strategy was also counterproductive, for while it purported to “explain” Jessy’s behavior, it in fact encouraged the jury to ignore his individuality and see him as incapable of rehabilitation.  Stereotypes about violent youth of color are nothing to toy with in America, and still less so during the crime-wave hysteria of the early nineties. 
Nor has the baleful influence of that hysteria faded entirely, for as Jessy seeks mercy from Bush the Younger, the would-be president who speaks Spanish on the stump to court the fastest-growing minority group in America, he might look to the electoral battleground of California for his probable unpleasant fate.  There Proposition 21, a bill to further escalate the criminalization of dark-skinned youth won 62% of the vote despite massive grassroots opposition. 
Whether homicidal or merely carceral, Gov. Bush knows the “tough on crime” impulse is always an easy sell at the ballot box.  It’s just part of the culture. 
 

Virginia 

Russel Burket (VA)-W/?   stay of execution 
June 21, 2000…9:00pm (EST) 
In 1994, Russel Burket pled guilty to the capital murders of Katherine Tafelski and her five year old daughter,  Ashley Tafelski.   Burket never graduated from high school,  but was skilled in automotive repairs and had held various jobs such as a construction worker and a bagger at a grocery store.  Burket had no prior criminal record before this charge.  He had a history of mental problems including attempting to commit suicide twice.  Two clinical psychologists testified on Burket’s behalf,  Dr. Thomas Ryan and Dr. Gary Hawk.  Under oath Dr. Ryan stated that Burket had “intellectual abililties`in a low average to average range.”  In addition Ryan testified that Burket could not perform well in several academic areas including reading,  writing and math.  Dr Hawk opined that Burket has a severe form of dyslexia,  and that he suffer[ed] from dysthymia,  which is a form of persistent mild to moderate depression.  However,  despite the mitigating testimony of these two doctors,  the judge found the Commonwealth’s psychiatrist,  Dr. Mansheim, more credible and agreed that the only mitigating factor in the case was that Burket held no previous criminal record.  The judge concurred with Dr. Mansheim that Burket’s mental condition did not effect the case and sentenced Burket to death. 
Burket appealed the judge’s ruling that the Dr. Mansheim was a more credible witness than his two experts.  Claiming that Dr. Mansheim lied under oath in regards to whether he read over several documents pertaining to the Burket case before interviewing Burket,  Burket believes that his experts are more credible that the prosecution’s.   The Appellate Court disagreed and upheld the sentence. 
Burket also contended that his confession was taken illegally.  Before  confessing to the crimes,  Burket stated,  in the presence of  detectives,  “I’m gonna need a lawyer.”  He felt that at that moments he should have been read his Miranda rights and a lawyer. 
(note: this Alert was produced by Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty)