Death row inmates from giving face-to-face interviews

federal appeals court has ruled an inmate can challenge a Bureau of Prisons policy prohibiting death row inmates from giving face-to-face interviews with the media.
The policy was adopted seven years ago after Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh appeared on "60 Minutes." A three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled Tuesday that U.S. District Judge John Tinder in Indianapolis erred when he dismissed the 2004 lawsuit by David Hammer in a summary judgment in February 2006.
Edward Himmelfarb, who argued the case for the Justice Department, said Friday he had no comment on the decision. He also said no decision has been made on how the federal government will proceed in the case.
Chad Bell, Hammer's attorney, said his client is pleased.
"He's looking forward to press this case and show that this policy was enacted for unconstitutional purposes to suppress speech and to specifically silence inmates on death row," Bell said.
Hammer is an inmate at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind. He was facing the death penalty in 1999 when he gave three face-to-face interviews to reporters. But subsequent requests for interviews were rejected by prison officials. His death sentence has since been vacated and is being appealed.
On April 12, 2001, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft announced at a news conference about McVeigh's execution that the Bureau of Prisons instituted a new policy banning face-to-face interviews with death row convicts.
"As an American who cares about our culture, I want to restrict a mass murderer's access to a public podium," Ashcroft said.
The ban began 13 months after his interview with "60 Minutes" and two months before McVeigh was executed in June 2001.
A spokesman for then-Warden Harley Lappin said the policy changes were based on prison security and the desire to avoid "sensationalizing" executions. According to the court ruling, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., wrote to the Bureau of Prisons director following the McVeigh interview demanding that the bureau prohibit similar dialogues with death row inmates.
Hammer filed the lawsuit, alleging the policy violated his First Amendment and equal protection rights. He contended the security rational was a guise to cover up the real reason behind the ban — anger over the McVeigh interview.

The appeals judges ruled that a reasonable jury "could conclude that the media policy was implemented and is now enforced not because of safety concerns, but rather in response to public pressure to prevent death row inmates from voicing their views publicly."
Attorneys for the federal government have until the end of February to seek a rehearing before 7th Circuit Court. They could also appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court or allow the case to return to district court without seeking any further review.
Bell said if the case is returned to district court in Indianapolis his client could seek evidence from the federal government to back his claim and would have an attorney to help him. Hammer didn't have an attorney until the appeals court appointed him counsel a year ago, Bell said.
In 2005, a federal judge vacated Hammer's death sentence for killing his federal penitentiary cellmate in Allenwood, Pa. U.S. District Judge Malcolm Muir ruled that Hammer should have a new sentencing hearing because jurors were not given evidence that might have led them to conclude the strangling was accidental.
Hammer remains on death row while federal prosecutors appeal that decision. The Terre Haute prison is the only place in the nation housing federal death row inmates and the only place where they are executed.

Linda Powell

A prison catering supervisor was blackmailed into smuggling heroin into Stafford jail when her illicit relationship with an inmate was threatened with exposure, a court was told.
Linda Powell, 50, of Heronswood, Baswich, was jailed for six years after she pleaded guilty to conspiring to supply drugs at Stafford Crown Court. She was stopped and searched on October 23, 2006, when a sniffer dog showed an interest in the bag she was carrying. Heroin and cannabis with an estimated value of £21,000 was found inside a coffee jar.
The court was told that rumours about Powell’s relationship with an inmate were circulating in the prison. She said she took the drugs into the jail because she had received a letter threatening exposure.
Simon Drew, for the defence, said that Powell was full of remorse and shame for “this single incident”.

Ebrahim Lotfollahi ,Zahra Bani Yaghoub,Zahra Kazemi

An Iranian student detained in the capital of Iran's Kurdistan Province has died in prison under circumstances described by his family and human rights activists as "suspicious," Radio Farda reported.
On January 15, nine days after Ebrahim Lotfollahi was detained in front of Payame Nur University in the provincial capital, Sanandaj, officials told his family that he had committed suicide while in prison and died of "suffocation."
It is unclear why Lotfollahi was detained in the first place.
Witnesses say he had just finished taking an exam when security officials took him away. Officials were reported as saying they wanted to give him some "explanations," but no more details were offered.
His family says the aspiring lawyer had no reason to take his own life. Ebrahim, they say, was full of "hope in life" -- an avid reader who served part-time as a social worker.
His brother, Ismail, told Radio Farda that Ebrahim was "well" when he last saw him, two days after his arrest. "He said he would be released," Ismail said. "He said he needed a few razors and some other things."
Officials said Lotfollahi has already been buried at the city's Beheshte Mohammadi Cemetery.
But Ismail Lotfollahi says family members, who were not allowed to see the body, are calling for an autopsy. "Nobody has seen the body, [but] they said he's there," Ismail said. "A few days after they buried him there, they covered the grave with concrete."
"We don't know what to do. We haven't seen his body; we don't know whether he was suffocated," he said. "They had taken him there and done everything -- we were informed about nothing."
Saman Rasulpour, a Sanandaj-based journalist and member of the Human Rights Organization of Kurdistan, said Lotfollahi's death and the conditions surrounding it are unprecedented in the region.
But he added that this case appears similar to that of another student: Zahra Bani Yaghoub, a 27-year-old who died in prison in the western city of Hamedan in October shortly she was detained by the morality police while out for a stroll with her boyfriend.
In Yaghoub's case, officials also said that she committed suicide, but her family accused the police of murdering her. They said her body was bruised and that there was blood in her ears.
Bani Yaghub's family and human rights advocates including Nobel Peace Prize-winner Shirin Ebadi have also called for an autopsy in her case. But some observers say there is little chance officials will grant it. Lotfollahi's family has insisted, however, that they will pursue the case and push for an autopsy. They say officials are responsible for the student's death in prison.
The news of Lotfollahi's death was made public only on January 17, but Rasulpour said it has already led to concern among rights advocates and civil society activists in the region.
Rasulpour told Radio Farda that his organization is supporting Lotfollahi's family in its pursuit of the truth. "We will first try to find a lawyer for this family, which is a very innocent and poor family, to pursue the case through legal channels," Rasulpour said. "This is a suspicious death for us human rights activists, and security forces were responsible for his life and they have to give answers."
The deaths in prison of Lotfollahi and Bani Yaghoub bear similarities to the 2003 unsolved death in prison of Iranian-Canadian photographer Zahra Kazemi. Kazemi had been arrested for taking pictures of families of political prisoners in front of Tehran's notorious Evin prison. A few days later, Kazemi died of a brain hemorrhage after being transferred to a hospital.
Officials first said she had died of a stroke before later saying her head had hit a hard object and led to her death. Reports suggested she had been beaten in prison and received head injuries during interrogations.

Some five years after her death, no one has been held responsible and her case was recently sent to an appeal court for further review, although her family has said it has little confidence that Iranian justice will punish those responsible.

Mohammed Mansour Jabarah

Mohammed Mansour Jabarah, a Canadian citizen of Iraqi descent, was sentenced by a federal judge for his role in disrupted bomb plots on orders from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to case records.admitted plotting to bomb U.S. embassies in Singapore and the Philippines was sentenced to life in prison on Friday.
Prosecutors said Jabarah swore loyalty in person to bin Laden in May 2001 and was dispatched to carry out attacks. He was arrested in Oman in early 2002 and deported to Canada, where he was held before being transferred to the United States.
Jabarah initially cooperated with U.S. authorities, but changed his mind months later after a childhood friend was killed trying to attack U.S. Marines in Kuwait.
He vowed revenge, and planned while in jail to kill FBI agents and prosecutors assigned to his case, hiding knives and bombmaking instructions in his cell, case records show.

Jeffrey A. Wroten

Maryland state prison inmate accused of fatally shooting a correctional officer during an escape at a hospital in Hagerstown two years ago was found guilty today of first-degree murder and other charges.
The verdict raises the possibility that Brandon T. Morris, 22, could be sentenced to death in the slaying of Jeffrey A. Wroten, 44. When proceedings resume on Tuesday, Morris will choose whether his sentence will be decided by a judge or the jury, according to a court official.
The jury, which reached its verdict on the first full day of deliberations, rejected the defense contention that although Morris deserved punishment for his role in the shooting, the attack was not premeditated.
"You're going to convict him of a lot of offenses, but you should pause when we start talking about the death penalty," Morris's lead attorney, Arcangelo Tuminelli, said during his closing argument yesterday.
In January 2006, Wroten, a correctional officer at the Roxbury Correctional Institution, was guarding Morris at Washington County Hospital. Morris, who was serving an eight-year sentence for assault and robbery, had been admitted with an unspecified injury.
Prosecutors alleged that Morris, of Baltimore, wrested a gun from Wroten, shot him in the face and then carjacked a taxi outside. Police located the taxi about five miles from the hospital, and Morris was apprehended after the cab crashed into a concrete barrier.
At the request of the defense, the trial was moved from Washington County to Howard County, where the jury returned its verdict.