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Thread: Edward Bracey - Pennsylvania

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    Edward Bracey - Pennsylvania




    Facts of the Crime:

    Convicted for killing Philadelphia Officer Daniel Boyle in 1991. Mr. Bracey was driving a stolen car when Officer Boyle stopped him. Prosecutors said Mr. Bracey shot the officer as he sat in his car. He was later arrested after setting himself on fire.

    Bracey was sentenced to death in Philadelphia County on October 5, 1992.

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    On November 22, 2002, Bracey filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://www.ca3.uscourts.gov/Export/case_list_782.htm

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    December 29, 2009

    Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

    COMMONWEALTH v. BRACEY

    COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee v. Edward BRACEY, Appellant.

    CASTILLE, C.J., SAYLOR, EAKIN, BAER, TODD, McCAFFERY, GREENSPAN, JJ.

    OPINION

    In this appeal, this Court is asked to consider the constitutional necessity for a jury trial for purposes of an Atkins1 claim that is raised during collateral proceedings under the Post Conviction Relief Act (“PCRA”), 42 Pa.C.S. § 9541-9546. In Atkins, broadly speaking, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the execution of mentally retarded persons convicted of capital crimes violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Divining that there now appeared to be a consistent national consensus opposed to the execution of the mentally retarded, the Supreme Court believed that it was time to revisit its prior decision in Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302, 109 S.Ct. 2934, 106 L.Ed.2d 256 (1989), which had held that the Eighth Amendment did not prohibit the execution of the mentally retarded. Id. at 314-16. The Court, however, left the determination of how to apply the ban on the execution of mentally retarded defendants to the individual states. Atkins, 536 U.S. at 317. In the absence of any Pennsylvania legislative pronouncement following Atkins, this Court was called upon to define mental retardation for purposes of Pennsylvania law and we answered this call in Commonwealth v. Miller, 585 Pa. 144, 888 A.2d 624 (Pa.2005). In the case sub judice, this Court is asked to consider both an Atkins claim and an Atkins-related question. The derivative claim is strictly procedural: whether appellant Edward Bracey is entitled to have a jury entertain his post-conviction Atkins claim, raised under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. See Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002). The PCRA court concluded that appellant's Atkins claim, which was impeded by counsel's inexplicable refusal to present evidence of mental retardation to the PCRA judge, was meritless, and that rendered his request for a jury trial moot. The court dismissed appellant's serial PCRA petition. For the reasons stated herein, we hold that the jury trial claim should have been reached but, on the merits, there is no federal constitutional right to a jury trial for Atkins claims presented in collateral proceedings. As will be explained, we vacate the PCRA court's order and remand for an evidentiary hearing and bench determination of appellant's Atkins claim.

    For the full opinion, see: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/pa-suprem...t/1499637.html

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    Dealing with the death penalty: Kathleen Wrigley has lived it as wife of prosecutor, sister of victim

    By Robin Huebner
    Forum News Service

    FARGO — Many know her husband as the prosecutor of North Dakota’s only federal death penalty case, one of the most horrific crimes in this region’s history.

    What many don’t know is that while then-U.S. Attorney for North Dakota Drew Wrigley was prosecuting Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. for Dru Sjodin’s abduction and murder, Kathleen Wrigley was embroiled in her own very personal death penalty ordeal.

    Edward Bracey, the man who 22 years ago killed Kathleen’s only sibling — rookie Philadelphia police officer Daniel Boyle — still sits on death row in a maximum-security Pennsylvania prison.

    While most of us have no firsthand involvement in a death penalty case, Kathleen has lived it both as a victim’s family member and as the wife of a death penalty prosecutor.

    Kathleen and Drew Wrigley lived in Fargo while he was a U.S. attorney and moved to Bismarck after he became the state’s lieutenant governor.

    They met in the mid-1990s in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, where he worked as an assistant attorney and she as a victim’s advocate after the trial for her brother’s killer ended.

    “I was very impressed with her strength in the face of that,” said Drew Wrigley, who was not involved in prosecuting Bracey.

    Drew describes both himself and Kathleen as “law and order” people.

    Both say the two death penalty cases in their lives are distinctly different and separate.

    “We don’t talk about them intersecting,” Drew said.

    However, to outside observers, the parallels are striking.

    Both killers want their death sentences overturned based on mental deficiencies.

    Both Bracey and Rodriguez murdered their victims not long after being let out of prison.

    Rodriguez was released after doing time for rape and attempted kidnapping.

    Bracey got out before he finished his sentence for armed robbery and car theft.

    Philadelphia jails were overcrowded at the time, forcing the city to release thousands of inmates.

    “Because on that day, he wasn’t deemed violent enough, he was let out with just his signature and a promise that he would appear for his court hearing,” Kathleen said. And that hearing “came and went,” she said.

    Just a few weeks later, during the early morning hours of Feb. 4, 1991, Bracey shot and killed Officer Danny Boyle.

    ‘The Badlands’

    As a rookie cop on the job for only a few months, Officer Boyle worked the overnight shift.

    He was assigned to one of Philadelphia’s toughest northside neighborhoods. Nicknamed ‘The Badlands,’ the 26th District had become notorious for drug-related violence.

    Wrigley says her brother often had a more experienced partner assigned to him during his shift. But due to tight budgets, he occasionally had to work solo, and such was the case that fateful day.

    According to Wrigley and to media reports about the crime, Boyle was in his squad car early that morning when he spotted a car driving with no headlights the wrong way on a one-way street.

    “Especially because of the area, he absolutely should not have been by himself,” Kathleen said.

    Officer Boyle tried to get the car to pull over, but the driver wouldn’t stop.

    A friend who was in the car with Bracey would later testify at trial that the two had stolen the vehicle and were on their way to rob other drug dealers.

    A pursuit began, but when the brakes failed on the suspects’ vehicle, it crashed into a wall.

    “He (Bracey) told his friend ‘Ain’t no cop taking me down tonight,” Kathleen said.

    She said according to the friend’s testimony, as soon as the officer stopped the car, the killer’s friend knew it wasn’t going to go well, so he jumped out and hid, watching the shooting unfold.

    When Boyle pulled up alongside the stolen Buick Riviera, Bracey leapt up onto the squad car’s hood holding a 9 mm handgun.

    “He pointed the gun at Danny through the windshield and said ‘Do not go for your gun, do not call for help. Put your hands up,’” Kathleen said.

    Boyle put his hands up on the dash, and seconds later Bracey started firing.

    The second bullet struck Boyle in the head, piercing his right temple.

    What happened next, said Kathleen, fighting back tears, speaks to Boyle’s strength, youth and training as a cop.

    Before his body was able to absorb the trauma of the bullet to the brain, Boyle put the squad car in reverse and picked up the police radio to describe the suspect and call for help.

    The first time Kathleen and her parents heard that radio call was when the recording was played at Bracey’s trial.

    “He was screaming ‘Officer down, officer down. Please help me, please don’t let me die,’ “ Kathleen said.

    “I’ll never forget that, just the echoing of those bullets and him pleading for help.”

    Boyle soon lost consciousness and was rushed to a hospital, where he died two days later.

    Officer Boyle was just 21 years old — the youngest Philadelphia officer to die in the line of duty.

    He left behind his parents and then-20-year-old Kathleen, the sister he always called ‘kid.’

    Police officers from all over the country came for Boyle’s funeral, where the procession stretched 13 miles long.

    Stories in the newspapers looked back on the all-too-short life of the “young Irish cop.”

    “When people talk about a broken heart, this is what it was,” said Kathleen, “Just broken.”

    Man on fire

    The law caught up with Bracey the very same day Officer Boyle died.

    According to Kathleen, Bracey had been hiding out with various family members, and when police moved in on him at his sister’s home, he took off running over rooftops of the row houses.

    Bracey then broke through a bathroom skylight of one home, promptly doused himself with nail polish remover and lit himself on fire.

    It was an effort, said Kathleen, to prevent being arrested or killed by police.

    Bracey ran around the house in a ball of flames, lighting curtains and furniture on fire.

    The home belonged to a woman who was away at work at the time. But her young children were there — and in effect barricaded inside by a padlock their mother put on the door because of crime in the neighborhood.

    The children watched the events unfold from their hiding spot in a closet.

    “These children were traumatized by the smell of human flesh burning,” said Kathleen, “the sight of seeing a man engulfed in flames.”

    The older children and their mother testified at Bracey’s trial about needing therapy to cope.

    “He brought so many victims down with him,” Kathleen said.

    After his arrest, Bracey spent several months recovering in a burn unit before he was well enough to be taken to prison.

    “We were shocked that he lived through the injuries,” Kathleen said.

    “Seeing him last month in court,” she said, “you can see his skin is still damaged on the left side, neck and head.”

    Death penalty imposed

    Edward Bracey was brought to trial about a year and a half after Officer Boyle’s death.

    Jury selection and the trial were delayed when it was learned that Bracey would also be tried for what was thought to be a drug-related murder that happened two weeks before Boyle was killed.

    Kathleen said the trial was traumatizing; like going through the night of Danny’s murder and the days that followed all over again.

    “On a different level, it’s worse, because you hear details you could have never imagined,” she said. “The wounds are ripped open, and you have to re-grieve again.”

    The jury found Bracey guilty of murder in the first degree.

    Jurors then went directly to the task of determining his sentence — either life in prison or the death penalty.

    “They came back with a death verdict before we were even out of City Hall,” said Kathleen.

    The family’s reaction was that justice was served.

    “I will be honest,” she said. “There was something very powerful and even healing in hearing that he was going to be sentenced to the maximum.”

    “Death row was what he brought on himself by his actions,” she said.

    Yet Kathleen realizes there’s a good chance Bracey will never be executed.

    Pennsylvania has a serious backlog of death penalty cases, with nearly 200 inmates on death row and many of them at the end of their appeals processes.

    The last time someone was executed there was 1999, but that inmate had waived all of his appeals.

    As for death row inmates who are fighting the process, the last execution was in 1962.

    Wrigley says it’s not the execution itself — which would be by lethal injection — that’s important to her, but rather that her brother’s killer remain housed on death row.

    “He is in solitary confinement 23 hours a day,” Kathleen said. “For one hour, he is able to walk the halls shackled for exercise. Very different than serving life in the prison’s general population, where as a cop killer, he’d be heralded as a hero in some circles.”

    She is adamant that his sentence not be reduced to life in prison.

    “That would unearth the peace that I have worked so hard on all these years,” Kathleen said.

    The victim’s voice

    Dealing with Bracey’s appeals over the years has taken a toll on Kathleen, her parents and extended family.

    One appeal came to a head in 2006-07, when Drew Wrigley was in the throes of prosecuting the Rodriguez case. However, Kathleen didn’t have to go to Philadelphia because the hearing was continued.

    She did, though, attend the latest appeal hearing last month for the now 49-year-old Bracey.

    Bracey’s attorneys, citing new case law, are asking that his death sentence be overturned because it’s unconstitutional to execute someone who is “mentally retarded.”

    It was the first time Kathleen saw Bracey in person since he was convicted and sentenced in her brother’s death.

    “It’s like, ‘How dare you’ after 22 years?” she said.

    “Just because new case law has come up, that affords this person another opportunity, as an excuse? You can’t rewrite history.”

    She said Bracey’s family testified that he is mentally slow because “he didn’t sweep the floor right as a child and didn’t put his clothes away properly.”

    “I was hearing this and thought, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ “ she said. “He had the wherewithal to rob drug dealers!”

    During the weeklong hearing that began April 16, the only mention of Officer Boyle and his murder came in the first few minutes of opening statements by the district attorney.

    “Otherwise, it was all about Bracey and his alleged mental handicaps,” Kathleen said.

    While she didn’t have to be at the hearing, she felt compelled to do so.

    “If we weren’t there, Danny would never have entered into the equation,” she said.

    “We are an extension of him, and his (Bracey’s) deliberate actions affected and still affect us.”

    Danny’s legacy

    Kathleen remembers her big brother with deep fondness.

    Just a little over a year apart in age, “We were buddies,” she said. “He had a great sense of humor … super goofy and fun.”

    She said Danny couldn’t wait to graduate high school and, when he did, he worked odd jobs in home construction.

    But as soon as he took the test for the police academy, “the light bulb went off.”

    And it’s no surprise, because the Boyles are a law enforcement family, through and through.

    Kathleen’s father was a Philly police officer for more than 40 years.

    All of her dad’s brothers were police officers, and her mom’s sisters’ husbands were police officers.

    “Blue must run through my blood,” Kathleen said.

    Though she says she had several premonition-like dreams about a month before Danny died, Kathleen never worried about his safety on the job during her waking hours.

    “We thought we were invincible,” she said.

    Kathleen and her parents keep Danny’s memory alive through his scholarship fund, which provides educational opportunities to kids who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford them.

    And she says her brother is with her in other ways.

    Danny was shot at 2:42 a.m. on a Monday. According to her birth certificate, the oldest of the Wrigleys’ three children was born on a Monday at precisely 2:42 a.m.

    “I believe that was his way of telling me, ‘I’m still here with you, in a different way,’ “ Kathleen said. “It was very comforting.”

    Kathleen has drawn on her faith to endure quite a few hurdles — from Danny’s untimely death to her surviving an aneurysm and brain surgeries, and dealing with vision problems after one of the operations.

    The hardships have inspired her to run and raise money in marathons to benefit those causes.

    With what Kathleen has been through, “She could be bitter, she could go to a dark place,” said Drew Wrigley.

    “She’s elected every day to not do that. She remains a very positive, sunny, optimistic person.”

    There were days Kathleen wasn’t so sure.

    “We were so broken after Danny died, I could never see any happy days ahead. There were days I couldn’t breathe,” she said.

    “And here I am, on the other side of it.”

    A new life

    On Oct. 28, a judge is expected to hear arguments for and against revoking Bracey’s death sentence.

    The judge could even make a ruling that day.

    Kathleen will be there in Philadelphia — the city in which she was born and raised — to make sure her brother’s memory fills the courtroom.

    Then she’ll return to North Dakota, the place that gave her a fresh start as Kathleen Wrigley, “Even though I’m still Danny Boyle’s sister,” she said wistfully.

    “With my history, (living in North Dakota) allowed me to build my own life. It’s a gift, and I’ve found peace here.”

    http://www.thedickinsonpress.com/eve...icle/id/68775/

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    Wrigley awaits word on fate of brother's killer

    BISMARCK – Nine months after the start of the latest legal appeal from her brother’s killer, Kathleen Wrigley is still waiting to hear whether he will remain on Pennsylvania’s death row.

    With a ruling from the judge dangling before them, a snowstorm in Philadelphia last Friday closed the courts and denied Wrigley and her parents in their third attempt to learn convicted murderer Edward Bracey’s fate.

    Wrigley has been through several such appeals, including one when her husband and North Dakota Lt. Gov. Drew Wrigley, then U.S. attorney for North Dakota, was prosecuting Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. for Dru Sjodin’s abduction and murder.

    Bracey’s appeal has been particularly difficult because of delays in issuing the ruling.

    “It’s made us feel sad, angry, frustrated, helpless and small,” Kathleen Wrigley said.

    Wrigley’s only sibling, Daniel “Danny” Boyle, was gunned down as a rookie Philadelphia police officer during an attempted traffic stop on Feb. 4, 1991.

    Bracey’s latest appeal is based on relatively new case law, which states it is unconstitutional to execute someone who is mentally disabled.

    During a weeklong hearing last April, Bracey’s attorneys tried to establish that he is mentally deficient – something the prosecution strongly denies.

    The family then sat through the appeal’s closing arguments in late October, hoping for a ruling from Judge Teresa Sarmina that day because no new evidence was presented.

    But there wasn’t a ruling.

    Another court date was set for Dec. 20, but the day before Wrigley planned to fly to Philadelphia, the judge informed the district attorney’s office that she wasn’t finished writing her opinion.

    Then came a Jan. 3 court date and confirmation from the judge that the ruling was ready.

    Wrigley boarded a flight to Philadelphia, hoping the third time would be the charm.

    But with a snowstorm descending on the East Coast, much of Philadelphia shut down. As the snow fell, attorneys for both sides agreed the ruling should be issued electronically. Five days passed, and they finally got word that it would be emailed “sometime soon.”

    It’s not important for Wrigley that Bracey is executed but that he remains on death row, where he is in solitary confinement 23 hours a day.

    She does not want him allowed into the general prison population, where she says he could be heralded as a hero for killing a cop.

    As she awaits word, Wrigley does everything she can to keep her spirits up.

    “We are happy and optimistic, and prefer to cling to the silver lining,” she said.

    She focuses on the nearly 800 young people who have received scholarships through the Officer Daniel Boyle Scholarship Fund.

    “His legacy outshines any judicial process,” Wrigley said.

    http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/423188/

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    Judge rules Phila. officer's killer can't be executed

    By Robert Moran and Mike Newall, Inquirer Staff Writers

    A Philadelphia judge, citing a constitutional restriction against executing people defined as mentally retarded, has vacated the death sentence of a man convicted of killing a city police officer in 1991.

    Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina ruled Friday that the death penalty cannot be enforced against Edward Bracey, convicted in the shooting death of 21-year-old Officer Danny Boyle in 1991.

    Bracey's sentence is now life without parole.

    Sarmina wrote that Bracey had established that his intelligence quotient was 74, and that he possesses " 'major deficiencies' in adaptive behavior, as demonstrated by his significant limitations in, at least, (1) communication, (2) functional academics, (3) self-direction, and (4) social/interpersonal skills. "

    Also, Sarmina wrote, Bracey had established that he was "mentally retarded" before his 18th birthday.

    The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that the death penalty is unconstitutional for anyone defined by a state as mentally retarded.

    The ruling was based on "evolving standards of decency" that have found "mentally retarded people are not sufficiently culpable," said Marc Bookman, director of the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation and former public defender.

    Sarmina did not order a new trial or resentencing, so Bracey will remain in prison for the rest of his life, Bookman said.

    Tasha Jamerson, spokeswoman for District Attorney Seth Williams, could not be reached for comment Monday night.

    John J. McNesby, president of Lodge 5 of the Fraternal Order of Police, called Sarmina's decision "an absolute disgrace."

    Bracey "pulled the wool over the judge's eyes," he said.

    McNesby said Boyle's family had learned about the decision Monday evening and were "obviously upset."

    "I don't know what planet she's living on," McNesby said of Sarmina.

    Bracey was convicted of first-degree murder in March 1992 and sentenced to death later that year.

    http://www.philly.com/philly/news/br...DSCMFYB3DZi.99

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    Moderator Dave from Florida's Avatar
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    Judge Sarmina also threw out Terrance Williams' death sentence last year just before his execution date. Anyone wonder why Pennsylvania cannot carry out any death sentences?

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    D.A. blasts vacated death penalty for cop killer

    By Mike Newall
    The Philadelphia Inquirer

    The District Attorney's Office on Tuesday challenged a Philadelphia judge's decision to vacate the death sentence for the man who killed Police Officer Danny Boyle in 1991.

    In a terse, one-page ruling handed down Friday, Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina cited a constitutional restriction against executing people defined as mentally retarded to overturn Edward Bracey's death sentence.

    Bracey was convicted in 1992 of shooting Boyle in the head after the 21-year-old rookie officer stopped him driving a stolen Buick at Eighth Street and Germantown Avenue in North Philadelphia.
    More coverage
    # Judge: Killer of Philly cop can't be executed

    In her ruling, Sarmina said Bracey has established that his intellectual functioning is "limited" or "subaverage."

    The decision comes nearly 23 years after Boyle was murdered, and after two decades of appeals.

    "The defendant has attacked his sentence in a variety of ways," said First Assistant District Attorney Edward McCann at a news conference Tuesday.

    "None of these challenges deal with the strengths of the evidence of the defendant's guilt," McCann said. "No court has found that the trial was unfair, or that he was the victim or any misconduct by the prosecution or police."

    In fact, McCann said, Bracey only claimed to be mentally incapacitated after a 2002 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court made it illegal to execute anyone deemed mentally retarded.

    Before that ruling, McCann said, Bracey had presented experts who testified at earlier hearings that he was not mentally retarded.

    "Our view is that in no way did the defendant prove that he was mentally retarded. And, in fact, in 1998 at his prior post-conviction relief hearing, he had his own experts testify that he wasn't retarded," McCann said.

    During the 1998 hearing, Bracey alleged that his trial lawyer had been ineffective for not presenting evidence about his mental health that might have spared him the a death sentence. While his lawyers said that he had some degree of brain damage, they presented evidence from three experts who said he was not mentally retarded.

    One witness said Bracey's IQ score was "five points higher than one would need to get to actually be classified as mentally retarded," McCann said.

    At that same hearing, a second expert testified that "defendant is not retarded," McCann said.

    And a third witness said Bracey's IQ was in the borderline range rather than the mentally retarded range, that he could read at the 10th-grade level - the point when he stopped attending school - and that during her testing he was able to read such words as: eliminate, humiliate, bibliography, contemporary, triumph, contagious, and predatory.

    Consequently, Bracey's claims of ineffective representation were dismissed, McCann said.

    "Yet here we sit . . . a full generation after the murder of police Officer Danny Boyle - who was 21 at the time of his murder - and a court has ruled he is mentally retarded and not eligible to be executed."

    McCann said without the benefit of Sarmani's opinion he could not say what the basis was for her ruling. A determination on whether to appeal will be made after the judge's office provides the District Attorney's Office with the full ruling.

    "However, I can say this for certain," McCann said. "The victim's family - who have done nothing but serve this city with strength and character, both before and after Danny's death - have questions about a process that can lead to a result like this, and I for one have no answers."

    From Washington, where he was attending a conference of national prosecutors, District Attorney Seth Williams released a statement expressing disappointment in Sarmina's decision.

    "The ruling is perplexing, and I can only imagine how devastating it is for the Boyle family. My thoughts and prayers go out to the Boyle family today."

    Members of Boyle's family were scheduled to hold an afternoon press conference at the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 in Northeast Philadelphia.

    On Monday night, John J. McNesby, the president of the FOP, blasted Sarmina's decision as "an absolute disgrace."

    "Bracey pulled the wool over the judge's eyes," he said.

    Sarmina declined to comment Tuesday.

    http://www.philly.com/philly/news/br...bGQtQQ6xufT.99

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    Appeals prolong ordeal for murder victim's family

    Kathleen Boyle Wrigley had started composing a letter to Common Pleas Court Judge M. Theresa Sarmina even before Sarmina vacated the death sentence of the man who killed her brother.

    Her letter opens with a recurring nightmare - one Wrigley first had 23 years ago after her older brother, Daniel Boyle, a rookie police officer, was gunned down by a paroled felon during a traffic pursuit in North Philadelphia.

    In it, Wrigley is there, watching. She sees the gunman jump onto the hood of Danny's cruiser. She sees Danny with his hands up, and she tries to yell, but he cannot hear. She tries to help, but her legs won't move. Then, the shots. Silence.

    Sitting in Sarmina's courtroom this last year has made Wrigley feel the same way she does in her dream: helpless and invisible.

    "Like we didn't even matter," Wrigley, 43, said of her family.

    "Like we were furniture in the room," said Boyle's father, Patrick, a retired city detective.

    In April, more than two decades after a jury sentenced Edward Bracey to die for killing the 21-year-old patrolman, the Boyle family sat through four days of hearings on whether Bracey, now 50, should remain on death row.

    The hearings were only the latest chapter in years of court motions and appeals.

    After two failed appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court on different grounds, Bracey's defense team now argues that he is mentally retarded and cannot be executed under a 2002 Supreme Court decision. It argues this even though defense experts testified at earlier hearings that Bracey was not mentally retarded.

    In a one-paragraph ruling Jan. 10, Sarmina commuted Bracey's sentence to life, accepting the defense argument that he is impaired, a ruling that the District Attorney's Office publicly criticized and said it would appeal. The case will likely stretch on for many more years.

    Revenge does not consume the Boyles.

    In the 23 years since Danny Boyle became the youngest city police officer killed in the line of duty, the family has assuaged its grief by helping others in Danny's name.

    There are the Officer Boyle Scholarship Fund for financially struggling families, the Officer Danny Boyle Rec Center, and the Officer Danny Boyle Ancient Order of Hibernians, which supports a home for mentally handicapped adults in New Jersey.

    The Boyles say they have never expected special treatment, even with all their connections to the justice system. Patrick Boyle was on the force for 38 years, and two of Danny's uncles were also officers.

    Before moving to North Dakota - where she lives with her three children and husband, who serves as lieutenant governor - Kathleen Wrigley worked for the District Attorney's Office as an advocate for the families of homicide victim's families. That's a job she took after Danny's murder. Her mother, Nancy, is a nurse.

    "We have done everything we were asked to do in these last 23 years," Wrigley said, "and we have tried to do it with grace and dignity and patience and acceptance that this is the way it is and this is our place."

    All those years ago at trial, the family found comfort that Bracey was given the harshest possible punishment, Wrigley said.

    Bracey, then a recently released parolee, told police he shot Boyle once in a temple at Eighth Street and Germantown Avenue early on Feb. 4, 1991, to keep from going back to jail.

    The Boyle family long ago accepted that appeals would likely keep Bracey from being put to death. But the family wants him to live the rest of his life on death row, instead of in the less constricted general prison population.

    In 2001, the Supreme Court rejected a claim that Bracey had ineffective counsel at trial. It was during that appeal that three defense experts testified that he was not mentally impaired. Now Bracey's defense lawyers make the opposite claim.

    "If you know the execution is not going to happen, then have the death penalty or don't have the death penalty," said Wrigley, who returns to Philadelphia for every hearing about her brother's killer. "But please, have mercy on the victim's families. Don't put us through this."

    In April, Wrigley stood next to her father in court when a former coworker from the District Attorney's Office came over and quietly shook her hand and squeezed her father's shoulder.

    Sarmina chastised the family over the small show of support, family members said.

    "She scolded me from the bench," Wrigley said. "She asked me if I understood how important these proceedings were and then proceeded to tell me it was about a man's life and not a social gathering."

    After the judge's upbraiding, Wrigley said she retreated into an anteroom, upset.

    "I felt worried I had done something to affect the case," she said. "I felt humiliated. That it was just very unfair for her to scold me."

    The incident was the beginning of what the Boyle family described as a pattern of "cruel" and "belittling" behavior by the judge, including long delays and court cancellations, Wrigley said.

    "We have never felt smaller in these 23 years than we did in this judge's courtroom," Wrigley said. "There is a responsibility that comes with power. You may not want to treat people well, but you darn well better treat them fairly. ... She acted like a bully."

    In a move unrelated to the Boyle case, Sarmina was transferred to civil court last week. She said she could not comment on the Boyle case.

    In Sarmina's courtroom, Bracey's lawyers pointed to a recent IQ test as proof that he is impaired. The test, given by a defense expert in preparation for the appeal, showed that Bracey's score had plummeted substantially from previous tests.

    "It doesn't take a genius to figure it out," Pat Boyle said. "Who would give their best effort on a test if it's going to lead to your execution or life on death row?"

    Prosecutors Robin Godfrey and Tracey Kavanagh said Bracey's school records showed he had never been found to have a learning disability.

    In October, Wrigley flew back for closing arguments and what they expected would be a ruling.

    The judge said she was not ready, and postponed to Dec. 20. Before adjourning, she allowed Bracey's family members to visit with him, even though they can visit him in jail.

    "It's insensitive," Kavanagh objected.

    In December, a day before Wrigley was set to fly back, the judge told prosecutors that again she needed more time. A new date was set for Jan. 3.

    But the courthouse was closed for snow on that day, so the Boyles gathered at their Somerton home, having been told the decision would be issued electronically through the court docket system. But it never came. Eleven more days passed with no word from the judge.

    Finally, on Jan. 12, the family learned from a reporter that a decision had been made.

    "There was a lot of crying and anger and sadness," Pat Boyle said.

    Bracey will remain on death row throughout the appeal, said Tasha Jamerson, a spokeswoman for the District Attorney's Office.

    The appeal will likely drag on for years.

    The Boyles say they will not let anger define them. They will keep working to memorialize Danny's life, planning a February benefit for the scholarship fund at the police union hall.

    "It will not beat us," Pat Boyle said.

    Wrigley said she would finish her letter to Sarmina.

    She wants to ask the judge the same question she asked her in court: "Do you understand how important this process is?" Does she understand how it rips open old wounds - and how she made her family feel small and invisible?

    And she wants her to know that her nightmares have returned.

    http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20...YkPSpPiQzPh.99
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  10. #10
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    Cop-killer with 'intellectual disabilities' can't be executed, Pa. Supreme Court rules

    With one justice dissenting, the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a man convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer can't be executed, because he suffers from "intellectual disabilities."

    Edward Bracey's mental issues trigger a prohibition against executing the intellectually disabled that is based on the Eighth Amendment to the U.S Constitution, Justice J. Michael Eakin wrote in the high court's majority opinion.

    That ruling backs a January 2014 decision by Philadelphia Judge M. Teresa Sarmina to vacate Bracey's death sentence for the February 1991 slaying of 21-year-old Officer Daniel Boyle. The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office appealed Sarmina's ruling and asked the Supreme Court to place Bracey back on death row.

    In a dissenting opinion, Justice Correale F. Stevens wrote that he would have reinstated Bracey's execution order, noting that Bracey, now 52, had sufficient mental capacity to kill Boyle and then evade police for days.

    Tuesday's decision was the latest in a string of legal rulings on appeals that began soon after a jury convicted Bracey of first-degree murder in 1992. It means Bracey will serve a life prison sentence.

    Eakin wrote that the murder occurred when Bracey fired several shots at Boyle's police cruiser. Boyle had tried to stop Bracey, who was driving a stolen vehicle. Bracey opened fire after crashing that car.

    Two days after Boyle was killed, Bracey broke into a home through a skylight and set himself on fire, Eakin wrote. After his arrest, Bracey confessed to killing Boyle.

    In affirming the vacating of Bracey's death sentence, Eakin cited Judge Sarmina's findings that Bracey has a low-range IQ of 74, and that his intellectual disabilities had manifested themselves in childhood.

    Also, Eakin noted that, during a Philadelphia court hearing, witnesses testified that Bracey had difficulty accomplishing simple tasks, such as running errands, was incapable of learning rudimentary games like checkers and hide-and-seek, and would often become lost in his own neighborhood.

    Stevens, however, wrote that he isn't convinced Bracey proved he has intellectual disabilities that should spare him from execution.

    "It is important to remember," Stevens wrote, "that when (Bracey) murdered Officer Boyle he possessed the intellectual capacity to: arm himself in preparation of robbing and shooting some drug dealers; operate a stolen vehicle; brandish a 9 mm automatic handgun at Officer Boyle while standing on the hood and roof of the police cruiser; demand that the officer not touch his own firearm; shoot Officer Boyle with no less than eight rounds, one of which struck him in the right temple; and evade police for several days."

    Stevens noted as well that, even before the murder, Bracey had a "significant history of felony convictions involving the use or threat of violence," including two burglary convictions.

    http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/ind...lectual_d.html

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