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  1. #1
    Administrator Michael's Avatar
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    Michael Angelo Morales - California Death Row


    Terri Lynn Winchell


    Michael Angelo Morales

    Summary of Offense:

    Convicted of the January 8, 1981 rape and murder of Terri Winchell, a 17-year-old Lodi high school student. He was sentenced to death in San Joaquin County on June 14, 1983.

    His execution has been on hold pending a legal challenge to California's lethal injection protocol.

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    September 1, 2010

    Morales' execution derailed----Ruling further clouds status of state capital punishment

    For a few days anyway, San Joaquin County prosecutors had marked Oct. 19 on their calendars as the date they would finally witness the execution of Stockton murderer Michael Angelo Morales.

    But on Tuesday, Marin County Superior Court Judge Verna Adams derailed their plans - yet again - saying the execution of Morales, 50, and any of California's death-row inmates must wait "unless and until" she rules.

    Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in response ordered state Attorney General Jerry Brown to appeal Adams' ruling, which could be filed by the week's end.

    These developments further fracture the status of capital punishment in California, which was brought to a halt by Morales' attorneys in early 2006.

    Including Morales, six California men have exhausted their appeals and await execution. On Monday, Riverside County prosecutors obtained a warrant to execute Albert Brown on Sept. 29 for murdering a 15-year-old girl who was walking to school 30 years ago.

    Morales' lawyers first won a delay, arguing California's lethal-injection procedure might cause unconstitutional levels of pain. In 1981, Morales raped and murdered 17-year-old Tokay High School senior Terri Lynn Winchell.

    Morales' attorneys also won on a 2nd front, accusing the state of changing its lethal-injection procedure without putting it through a public comment period as required by the state's Administrative Procedures Act.

    It was the 2nd argument that led to Tuesday's ruling in a Marin courtroom.

    Attorneys for Morales and Mitchell Sims, who was sentenced to death from Los Angeles, convinced Judge Adams that state prison officials were in contempt for trying to resume executions before showing they had complied with the APA.

    A different Marin judge in 2007 ordered a statewide injunction on lethal injections.

    Attorney Sara Eisenberg, who represents Sims, said that so far state officials pushing to resume executions have not demonstrated that they have brought the new lethal injection procedure into compliance.

    Yet Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said her office has complied with the public hearing requirement. The state officially adopted the revised lethal injection protocol Sunday. That prompted prosecutors to begin seeking death warrants.

    Until correctional officials hear otherwise, Thornton said her office is moving ahead with plans to carry out Brown's execution at the end of this month.

    "Right now, the CDCR is exploring all of its options," she said.

    Other inmates awaiting to be scheduled for execution are Kevin Cooper, David Raley and Stevie Lamar Fields. A hearing to seek Fields' execution was put off until he can get an attorney.

    (Source: The Stockton Record)

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    September 25, 2010

    Family of Murdered Teen Reacts to Execution Decision

    It's been 30 years since Michael Morales murdered 17-year-old Terri Winchell.

    "She was the light of our life and when Morales took her from us, the light went out in our life," Winchell's mother, Barbara Christian said, from her Wilton home Friday night. "We've had 30 years of misery and it's just dragging on too long. We want to shut the door on Morales. Just send him to his maker and have him answer to him."

    And with the judge's ruling to resume lethal injection executions, it gives the Terri's family hope that Morales will finally be put to death.

    So what would that mean to the family?

    "We could just breathe a sigh of relief and put this all behind us and realize Terri had been vindicated and justice had been served finally," Christian said.

    "Let's see if they really have enough guts to go ahead and do this and politics doesn't get in the way to stop this for Brown. But Morales should be next one up," Terri's brother, David Winchell said. Albert Greenwood Brown of Riverside County is scheduled to die on Wednesday.

    After all, the family has been disappointed in the past, when Morales' scheduled execution was stopped hours before he was set to die.

    "Let's see how quick they get Morales up there and I'll jump for joy. I could care less whether he lives or dies," David Winchell said.

    They know his death won't bring Terri back, but it will help to heal the wounds inflicted so many years ago.

    "Terri's with me, she's by my side all the time. But I reach out to her and she's not there and my heart aches everyday for her," her mother said. "Morales will meet his maker sooner or later and pay for this. But we'd like to see it before we move over to the other world."

    (Source: KTXL News)

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    Lawsuit seeks drug change to speed execution of death-row inmate

    The killer of a woman brutally murdered more than 30 years ago still sits on death row. The victim's brother is suing to resume executions in California. The lawsuit seeks to end the legal logjam that has put a hold on executions at San Quentin State Prison for six years. The delays involve questions over the use of lethal injections.

    More than 700 inmates sit on California's death row. Not one has been executed in six years. Former governors Pete Wilson and George Deukmejian are on a team of lawyers seeking to help the families of murdered victims.

    "I get sick to my stomach," said Bradley Winchell, the victim's brother. "I am asking this court to set it right."

    Bradley Winchell says he's been waiting more than three decades for closure. His sister Terri was brutally murdered and raped in 1981 in a Lodi vineyard.

    Her convicted killer, Michael Morales, sits on San Quentin's death row and is one of 14 inmates who have exhausted all their appeals.

    But just as Morales was about to be executed in 2006, a judge granted a reprieve, allowing Morales's lawsuit to move forward after he claimed the three-drug lethal injection method was cruel and unusual punishment.

    Winchell just filed a lawsuit of his own, saying he's waited long enough. He wants the state to resume executions by moving to a one-drug process currently used in other states.

    "I consider 31 years excessive delay, injury to not only myself but my family," said Winchell.

    California's death penalty has been criticized for many years. Delays often result in decades passing before an execution is carried out.

    "It's a sad state of affairs when those officials with the duty to execute the law care so little about the rights of victims of crime," said Kent Scheidegger, Criminal Justice Legal Foundation.

    Opponents of California's death penalty have been trying to get rid of it for years, citing a report that found it costs taxpayers $184 million per year to operate. They say if Winchell and his attorneys want to change the three-drug protocol, they can formally ask the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

    "They need to put that into procedure, they need to submit it for public comment, they need to have a hearing and do exactly what they did when they set up the three-drug," said Christine Thomas, Campaign to End the Death Penalty.

    The Corrections Dept. can't comment because it hasn't been served with the lawsuit, but Winchell's attorneys say they've been unsuccessful in trying to get the agency use the one-drug method.

    Winchell thinks the courts are the only way to let his sister rest in peace.

    "This will add a little bit of closure if we do get the executions back on track," said Winchell.

    Five states in as many years abolished the death penalty. Next week, opponents of the death penalty are expected to announce that they've qualified an initiative to do the same and let California voters decide.

    http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?se...ate&id=8628508
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    Related:

    Lawsuit calls for quicker executions in California

    By Don Thompson
    The Associated Press

    SACRAMENTO -- A victims' rights organization sued California state officials on Thursday as it seeks to speed up executions that have been on hold since 2006.

    Sacramento-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation filed a petition in Sacramento County Superior Court asking a judge to order state corrections officials to adopt procedures for a single-drug, barbiturate-only method of execution.

    State policy calls for using a series of three drugs to put condemned inmates to death. The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is drafting new lethal injection regulations after Gov. Jerry Brown said in April 2012 the state would switch to a single-drug injection.

    However, department spokeswoman Deborah Hoffman said a nationwide shortage of execution drugs is slowing progress. She declined to comment on the lawsuit.

    The foundation says the department is taking too long to adopt the new regulations. No executions can occur until the new rules are adopted.

    It is asking the judge to order the state to adopt temporary regulations within 30 days and take immediate steps to adopt permanent regulations.

    The foundation sought the court order on behalf of Kermit Alexander, whose mother, sister and two nephews were murdered in 1984, and Bradley Winchell, whose sister was raped and murdered in 1983, contending that as relatives of the victims they are affected by the continued delays.

    Alexander and Winchell said in nearly identical letters to Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard in September that the murders of their relatives took place 30 years ago, yet there is "no end in sight" for the convicted killers solely because of the department's failure to adopt the new regulations.

    Executions in California have also been halted by a series of legal challenges over the last eight years, most recently when a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled in July that carrying out the death penalty takes so long that it amounts to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment. Attorney General Kamala Harris is appealing that ruling.

    The judge noted that more than 900 people have been sentenced to death in California since the current death penalty system was adopted 35 years ago. But only 13 have been executed, leaving most condemned inmates to die of natural causes before their executions are carried out.

    http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-cou...ons-california
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  6. #6
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    ACLU Death Penalty Challenge Faces Skeptical Court

    HAYWARD, Calif. (CN) — ACLU attorneys faced a tough fight Thursday in asking the state judge who dismissed its case challenging California’s execution procedures to reconsider the tentative ruling she issued in March.

    Alameda County Court Judge Kimberly Colwell tentatively dismissed the Eighth Amendment lawsuit on March 30 without leave to amend. On Thursday, ACLU attorney Linda Lye told Colwell that the Legislature violated the California Constitution’s separation of powers clause by tasking prison officials with developing an execution protocol, but not providing guidance on how to carry out executions.

    “CDCR [the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation] is supposed to kill people, but we don’t know what kind death. A lingering death, a painful death, a painless death, a swift death?” Lye asked. “Simply telling Corrections to comply with the statute does not constitute guidance.”

    To align California death penalty law with the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, the Legislature in 1996 prescribed lethal injection as the method for executions. It directed the Department of Corrections to develop the actual execution procedures.

    The ACLU claims that the Legislature — not a state agency — must develop the execution procedures to address “fundamental policy questions” such as the pain and speed of executions.

    The ACLU sued the Department of Corrections in November on behalf of death row inmates Mitchell Sims and Michael Morales.

    The lawsuit was filed nine days after the general election, in which California voters narrowly approved Proposition 66, by 51 percent to 49 percent, to accelerate executions by limiting habeas corpus petitions and requiring death penalty appeals to be completed within five years of the death sentence, among other things. Also on Election Day, voters rejected a proposition to repeal the death penalty and replace it with life imprisonment without parole.

    The ACLU says the Legislature is more likely than prison officials to design procedures that reduce pain and the amount of time it takes to die. It said in the original complaint that the state’s plan to switch from a three-drug protocol to use of a single drug could increase pain, and accused it of making the switch for convenience.

    The state says using one drug will reduce pain.

    Colwell did not seem sympathetic to Lye’s separation of powers argument Thursday.

    “Isn’t that particular agency, that administers the death penalty, in the best position to know how that is carried out?” the judge asked.

    “With guidance, yes,” Lye responded. She said that while severe pain is the constitutional limit, the Legislature is responsible for determining what that threshold is.

    Lye said the Legislature could choose to make executions retributive for an inmate’s crime, and thus severely painful, and it would still satisfy its responsibility under the separation of powers clause.

    While acknowledging that the Department of Corrections has the expertise to develop execution procedures, Lye said, “all the Legislature needed was to paint in broad brushes and provide more guidance” about the acceptable level of pain, and prison officials “could fill in the details.”

    However, “The idea that complying with the Constitution is a sufficient standard is too vague,” she said.

    Colwell rejected that argument in her tentative ruling of March 30.

    “Petitioners have not … cited to any authority for the proposition that a legislature that has made the fundamental decision to have a death penalty cannot set the standard as the constitutional minimum and delegate to prison officials the task of developing a constitutional execution protocol,” she wrote. “After the Legislature has indicated that CDCR was to develop an execution protocol to comply with the United States Constitution, then the Legislature could add little more.”

    There are 750 inmates on California’s death row. The state has executed 13 prisoners since it reinstituted the death penalty in 1978. It performed its last execution in 2006.

    http://www.courthousenews.com/aclu-d...eptical-court/
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    Senior Member CnCP Addict maybeacomedian's Avatar
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    Morales' brother Dan is featured in an episode of A&E "Intervention" for alcoholism (Season 05, Episode 02).

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