Joseph Giarratano

Last updated
Joseph Giarratano
Born
Joseph M. Giarratano

(1957-08-26) August 26, 1957 (age 66)
The Bronx, New York City, New York, U.S.
OccupationFormer scallop fisherman
Criminal status Paroled
Conviction(s) Capital murder
First degree murder
Rape
Criminal penalty Death; commuted to life imprisonment
Details
VictimsBarbara Ann Kline, 44
Michelle Kline, 15
DateFebruary 4, 1979
State(s) Virginia

Joseph M. Giarratano (born August 26, 1957) is a former prisoner who served in Deerfield Correctional Center, in Southampton County, Virginia, US. On November 21, 2017, he was granted parole. [1] He was convicted, based on circumstantial evidence and his own confessions, of murdering Toni Kline and raping and strangling her 15-year-old daughter Michelle on February 4, 1979, in Norfolk, Virginia. He has said that he was an addict for years and had blacked out on alcohol and drugs, waking to find the bodies. He was sentenced to death, and incarcerated on death row for 12 years at the former Virginia State Penitentiary. [2]

Contents

He is notable for having become a serious legal scholar, helping mount litigation to explore constitutional rights of prisoners. Defense attorneys had mounted appeals to re-open his case in the late 1980s, based on what they said was new information, e.g. head and pubic hairs, sperm, finger prints, and bloody boot prints did not match Giarratano's. He lost state and federal appeals due to procedural rules that barred review of errors that were not objected to at the time of trial. The case attracted international attention as his execution date was scheduled for February 1991. Three days before the execution date, Governor Douglas Wilder commuted Giarratano's death sentence, with a pardon sentencing him to life imprisonment with a recommendation for new trial, and possibility of parole after 25 years imprisonment (after 13 years with allowance for time served). [3] Mary Sue Terry, the state Attorney General, refused to seek a retrial, stating that she was confident that Giarratano was guilty of killing Kline and her daughter. [4]

After his pardon, Giarratano was transferred among different prisons, first in Virginia. After being stabbed at one, he was transferred to prison in Utah and then to Illinois, under a state compact. He was returned to Virginia in March 1997. His counsel was seeking to locate physical evidence from the crime scene in 2004 in order to conduct DNA testing prior to his appeal to gain parole that year, the first time he would be eligible. Norfolk and state authorities have said they believe all the biological evidence in the Kline case was destroyed.

Background

Born in The Bronx on August 26, 1957, Giarratano grew up in circumstances described by The New York Times as similar to those of many juvenile offenders: "a fractured family, an abusive mother, a father he did not meet until they were inmates in the same Florida prison 16 years ago. It also includes an early exit from school and an even earlier introduction to drugs." [5] He became a scallop fisherman in Hampton Roads, Virginia. [6]

Giarratano has said that he woke in the Kline apartment after a blackout and found the two women dead. In a 1991 interview, he said that he assumed he killed them, but does not know. He fled to Florida. Feeling guilt, he turned himself in to police, and confessed to the murders. [7] The trial was quick, and he was convicted and sentenced to death for the two murders. He later recanted his confessions. [8]

Death row

While on death row at Mecklenburg Correctional Center, Giarratano became free of his addiction, and also of the tranquilizer prescribed by prison doctors. After being introduced to law by another inmate, he began to study it intensively, becoming interested in constitutional law.

Giarratano has become noted as a legal scholar published in the Yale Law Journal and has assisted other prisoners with their cases. In addition, he has sought to widen prisoners' rights, including to right of counsel, with an argument that was approved by the federal court of appeals but not the US Supreme Court. He worked to improve conditions in Virginia prisons, fighting for "increased access for visitors and confidentiality of communications with lawyers". [5]

He has developed as a scholar of constitutional law. It gave him purpose and he began to help other prisoners. He helped file habeas corpus petitions for himself and several other prisoners. [5]

He was involved in preparing arguments for Murray v. Giarratano , 492 U.S. 1 (1989), which reached the United States Supreme Court. It was an effort to enlarge the right to counsel. This argument was upheld at the federal appeals court level, but in Murray v. Giarratano, the Supreme Court ruled that there is no constitutional right to appointed counsel in state habeas corpus proceedings, and that the rule applies equally to capital cases. [9] [10]

Giarratano was involved in a 1984 escape attempt with seven other men from the Mecklenburg prison. Prison officials had an internal hearing and dealt with the men on an institutional basis. [11]

Advocate for Earl Washington, Jr.

Giarratano was an advocate for fellow death row inmate Earl Washington Jr., and gained support for a pro bono defense of him, less than a month before his execution scheduled for September 1985. He noted that Washington had an intellectual disability, which had not been considered at his trial or sentencing, and enlisted the help of Marie Deans and her network. Counsel gained a stay to enable an appeal. Newly available DNA testing, conducted post-conviction in 1993, called into question whether Washington had committed the crime for which Washington had been sentenced to death. Because Virginia law severely time limits when new evidence may be introduced post-conviction, his conviction was upheld. But Governor Douglas Wilder in January 1994 commuted Washington's sentence from death to life imprisonment. [12]

Based on additional DNA testing in 2000, which was more accurate, Washington was fully exonerated. He received a full pardon from Governor James Gilmore and was released from prison. [12] [13] In 2006 he won a settlement from the estate of Agent Wilmore, who had coerced the false confession. [14]

Appeals

In the late 1980s, counsel investigating Giarratano's case noted the conflicts among his five confessions and new evidence that suggested he did not commit the crimes. Stab wounds were inflicted by a right-handed person, but Giarratano is left-handed. A hair sample and sperm sample that were found on the rape victim did not match Giarratano's, and bloody shoe prints found near the scene of the crime did not match Giarratano's. Nor did numerous fingerprints. The official autopsy report was altered after Giarratano made an official statement. [5]

Defense attempts were made to appeal this case and re-open the case to introduce the contradictory evidence. Virginia has what defense attorneys characterize as strict procedural rules "severely limiting the introduction of new evidence and raising of objections after the trial". [5] The prosecutor said they were trying to rework the evidence. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, turned down his appeal in late 1989, and in 1990, Giarratano was seeking a hearing by the United States Supreme Court. [5]

In February 1991, Giarratano's death sentence was commuted to life, with a pardon sentencing him to life imprisonment with a recommendation for new trial, and possibility of parole after 25 years (given the time already served, this made Giarratano eligible for parole in 13 years.)[ citation needed ] The Virginia Attorney General rejected his appeal for a new trial stating that evidence of innocence is irrelevant under Virginia's procedural rules.

Life sentence

Following commutation of his sentence, Giarratano was reassigned to the general prison population at Augusta Correctional Institution. There he set up a 14-week course at the prison on non-violence, with the help of columnist Colman McCarthy of the Washington Post , who had founded the Center for Teaching Peace. NBC nightly news covered the non-violence program; it received donations, including a grant from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. [15] The program was closed in 1995, due to "financial improprieties". The Department of Corrections later retracted the allegations as reported by the media. Giarrantano says that prison officials did not like it. [6]

Officials transferred Giarrantano for a time to the mental health unit at the Powhatan Correctional Center, then to the Buckingham Correctional Center. He was stabbed by another inmate and has asserted that officials spread the word that he was a "snitch", which they deny. They eventually moved him to a prison in Utah, for his own protection. It was later reported in the Richmond Times Dispatch that he was transferred to Utah Supermax because the Virginia Corrections Director "had a politically hot prisoner that he wanted get rid of". He was transferred to Joliet, Illinois, and returned to Virginia in March 1997. He had kept communication with supporters at Amnesty International and other groups. [6]

Giarratano recanted his confessions and was seeking parole when he was first eligible in the spring of 2004. Supporters still sought his freedom. In 2004, the state said they could not find any of the physical evidence collected from the crime scene in 1979, and "Norfolk and Virginia authorities have maintained that the biological evidence in Giarratano's case was destroyed years ago." At a hearing in 2004, his counsel was seeking this physical evidence in order to conduct DNA testing to exclude Giarratano from the scene. That forensic testing had not been available in 1979. [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Capital punishment in the United States</span> Legal penalty in the United States

In the United States, capital punishment is a legal penalty throughout the country at the federal level, in 27 states, and in American Samoa. It is also a legal penalty for some military offenses. Capital punishment has been abolished in 23 states and in the federal capital, Washington, D.C. It is usually applied for only the most serious crimes, such as aggravated murder. Although it is a legal penalty in 27 states, 20 states have the ability to execute death sentences, with the other seven, as well as the federal government, being subject to different types of moratoriums.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Capital punishment in California</span> Legal penalty in the US state of California

In the U.S. state of California, capital punishment is a legal penalty. However it is not allowed to be carried out as of March 2019, because executions were halted by an official moratorium ordered by Governor Gavin Newsom. Before the moratorium, executions had been frozen by a federal court order since 2006, and the litigation resulting in the court order has been on hold since the promulgation of the moratorium. Thus, there will be a court-ordered moratorium on executions after the termination of Newsom's moratorium if capital punishment remains a legal penalty in California by then.

Robin McKennel Lovitt is a convicted murderer in the U.S. state of Virginia. He was sentenced to death, after being convicted of the November 18, 1998 stabbing murder of Clayton Dicks in Arlington County, Virginia. Lovitt was granted clemency by Virginia Governor Mark R. Warner on November 29, 2005, the day before he was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at the Greensville Correctional Center.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Capital punishment in Texas</span> Overview of capital punishment in the U.S. state of Texas

Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Texas for murder, and participation in a felony resulting in death if committed by an individual who has attained or is over the age of 18.

Capital punishment was abolished in Virginia on March 24, 2021, when Governor Ralph Northam signed a bill into law. The law took effect on July 1, 2021. Virginia is the 23rd state to abolish the death penalty, and the first southern state in United States history to do so.

Green Haven Correctional Facility is a maximum security prison in New York. The prison is located in the Town of Beekman in Dutchess County. The New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision lists the address as Route 216, Stormville, NY 12582. This prison housed New York's execution chamber during the time the state briefly had the death penalty in the post-Furman era. It was originally a federal prison and now houses maximum security inmates. Green Haven Correctional Facility also operated a Hot Kosher Foods Program; but no longer does as of 2020. However, because of this, the prison had a large Jewish population. Yale Law School operates the Green Haven Prison Project, a series of seminars among Yale law students and Green Haven inmates on law and policy issues concerning prisons and criminal law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Potosi Correctional Center</span> Maximum security prison located near Mineral Point, Missouri

Potosi Correctional Center (PCC) is a Missouri Department of Corrections prison located in unincorporated Washington County, Missouri, near Mineral Point. The facility currently houses 800 death row, maximum security and high-risk male inmates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virginia Department of Corrections</span>

The Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) is the government agency responsible for community corrections and operating prisons and correctional facilities in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The agency is fully accredited by the American Correctional Association and is one of the oldest functioning correctional agencies in the United States. Its headquarters is located in the state capital of Richmond.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Morris Mason</span> American murderer (1954–1985)

Morris Odell Mason was an American convicted rapist and murderer who called himself "the killer for the Eastern Shore". He was executed for the murder of Margaret K. Hand, although he was responsible for at least one other murder committed during a killing spree days prior that involved multiple burglaries and sexual assaults. His execution was controversial due to his diagnosis with schizophrenia and developmental disabilities, the latter of which caused activists and even Mason's executioner to worry that Mason was not mentally sound enough to be aware of his impending execution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Morva</span> American criminal (1982–2017)

William Charles Morva was an American-Hungarian man convicted of the 2006 shooting deaths of Sheriff's Deputy Corporal Eric Sutphin, 40, and hospital security guard Derrick McFarland, 32, in the town of Blacksburg, Virginia. He was sentenced to death for the crime and was executed on July 6, 2017. Morva was the last inmate to be executed by the Commonwealth of Virginia before capital punishment in the state was abolished on March 24, 2021.

Capital punishment was abolished in Colorado in 2020. It was legal from 1974 until 2020 prior to it being abolished in all future cases.

Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution, even in places where no special facility or separate unit for condemned inmates exists. In the United States, after an individual is found guilty of a capital offense in states where execution is a legal penalty, the judge will give the jury the option of imposing a death sentence or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. It is then up to the jury to decide whether to give the death sentence; this usually has to be a unanimous decision. If the jury agrees on death, the defendant will remain on death row during appeal and habeas corpus procedures, which may continue for several decades.

Earl Washington Jr. is a former Virginia death-row inmate, who was fully exonerated of murder charges against him in 2000. He had been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in 1984 for the 1982 rape and murder of Rebecca Lyn Williams in Culpeper, Virginia. Washington has an IQ estimated at 69, which classifies him as intellectually disabled. He was coerced into confessing to the crime when arrested on an unrelated charge a year later. He narrowly escaped being executed in 1985 and 1994.

Richard Eugene Glossip is an American prisoner currently on death row at Oklahoma State Penitentiary after being convicted of commissioning the 1997 murder of Barry Van Treese. The man who murdered Van Treese, Justin Sneed, had a "meth habit" and agreed to plead guilty in exchange for testifying against Glossip. Sneed received a life sentence without parole. Glossip's case has attracted international attention due to the unusual nature of his conviction, namely that there was little or no corroborating evidence, with the first case against him described as "extremely weak" by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals.

Raymond George Riles is an American convicted murderer who was on death row in Texas from 1976 until he was resentenced to life imprisonment in June 2021. At the time of his resentencing, Riles had been on death row longer than anyone else in the United States. He was convicted of the December 1974 capital murder of John Henry, a Houston used car salesman. Riles was ruled competent to stand trial in the 1970s, but while on death row he was repeatedly found to be too mentally ill to execute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marie Deans</span>

Susan Marie Deans was an American anti-death penalty activist who was committed to finding attorneys for men who were facing execution without legal representation. Marie's work began on death row began in South Carolina in the early 1980s and continued in Virginia for the next twenty years where she won reduced sentences for over 200 death-row inmates in Virginia and South Carolina. A memoir of Deans' life and work, titled A Courageous Fool: Marie Deans and Her Struggle Against the Death Penalty, was released in 2017.

Madison v. Alabama, 586 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case regarding the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, barring cruel and unusual punishment. The case deals with whether the Eighth Amendment prohibits executing a person for a crime they do not remember.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julius Jones (prisoner)</span> American prisoner (born 1980)

Julius Darius Jones is an American prisoner and former death row inmate from Oklahoma who was convicted of the July 1999 murder of Paul Howell. His case has received international attention due to claims of innocence and controversy surrounding his trial and conviction. Jones was convicted of the crime on the basis of what the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals later characterized as an "overwhelming" body of evidence consisting of "a co-defendant who directly implicated Jones, eyewitness identification, incriminating statements made by Jones after the crime, flight from police, damning physical evidence hidden in Jones's parents' home, and an interlocking web of other physical and testimonial evidence consistent with the State's theory."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wilbert Lee Evans</span> Executed American inmate from Virginia (1946–1990)

Wilbert Lee Evans was an American convict who was executed in Virginia's electric chair for the murder of 47-year-old deputy sheriff William Gene Truesdale in Alexandria, Virginia. Truesdale's murder occurred in 1981 during Evans's attempted escape from custody, as Evans was accused of separate crimes in North Carolina and had been temporarily transported to Virginia to testify in another man's extradition hearing there.

References

  1. ↑ "Former Virginia death row inmate granted parole". Richmond Times-Dispatch. Associated Press. June 21, 2017. Retrieved June 21, 2017– via WMAR-TV.
  2. ↑ "Giarratano v. Com". Justia Law. Retrieved March 11, 2022.
  3. ↑ "Wilder Commutes Death Sentence", from The Washington Post, printed also in Los Angeles Times, February 20, 1991; accessed June 2, 2017
  4. ↑ "TERRY SAYS NO TO GIARRATANO". The Roanoke Times. February 21, 1991. Retrieved February 2, 2024.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Margolick, David (March 5, 1990). "Legal Scholar on Death Row Fights to Halt Own Execution". The New York Times. Retrieved June 16, 2012.
  6. 1 2 3 Frank Green, "Inmate has come a long way since 1979 sentence", Richmond Times-Dispatch, December 7, 1997, at Truth in Justice website; accessed June 2, 2017
  7. ↑ Colman McCarthy. Op-Ed: "More than a Reasonable Doubt", The Washington Post (opinion piece), February 16, 1991
  8. 1 2 [the state forensic lab admitted that biological evidence had been retained for possible future testing, but that they could not locate it, i.e. that it was lost, but not destroyed. Transcript of hearing available at freejoeg.com.tp://truthinjustice.org/giarratano2.htm Bill Geroux, "Judge isn't sure Giarratano evidence exists"], Richmond Times-Dispatch, January 22, 2004, at Truth in Justice website; accessed June 2, 2017
  9. ↑ "Representation in Capital Cases". Capital Punishment in Context. Retrieved June 16, 2012.
  10. ↑ Vollers, Maryanne (May 28, 1990). "As His Date with the Executioner Nears, Joe Giarratano Says He's No Killer—and Some People Believe Him". People . Retrieved June 16, 2012.
  11. ↑ "Va. death row inmate tried it a second time". The Free Lance-Star. November 30, 1985. p. 13. Retrieved June 16, 2012.
  12. 1 2 (June 2012) "Earl Washington" University of Michigan Law School, The National Registry of Exonorations, Retrieved November 14, 2014
  13. ↑ Bearss, Sara. "Virginia Libraries v50n1 - Virginia Reviews". Margaret Edds. An Expendable Man: The Near-Execution of Earl Washington Jr. New York and London: New York University Press, 2003. Archived from the original on December 24, 2013. Retrieved June 16, 2012.
  14. ↑ Jebb, John F. (2011). True Crime: Virginia: The State's Most Notorious Criminal Cases. Stackpole Books. ISBN   9780811745123.
  15. ↑ McCarthy, Colman. I'd Rather Teach Peace. Orbis Books, 2002, pp. 95–110
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.