Recent News:  

Feb. 7, 2006: Maryland's high court to hear lethal injection challenge. http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/ncadp/news.jsp?key=2206 

Feb. 6, 2006: Court stays execution of Evans; May arguments set. http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/ncadp/news.jsp?key=2187

Feb. 6, 2006: Court Blocks Evan's Execution in Maryland. http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/ncadp/news.jsp?key=2188

Feb. 6, 2006: Spare death-row inmates life, plead U.S. Catholic leaders. http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/ncadp/news.jsp?key=2191

Feb. 5, 2006: Catholic leaders urge the governor to commute Evan’s sentence.  http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/ncadp/news.jsp?key=2194

Feb. 5, 2006: Cardinal, Vatican Ask Governor To Spare Convict's Life. http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/ncadp/news.jsp?key=2199

Feb. 3, 2006: Catholic leaders urge Maryland Gov. Ehrlich to spare Evans. http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/ncadp/news.jsp?key=2184

Feb. 3, 2006: Death Row Inmate Proves an Unlikely Teacher for Students. http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/ncadp/news.jsp?key=2172&t=

Feb. 3, 2006: How a Maryland death row prisoner changed the rules of protest. http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/ncadp/news.jsp?key=2175&t=

Feb. 3, 2006: Evans' appeal on execution turned down in Maryland. http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/ncadp/news.jsp?key=2179&t=

Feb. 1, 2006: Evans pleads in video. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/politics/bal-md.death01feb01,1,6089350.story?coll=bal-local-headlines

Jan. 31, 2006: Judge denies Evans' appeal on death procedure. http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/ncadp/news.jsp?key=2162&t= 

Jan. 31, 2006: DNA Tests Gain Ground as Legal Defense for Evans. http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/ncadp/news.jsp?key=2153&t=   

Jan. 30, 2006: Evan's Lawyers Argue for Stay. http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/ncadp/news.jsp?key=2141&t=  

Jan. 26, 2006: A Death Row Blogger's Advice for Life. http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/ncadp/news.jsp?key=2128&t= 

Jan. 26, 2006: Evans' blog gives a glimpse of his life. http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/ncadp/news.jsp?key=2129&t=

Jan. 25, 2006: Hearing set Friday on request for execution stay. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/crime/bal-evans0125,1,2406461.story?coll=bal-local-headlines

Jan. 20, 2006: Evans' lawyers file death appeals. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/crime/bal-death0120,1,7330835.story?coll=bal-home-headlines

Jan. 20, 2006: ACLU Sues To Stop Md. Execution. http://www.thewbalchannel.com/news/6288499/detail.html

Do Not Execute Vernon Evans Jr.!

The State of Maryland is scheduled to execute Vernon Lee Evans Jr., a black man, for the 1983 shooting deaths of Scott Piechowicz and his sister-in-law, Susan Kennedy.  Prosecutors alleged that Evans entered into an agreement to kill Piechowicz and his wife, Cheryl, with drug dealer Anthony Grandison who believed the Piechowiczs were going to testify against him in a narcotics case.  Kennedy, mistaken for her sister, was killed instead.

Evans’ case involves many troubling issues that are common to capital punishment.  Like most of the men and women on death row, Evans lacked the resources to hire an attorney and was appointed one by the Court instead.  It often is said that those who are executed in the U.S. are the ones with the fewest resources, not necessarily the ones who commit the worst crimes.  This reality is highlighted by several mistakes that Evans’ lawyer made, albeit unwittingly, throughout his trial.  Most notably, Evans’ lawyer failed to either interview or present testimony of the one eyewitness to the shooting.  Since the trial, the eyewitness has testified under oath that Evans was not the killer.  According to the eyewitness the shooter was taller than Evans, who is only 5’2” and nicknamed “Shorty.”  Moreover, the clothes of the shooter were not the same as those Evans was wearing at the time the murders.

Evans was further disadvantaged by his court-appointed attorneys when they failed to provide important mitigating evidence to the jury in the sentencing phase of his trial.  Evans’ attorneys were ignorant of the American Bar Association’s guidelines instructing capital defense attorneys to investigate and present mitigating evidence.  Thus, the jury that sentenced Evans to death never heard about his regular childhood beatings at the hands of his father, the sexual assault he experienced as a young boy or that Evans attempted suicide at the age of ten (his family sought no treatment).  Nor did the jury have the opportunity to consider that Evans is no stranger to the streets.  The violence, crime, and brutality that he often witnessed affected him not only as an adolescent, but also as a father.  Evans has lost one son to random violence and another was paralyzed from a shooting.  Evans’ defense suffered significantly because the jury was never privy to this information.

The Maryland death penalty statutes that govern the sentencing phase of a capital trial make this mistake on the part of Evans’ attorneys even more consequential.  Currently, state law allows a killer to be executed if a jury finds that aggravating circumstances outweigh mitigating factors using a “preponderance of evidence” standard.  Evans’ attorney, A. Stephen Hut Jr., appealed Evans’ death sentence, arguing that Maryland’s current sentencing statutes is unconstitutional.  The Court of Appeals rejected this argument, but three judges dissented in the decision.  The three dissenting judges wrote that a state should require a jury to use a standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt” when weighing the aggravating factors against the mitigating ones.  Hut plans to take this issue to the U.S. Supreme Court.

There are other unsettling aspects to Evans’ case.  Several of the witnesses at Evans’ trial had committed perjury in previous testimonies before a grand jury and similar proceedings.  One such witness was Calvin Harper.  Harper claimed that he witnessed Evans’ acquisition of the firearm that was alleged to have been used in the murders.  Harper was allowed to testify, regardless of having admitted to lying while giving evidence before a grand jury.  Harper’s testimony is further called into question in the way that he identified Evans in his testimony before the grand jury, and later in Evans’ trial.  In both instances Harper was presented with a single photograph, as opposed to several, of Evans.  This process of identification was both suggestive and unreliable.  While the Maryland Court of Appeals admitted that exhibiting a single photograph of Evans was suggestive and a violation of criminal rules, they maintained there was no prejudice and denied that it was grounds for mistrial.

The most damaging testimony came from Charlene Sparrow, Evans’ girlfriend during the time of the murders, who received a deal from prosecutors in exchange for her testimony.  Sparrow acknowledged having lied under oath on two previous occasions in related proceedings.  Her testimony, like Harper’s, is dubious at best. 

Evans’ brought these facts to the attention of the Maryland Court of Appeals, but was met with a disconcerting response: “It was not abuse of discretion to allow prosecution witness to testify, notwithstanding evidence that witness had given various inconsistent versions of relevant facts, had lied under oath, was a prostitute and a user of drugs, had an unfortunate background and indicated that she would lie when it suited her purposes where evidence supported conclusion that witness understood and appreciated nature of an oath…” 

Evans’ case also epitomizes everything that is wrong with the death penalty in that he is a black man being executed for the murder of two white people in a state that is notorious for its death penalty’s racial disparities.  In a 2003 study, conducted by the University of Maryland and commissioned by then governor Paris Glendening, it was found that black-on-white murders are 2.5 times more likely to result in a death sentence than white-on-white murders, and 3.5 times more likely than black-on-black murders.  In Evans’ trial, the prosecution used eight out of ten of their preemptory strikes before trial to remove potential black jurors.  The study found that there are geographical disparities as well.  Clearly Evans was caught in the wrong county, with the wrong skin color, at the wrong time.

Evans’ execution was originally set for April of last year, but was granted a stay while the Maryland Court of Appeals investigated the new evidence brought to light by the University of Maryland study regarding the death penalty and racial disparities in Maryland.  In November the Maryland Court of Appeals upheld his death sentence, rejecting his argument that his conviction should be overturned because of the findings of the study.  On Jan. 9, 2006 Circuit Judge John G. Turnbull II signed Evans’ death warrant, calling for Evans to be executed within a five-day period beginning Feb. 6.  If Evans is executed it will be the third execution since Maryland’s current governor, Robert Ehrlich, took office. 

Please write Gov. Robert Ehrlich requesting that he stop the execution of Vernon Evans Jr.!

Click here to view the powerful video letter from Vernon Evans Jr. to MD Governor Robert Ehrlich: 

http://www.savevernonevans.org/ClemencyVideo.html