Death Sentence

HOUSTON - Less than a week after the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the death sentence of a Texas inmate because of racially biased testimony in his case, the state attorney general announced that six other convicted killers are likely to get their death sentences overturned for the same reason. A two-month investigation by Attorney General John Cornyn focused on capital cases involving Walter Quijano, a clinical psychologist who has often served as an expert witness for prosecutors across Texas in sentencing hearings.

EASTON -- More than two years after receiving a death sentence for killing a Maryland state trooper, a North Carolina man learned yesterday that he will instead spend the rest of his life in prison.Twenty-seven-year-old Ivan F. Lovell sobbed in the arms of his attorney after a jury foreman read the ruling that will spare his life -- unlike the decision of another Talbot County jury in June 1996 that ordered his execution.Lovell was convicted of killing Tfc. Edward A. Plank Jr. after a traffic stop on U.S. 13 in rural Somerset County on Oct. 17, 1995.

Maryland's highest court overturned yesterday the death penalty for the man who pleaded guilty to the 1995 murder of a Maryland state trooper on the Eastern Shore because, it said, the trial judge failed to define "youthful age" for the jury that was considering the sentence.But the Court of Appeals upheld Ivan F. Lovell's guilty plea on first-degree murder in the death of Trooper Edward A. Plank Jr.tTC The court's action returns the case to Talbot County for a new jury to decide whether the Manteo, N.C., resident should be put to death or serve life in prison.

LEONARDTOWN -- A sentencing hearing for John Frederick Thanos was set for tomorrow after he was convicted last night of the Aug. 31, 1990, robbery and murder of a young Eastern Shore welder.After just one day of testimony, St. Mary's County Circuit Court Judge Marvin S. Kaminetz last night pronounced Thanos guilty of first-degree murder, felony murder, armed robbery, a handgun violation and theft over $300.The judge, who threw out a charge of kidnapping for lack of evidence, then set tomorrow's sentencing hearing.

A 28-year-old one-time Navy seaman who had wanted to became a Maryland state trooper was sentenced to death yesterday -- for a second time -- for the murders of his former fiancee and her friend.Darris A. Ware stood stone-faced as somber jurors read a decision they reached after two tense hours of haggling and discussion in a jury room at the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court House. Theirs is the first jury-imposed death sentence in the county in more than 30 years, lawyers said. The only other sentences they might have chosen were life and life without the possibility of parole.

Condemned inmate Flint Gregory Hunt took a step closer to the Maryland gas chamber yesterday as a Baltimore circuit judge denied an appeal of his death sentence.The denial by Judge David Ross sets the stage for prosecutors to seek a warrant for his execution for the 1985 killing of Baltimore police Officer Vincent Adolfo. That means an execution could take place as early as June, although appeals could delay it by months."We're seriously considering filing for a death warrant soon," said Baltimore Assistant State's Attorney Timothy J. Doory.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court overturned a Pennsylvania man's death sentence yesterday, saying his court-appointed lawyers failed to adequately investigate evidence that could have persuaded a jury to spare his life. The 5-4 ruling gives teeth to a prior decision that heightened standards for defense lawyers in capital cases. And it provides important context for a federal law aimed at limiting death row appeals. The ruling will have the most immediate impact for Ronald Rompilla, who beat, stabbed and set afire an Allentown, Pa., tavern owner in 1988.

HOUSTON -- Texas Gov. Rick Perry spared the life of death row inmate Kenneth Foster Jr. yesterday, just hours before he was to be executed for a murder he did not personally commit. Perry's decision to commute the death sentence of Foster, the getaway driver in a 1996 botched robbery that ended in a fatal shooting, came after the governor received a rare recommendation to do so from the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. "After carefully considering the facts of this case, along with the recommendations from the Board of Pardons and Paroles, I believe the right and just decision is to commute Foster's sentence from the death penalty to life imprisonment," Perry said in a statement.

As his mother looked on, Wesley Eugene Baker's supporters rallied yesterday to protest his impending execution, waving signs and listening to a half-dozen speakers call for an end to a death penalty that they consider racist and unfair. "The death penalty's immoral, it's barbaric and it doesn't even hold up to scrutiny in terms of doing what it is supposed to do as a deterrent," Michael Stark, a spokesman for the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, told about 20 supporters outside the Supermax prison on East Madison Street in Baltimore, where Baker is being held.