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Sunday, June 10, 2007
Ind. Courts - "Lambert, now 36, is scheduled for lethal injection early Friday"
The Muncie Star-Press plans extensive coverage. A side-bar to a story published earlier this week reports:
Muncie resident Michael A. Lambert is scheduled to be executed early Friday, at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, for the 1990 slaying of city police officer Gregg Winters.The main story began:See Sunday's Star Press for articles on 11th-hour legal options being considered by Lambert's attorneys and the untimely deaths of law enforcement officers in Indiana.
Other articles next week will focus on how the case has impacted the Winters and Lambert families, and on local clergymen who oppose capital punishment.
If the execution order remains in effect, reporter Nick Werner will be at the state prison late Thursday and early Friday, providing live coverage for The Star Press and its Web site, www.thestarpress.com.
INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indiana Parole Board recommended Friday that Gov. Mitch Daniels deny clemency for Michael Lambert, the Muncie man convicted of killing a police officer 17 years ago.The Sunday story, by Nick Werner of the Star-Press, is available here. Some quotes:Lambert, now 36, is scheduled for lethal injection early Friday for killing Officer Gregg Winters on Dec. 28, 1990. Lambert was arrested for public intoxication and was in the back seat of Winters' cruiser when he pulled out a hidden gun and shot Winters five times in the head. The 32-year-old Winters died 11 days later. * * *
The parole board's decision is a recommendation and is not binding on the governor.
Jane Jankowski, spokesman for Daniels, told The Star Press the governor will review the board's decision and any other relevant material before determining whether or not to grant Lambert clemency.
"If there is a decision, it would likely come sometime next week in the days ahead of the execution," Jankowski said. * * *
[Winters' widow, Molly Winters] said she feared that the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago might take some action that would block Lambert's execution again.
Lambert's lawyers have asked the appeals court to recall a mandate it handed down last year that cleared the way for the state to proceed with the planned execution.
The appeals court, in a 2-1 decision, last year denied Lambert's request to again challenge a state Supreme Court's ruling regarding statements the jury heard from Winters' widow about the effect her husband's death had on her family.
The high court ruled the jury should not have heard the statements but concluded the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances and affirmed his death sentence. * * *
Lambert's attorneys also are asking Daniels to commute the death sentence to life in prison without parole.
They contend Lambert should be granted clemency because three of the state's five Supreme Court justices have at times during his court challenges ruled his death sentence is "constitutionally infirm."
Justice Frank Sullivan Jr. dissented about whether Lambert's sentence was proper in 1994, while Justices Theodore Boehm and Robert Rucker dissented at other times. But they never all three agreed at the same time.
MUNCIE -- With Michael Lambert's scheduled execution a week away, his attorney said he was cautiously optimistic that one of three legal options might result in a stay. * * *Freedman said he hoped Daniels would take into consideration that three of the state's five current Supreme Court justices have at times during his appeals ruled Lambert's death sentence was "constitutionally infirm."
The three, however, never agreed at the same time so the execution was never overturned.
"It's a unique scenario," Freedman said.
Lambert also has pleadings before the U.S. Court of Appeals asking that court to vacate the judgments of previous failed appeals. Lambert's pleadings are based on arguments that testimony from Winters' widow, Molly, and other police officers might have wrongfully influenced a jury's 1991 recommendation that he be executed, Freedman said.
The Indiana Supreme Court has ruled that the testimony did affect the jury, but that his crime warranted a death penalty sentence nonetheless.
Finally, Lambert has also filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana in Indianapolis alleging that Indiana's use of lethal objection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
He could ask the judge for an injunction that would delay his execution at least long enough to allow hearings in that case.
Similar efforts by David Leon Woods, a co-plaintiff in the same lawsuit, to win an injunction failed. He was executed May 4.
Lambert is now 36.
He was scheduled for execution June 22, 2005.
On June 17, 2005, however, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago stayed the execution for further review. A year later, that same court denied motions by Lambert to overturn his death sentence.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on June 10, 2007 08:22 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts