Banner Graphic, Volume 15, Number 382, Greencastle, Putnam County, 28 October 1985 — Page 3

Appeals being exhausted: Givan

Time running out on death row?

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) years since Indiana reinstituted the death penalty, no prisoner has gone to the electric chair against his will. But Chief Justice Richard M. Givan predicts that will change in the coming year as some of the longest tenured men on death row exhaust remaining remedies for appeal. One is James E. Brewer, 29, of Gary, sentenced to death in March 1978 for the shooting death of Steve Skirpan during a robbery at the victim’s westside Gary home. His first execution date was Sept. 15, 1978. It was reset for April 9,1981 and has been stayed ever since. Another is Thomas N. Schiro, 24, of Evansville, convicted in the 1981 strangulation-rape of Laura Jean Luebbehusen. Schiro was sentenced to die Jan. 28,1982. It was reset for Jan. 5, 1984 and has been stayed indefinitely. Schiro initially claimed he wanted to give up his appeal rights but reconsidered after a he-i ing before the state Supreme Court, which upheld his conviction and sentence Aug. 5, 1983. It was Brewer’s case that gave the Indiana Supreme Court its first opportunity to review the death penalty’s constitutionality in a adversarial setting. In January 1981, the justices had upheld

Huntington industrialist killed

Butane lighter explosion fatal

HUNTINGTON, Ind. (AP) A wealthy industrialist died of burns and heat asphyxiation when the butane lighter he was using to light a cigarette exploded, the Huntington County coroner said. “It’s a strange case,” said Coroner Greg Sprinkle of the death of William Schacht 11. “It’s not common, but one of the schools I’ve gone to says there have been several reports from around the country” of butane lighters exploding. The victim, who was president and chairman of the board of Schacht Rubber Manufacturing Co., died Friday about 5 p.m. from injuries suffered in the accident, Sprinkle said. He said Schacht may have released too much fuel from the lighter before attempting to use it. The victim was dressed in pajamas and a robe and sitting in a den at the time of the explosion, Sprinkle said. Schacht’s wife, Janet, was in the kitchen, smelled something burning and found the fire from

NASA art on display at school

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JOSEPH P. ALLEN 1959 DePauw graduate

A few words about pride.

The front runner in communications. And proud of it.

RICHARDM. GIVAN Sees death row change

the legality of the state’s ultimate punishment in reviewing the sentence for Steven Judy, who had insisted on waiving his appeal rights. At the time, the high court lamented that Judy’s was the first death penalty case to arrive at the court because there would be no advocacy on the of-

the explosion when she went to investigate, the coroner said. Mrs. Schacht attempted to extinguish the flames by throwing a blanket over her husband, and an employee of the family used a fire extinquisher in an attempt to douse the blaze, Sprinkle said. The robe was made from flammable material, according to the coroner.

CRAWFORDSVILLE, Ind. (AP) - The Crawfordsville Children’s Art Gallery has been chosen to display a collection of illustrations by the artists of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. “I wanted to see if there might be some way we could make a connection between scientists and artists,” said Robert Sabol, director of the two-year-old gallary at Hoover Elementary School. The paintings and drawings, created by NASA staff artists, depict what is expected to one day become reality. They include satellites, space stations, anti-gravity vehicles and other futuristic modes of space travel and human inhabitation of space. The selection of Crawfordsville for the exhibition is due in large part to hometown astronaut Joseph P. Allen, Sabol said. “All the kids got to hear Joe Allen speak at Crawfordsville High School a couple of years ago,” he added.

To a world striving to communicate, we provide quality communications products and services. In an era of technological advances, we are a leader in innovation. Yet our pride is being part of the communities we serve—the cities and towns which look to GTE for answers to communications needs. We’re proud of those communities and we’re proud to be part of them.

state

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fender’s side. The high court upheld the Brewer conviction and death sentence on March 6, 1981 a scant three days before Judy became the first person to be executed in Indiana in 20 years. William Vandiver of Hammond followed Judy to the electric chair four years later, the second person to be executed under the new death penalty law and the second to do so voluntarily. The appeal path is a tortuous one, zigzagging back and forth between the state and federal legal systems. It starts with a direct appeal of the conviction to the state’s highest court. If the case is upheld, it’s on to the U.S. Supreme Court to petition for review. If the Supreme Court declines to hear the case, often the next route is through the federal court system with a petition for a writ of habeas corpus challenging the legality of the imprisonment. That route takes a defendant through the federal appeals court and then again to the U.S. Supreme Court. If he's unsuccessful there, that isn’t the end of it. A defendant can file a postconviction relief petition in his trial court, claiming newly discovered evidence, incompetence of counsel or some other ground for a new trial. Th denial of the post-conviction relief petition means another trip through the state court system and then possibly

“His wife had been trying to talk him into getting a different one for that very reason,” Sprinkle said of the robe. Schacht had a habit of smoking while dressed in the robe and sitting in the den, he added. An autopsy was performed Saturday at Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne, according to Sprinkle. The body was taken to Hart Funeral Home in Huntington.

Allen, a Crawfordsville native and 1959 graduate of DePauw University in nearby Greencastle, was part of the crew on a Columbia space shuttle flight in 1982 and a Discovery space shuttle flight in 1984. “On a blind chance, I sent him a letter and asked if ... he could arrange for an exhibit,” Sabol said. Boyd Mounce, a public affairs specialist in visual information at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, arranged the exhibit. “This is the first time we’ve collected works by NASA artists for this purpose,” Mounce said. The showing of 21 illustrations and photos of art, entitled “Art of NASA Space Art,” is on public display through Nov. 27. Each piece took from 20 to 120 hours to complete, Mounce said. In putting the collection together, Mounce said, “I asked for as many originals as they could spare me.”

through the federal hierarchy. “They play this just seeing how far they can use the system to thwart the execution of the death penalty,’.’ Givan said. “They’re talking about finality here, so they will play that system as long as they can. I’m not being critical of the lawyers who represent them because that’s their duty, to vigorously represent their clients.” The chief justice emphasized that it is essential to have a meaningful opportunity to appeal. “I don’t think we want to live in a society where we have an ayatollah who says, ‘You’re going to get executed tomorrow without further adieu.’ We want to have some safeguards,” he said. “But on the other hand, these safeguards must have a reasonable culmination and the penalty must be carried out. Otherwise it would be a farce. That’s where the judiciary comes in,” Givan said. Indiana law requires automatic Supreme Court review of any death penalty case. Once that review is complete, the justices’ obligation technically ends. “This is what is confounding to the whole system. It just appears they can stay alive forever. They just keep filing stuff until, as a practical matter, they run out of gas,” he said.

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