The following clip is for those of you still eager to see a woman get executed, though, since so many Arizonan's are disappointed now. The movie is Dancer in the Dark. Enjoy.
For those of you who find executing human beings offensive, on the other hand, please come to a legislative summit on the death penalty in Arizona, which is second only to Texas in the number of prisoners we executed last year.
Here is the flyer
Legislative Summit
Death Penalty Alternatives for Arizona
AZ Senate Building , Hearing Room 1
(1700 W, Washington St. Phoenix)
September 13th at 9am
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Debra Milke, Arizona woman who had murder conviction tossed, freed
updated 6:18 PM EDT, Fri September 6, 2013
A short time after the
Maricopa County Sheriff's Office indicated she'd be leaving, video
showed someone who appeared to be Milke being driven away Friday from
the Lower Buckeye Jail in Phoenix. Sheriff's office spokesman Brandon
Jones subsequently confirmed that Milke had been released.
Even though she's no
longer behind bars -- leaving the jail without addressing reporters --
Milke's legal ordeal may not be over.
Arizona Attorney General
Tom Horne said in March that his office would appeal to the U.S. Supreme
Court the judge's decision to toss her conviction and the death
sentence that went with it.
9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' Chief Judge Alex Kozinski ruled this spring that Milke did not receive a fair trial.
Milke still faces charges and was released on bond pending the possibility of a retrial.
Milke's legal team will
at some point address the media about their client's release, though
it's not known when, said one of the lawyers, Lori Voepel.
A jury convicted Milke of
murder, conspiracy to commit murder, child abuse and kidnapping on
October 12, 1990, less than a year after her 4-year-old son was found
dead. She was sentenced to death a few months later.
A day after seeing Santa
Claus at a mall, young Christopher Milke asked his mother if he could
go again.
That was the plan, she said, when the boy got into the car
with Milke's roommate, James Styers.
Styers picked up a
friend, "but instead of heading to the mall, the two men drove the boy
out of town to a secluded ravine, where Styers shot Christopher three
times in the head," according to Kozinski's summary of the case. Styers
was convicted of first-degree murder in the boy's killing and sentenced
to death.
During her trial, "no
... witnesses or direct evidence (linked) Milke to the crime" other than
Phoenix police Detective Armando Saldate Jr., according to Kozinski.
The detective questioned
Milke -- an interrogation that wasn't recorded or seen by anyone else
-- and later claimed she'd confessed to her role in the murder
conspiracy, saying it was a "bad judgment call."
But Milke offered a vastly different view of the interrogation and denied that she had admitted to any role in a murder plot.
"The judge and jury
believed Saldate," Kozinski wrote in his March ruling overturning
Milke's murder conviciton. "But they didn't know about Saldate's long
history of lying under oath and other misconduct."
The judge explained that
he'd made his decision because prosecutors did not disclose the
"history of misconduct" of its key witness.
Unbeknown to the defense
or to the jury, previous judges had tossed out four confessions or
indictments because Saldate had lied under oath, among other issues.
Horne, the Arizona attorney general, has argued the woman should remain on death row, given his understanding of what happened.
"After dressing him up
and telling him he was going to the mall to see Santa Claus, Milke was
convicted of sending her young son off to be shot, execution style, in a
desert wash," he said.
