Category: random

The American Civil Liberties Union and Nevada Coalition against the Death Penalty called on the Pardons Board to block the October 15, 2007 execution of murderer William Castillo, who had withdrawn his appeals and asked that his execution be carried out.

In a letter to the board the two groups wrote, “We implore you to halt Monday’s execution and delay any other executions in Nevada until the United States Supreme Court has issued a decision on the constitutionality of lethal injection.”

Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of states to lethally injecting prisoners sentenced to death, opening the door for the state to resume the practice .

Nevada has been imposing capital punishment since before statehood, including the first known execution in November 1860 when a judge ordered the death of John Carr for the murder of Bernhard Cherry. Since then, the state has conducted some 60 executions using the hangman’s rope, shooting, the gas chamber and lethal injection.

There is no comprehensive list of legal executions before 1903 because, until then, they were conducted at the county seat where the person was convicted. Counting Carr’s hanging in Carson City, there are 20 known executions before 1903 including the first black man, Sam Mills, in 1.877, and the first American Indian, Indian Dave, in 1885.

The only woman ever executed in Nevada was Elizabeth Potts. She was hanged with her husband Josiah in 1890 in Elko.

Only one other woman has been ever put on Nevada’ s death row. Priscilla Ford rammed her car into a 1980 Thanksgiving crowd in downtown Reno, killing six and’ seriously injuring more than 20 people.

Ford died of emphysema at age 75 in January 2005.  Incidentally, the former Macy’s department store gift wrapper was driving a Lincoln Continental when she said she heard voices telling her to commit this crime .

And before he left Nevada for the last time, Mark Twain sent two newspaper reports about a Virginia City event to the Chicago Republican. It is Twain’s second letter, dated May 2, 1868, that he includes his eyewitness report of the hanging of John Millian, or Melanie as Twain writes, who had been convicted of murdering Virginia City prostitute Julia Bulette, the year before .

“I saw a man hanged the other day,” Twain starts. The great writer is well known for his wit, humor and biting sarcasm and it shows, “He was the first man ever hanged in this city (or country either), where the first twenty six graves in the cemetery were those of men who died by shots and stabs…”

His natural ability to poke fun at life is halted with the imagery of the condemned mans lifeless body, “I can see that stiff, straight corpse hanging there yet, with its black pillow-cased head turned rigidly to one side, and the purple streaks creeping through the hands and driving the fleshy hue of life before them.”

Both Bulette’s murder and Millian’s trial and execution are ranked among l9th-century Nevada’s landmark events. Over the years, the pair have reached near mythological status, Bulette as the prostitute with a golden heart and a haunting and Millian as the arch villain.

By l875, the Legislature banned public executions and in 1901 lawmakers ordered that all executions be conducted at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City.  The 1911 Legislature gave inmates the option of hanging or being shot to death.

The only man to take them up on the firing squad was Andriza Mircovich. He was killed by an automated rack of three rifles mounted on a frame in May 1913.

The Legislature ordered lethal gas as the state’s method of execution in 1921 and Nevada became the first state in the nation to gas an inmate in February 1924 when Gee Jon, a Chinaman, was executed.   A total of 32 men died in Nevada’s gas chamber between 1924 and 1979 when Jesse Bishop became the last to die by gas.

The state adopted lethal injection in l983.

At the time of this writing, 11 men have been executed by this method.  The nation’s high court decision yesterday concluded that while use of the death penalty itself might be debatable, the bench could not rule lethal injections violated the Constitution .

“A method of execution violates the eighth amendment only if it it’s deliberately designed to inflict pain,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion of the court’s 7-2 decision .

The Supreme Court’s decision was announced jus’ as Pope Benedict XVI was heading for his first visit to the White Bouse. Benedict is adamantly opposed to the death penalty and has raised his objections during a previous meeting with the President George Bush.

During an execution, a prisoner is first injected with a sedative to render the subject unconscious before the deadly substances of pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride follow to paralyze and kill. The ACLU and the NCDP both argued that a mistake in injecting the sedative sodium thiopental would cause the prisoner intense pain while dying.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one the two dissenting members, wrote in her opinion that there was no guarantee the prisoner would be adequately immune to pain, “I would not dispose of the case so swiftly given the character of the risk at stake,” Ginsburg wrote.

There is still no word on when those will start back up again in Nevada including William Castillo ‘s, whose execution was stopped this past fall with just 90 minutes to spare . The Nevada State Supreme Court will examine the High Court’s ruling before deciding how to move forward with stat executions.

It is a good thing to have a nation ruled by law and not by emotion.

It has been a very strange day in Northern Nevada. I woke up to a thin blanket of snow on the ground and a wind chill of nearly 17 degrees due to some crazy winds.

Those were a hold over from Monday where we had winds as high as 84 miles per hour.  Luckily I didn’t lose my fence like last year or any shingles again.

And to think that on Sunday we had a temp of 81 degrees.

Shortly before seven this morning we had the first of nine or ten minor earthquakes. I was walking out to my truck, taking my son to school when I felt it.

I had no idea what it was at first and I recall looking up at the sky because I thought I had heard a strange noise. I still couldn’t describe the sound if you asked me. I continued on believing it was either my imagination or a neighborhood sound.

Jus’ after I got home from dropping Kyle at school, he called to ask if I could bring him a clean shirt.  I was a little confused as I was certain he had left home with a clean one on.

As it turns out he had a huge noise bleed and it was all over his shirt. What a mess, but he’ll survive .

Then I went back into town to pick him up from school and forgot my cell phone. I hadn’t had a call on it all day so I didn’t even think about it.

That is until my wife called saying my boss needed me to fill in for a co-worker who is trying to pass a kidney stone. My wife called Kyle as he had his cell phone.

That means I’ve been at work in the newsroom of KOH this evening and no wind, no snow and no earthquakes to report on.

What luck, huh?

In Nevada, it ‘s blowing, snowing, shaking or baking and this is only day three of the week.

An ex-FBI agent claims Congressman Sonny Bono was clubbed to death by hit-men in 1998 and not killed in a skiing accident. Former FBI Agent Ted Gunderson says the politician was killed on the Nevada ski slopes by drug and weapons dealers who feared he was going to expose them.

He said the hit-men actually staged the tree collision.

According to Gunderson, “It’s nonsense for anyone to now try to suggest that Bono died after crashing into a tree. There’s zero evidence in this autopsy report to show such an accident happened. Instead, there’s powerful proof he was assassinated.”

The ex-agent has been researching the case for nearly a decade and says there was an “evil plot that was carried out to almost perfection by ruthless assassins .”

Gunderson says his findings are supported by top forensics experts who think Nevada authorities were too quick to label Bono’s death a skiing accident.

“There’ s no doubt in my mind Sonny was murdered by someone who needed him silenced,” Gunderson says.

He’s calling on authorities to open up an investigation into the Congressman’s death.

Charge of Quarters happened to exchange shifts every eight hours in the barracks. And at six Master Sergeant Goodwin handed Tommy the keys to the building, the logbook and went home. It was up to Tommy to make the rounds of the building. He leafed through the book to take note of how others had made their rounds.

The pattern was nearly always the same. Walk through the floor from which your bunk assignment was located then walk around the outside of the building. Of course, Tommy decided to be different.

His bunk was located right next to the outside door. If a person were coming in that door his room was on the right.

Tommy had one more stripe than everyone else. That made him the odd man out and he ended up with a room to himself. He stepped out into the hallway and face up the hall. “CQ, CQ, CQ, I have charge of quarters until 0200 hours.” That was the tradition for this barracks. With that Tommy turned and walked outside.

Texas evenings in the summer are hot, muggy affairs. This night was no different. It just seemed muggier. The skies were cloudy as well and there seemed to be a slight breeze blowing in from the south. “Thunderstorm,” Tommy said to himself.

After walking completely around the building and finding nothing out of the ordinary he headed up the outside stairs to the third floor. Men were not allowed on that floor, as it was a women’s dorm. He knocked on the door and asked one of the ladies if everything was okay. “Yes,” was her one word answer.

Then it was down the same set of stairs to the second floor. He entered the hallway and announced, “Charge of Quarters.” Several doors closed upon his announcement. “Whatever’s going on, I don’t care,” Tommy said to himself. Then he added as an after thought,” just as long as the building doesn’t burn down or blow up while on my watch.”

The same happened as he announced himself on the first floor. He walked through the length of the hallway and entered his room.

He sat down at his study area, opened the journal and wrote down, “1814 hours, nothing remarkable.” That was his entire log entry.

The next two hours were the same: nothing remarkable.

An hour later that would change. It was a couple minutes after nine when the base emergency siren sounded somewhere in the darkness. The wind had picked up and some rain fell. It evaporated as soon as it struck the hot pavement. The sky had a nasty dark pall to it.

The siren meant tornadoes.

The wind whipped Tommy’s hat away as he stepped outside. He started to chase after it but it disappeared into the shadows of the night. He continued on his fourth round.

The rain that fell, felt good. It cooled Tommy off in the heat of the evening. He could tell that a major storm was head their way. Then the lighting struck. It was a blinding flash of white light that left him temporarily without sight. The roaring boom of a thunderclap followed it closely.

He stood still waiting for his sight to adjust. Then he noticed that it was pitch dark. The lightning had struck a power pole on the other side of the mailroom and knocked out the electricity.

Still the siren wailed in the distance.

Tommy’s eyesight started to return, adjusting to the darkness of his surroundings. He headed up the outside steps towards the third floor.

Snap, buzz, pop!

Those were the three distinctive sounds he heard just south of where he stood. He looked in their general direction. What he saw caused a wave of alarm to rush over him. A cold sweat and a sick feeling in his stomach over took him, as he could hardly believe his eyes.

In the distance, cutting a wake of destruction were three funnel clouds. They were clearly out-lined in the cast of light of the power lines they snapped in half. They appeared to be getting closer.

Tommy bound up the stair well and pounded at the door. No answer. The tornadoes grew larger as the flashes silhouetted them. He knew he had to act.

The window shattered under the impact of his boot. Tommy reached inside and unlocked the door. He pounded on each individual door. Women poked their heads out of their rooms in disbelief that a man had come into their barracks against lawful orders. Tommy shouted at them to get to the bottom floor as quickly as possible.

“Tornado, tornado!” he shouted. “Get out now! Get to the first floor. Take cover!” he called out again and again.

Tommy ran down stairs to the second floor and repeated himself. There was a rush of activity. Men were racing for the nearest exit. He could hear the echoing of their boots on the steel grate step outside. He followed close behind.

The wind was vicious and unforgiving. He found it hard to breath and even harder to get the door open to the bottom floor and safety.

“Everyone, in the hallway,” Tommy screamed as loud as he could. The roar of the wind nearly drowned out the sound of his voice as he continued to shout instructions, “Lay down, now!”

All around them, they could hear glass shattering and wood breaking. Tommy could hear someone saying, “The Lord’s Prayer,” in the huddled mass of humanity hiding on the hallway floor.

Then the barracks shook as if the wind had picked each brick up one by one in rapid succession and laid them back down. The building heaved, and then it groaned.

Then there was silence

They remained huddled in the cramped hallway in complete silence and the darkness of the night. Soft crying and whispers could be heard.

“O’Gorman, Smith?” Tommy asked, breaking the silence.

“Yeah,” answered one of then the other.

“Keep everyone right here—I’m going for help,” Tommy directed.

“Okay,” O’Gorman with his soft Irish Brogue called back as Tommy headed for the exit. He had to push hard as the steel frame of the stairs had been ripped away from the wall and partly blocked the door from opening. He slipped passed the twisted metal.

There was a beam of light in the distance. “Over here,” he called out,

“Tommy! Is that you?” A voice replied back

“Yes sir! Frank?” Tommy responded. It was Sergeant Joseph. He rushed up to meet him.

“You okay?” he asked.

Tommy nodded his head yes to the question. “We’re all down on the first floor. The stair way is damaged,” I reported.

He told Tommy to turn around and take a look at the building. He lifted his flashlight up and ran it along the top of the building.

The lump in Tommy’s throat made it hard to swallow. The third floor was missing and the middle section of the second floor was torn away and lay in a pile of rubble on the ground stretching out into the parking lot.

Later that week, a Board of Inquiry was convened. They wanted to know if any lawful orders had been violated when Tommy entered the women’s dormitory by force. He stood before the Board and admitted that he had kicked in the window and had run through the third floor. Tommy also told the Board that he knew he was forbidden from entering that floor.

Upon his admission, the Board had no other choice but to request two Article Fifteens, which is non-judicial military punishment. The first one was for willfully damaging and destroying government property. The second one was for disobeying a lawful order from a superior officer.

“You know I don’t want to do this to you,” Captain Smith said as he laid the paper work out on his desk.

“Yes, sir,” Tommy said.

“If it was up to me I’d give a commendation for saving those women’s lives,” the Captain continued.

Again, Tommy said, “Yes, sir.” Then the Captain handed Tommy his pen. He quickly signed the Articles and came back to attention.

The Captain cleared his throat and shouted “Attent-hutt!” Everyone snapped too. Then he said, “I salute you.” With that he raised his right hand to the brow of his eye.

Momentarily puzzled to have an officer salute him, Tommy looked over to Sergeant Joseph who had turned and was saluting as well.

Tommy raised his hand in full salute and shouted “Sir, thank-you, sir!”

Yesterday was the funeral for Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Kara Kelly-Borgeone, who was involved in a collision February 20. The crash did not immediately kill her.

She was placed on life-support after it was found that her brain had died from the injuries she sustained in the accident. It wasn’t until Thursday of the same week that she was taken off life-support and the rest of her body caught up with her brain.

Her organs were harvested and through that action she has possibly saved the lives of several other people in the world. Too bad she had to die to make such a great impact on a few hundred strangers’ lives.

Back in 2006 Kara was involved in a shooting after she and her partner attempted to arrest a parole. At the time she was working for Nevada Parole and Probation or perhaps Washoe County either way when the parole attempted to take her pistol out of her holster a struggle started.

The parolee was shot in the head during the struggle, but kept charging her. She was forced to shoot the man in the chest three times.

He later died at the hospital.

It was the first and only time I ever spoke to her. I remember thinking that Kara was both beautiful and tough.

What will be interesting to learn is how come she had to die. The state is looking at the accident itself.

Yes, that did kill her but why was she rolling Code-3 north on Pyramid Highway to begin with?

A call had come in about a mysterious plastic cooler that the employees saw about 100 feet or so from their store. The store in question is Terrible’s, at the corner of Pyramid and La Posada Drive, in an on­ going construction zone.

When the Consolidated Bomb Unit arrived on scene and blew the suspicious container up, they discovered it held a core sample of concrete. Contractors place these samples in these containers, tape them shut and label them to learn how the concrete is curing.

This is where the state ought to investigate. In my estimation, Kara died for little more than a piece of concrete and the over zealous wish to blow the hell cut cf something.

Comfort food; that’s what I need at this moment.

It comes after I watched hundred’s of law enforcement escort a fallen Bureau of Indian Affairs officer to her final resting place. To see the line of every kind of police , sheriff, state, federal and tribal vehicle — with it’s blue and red lights flashing, in this sad procession is heart wrenching.

It’s made even more wrenching when the back story is known. Officer Denise Phoenix died on Valentine’s Day jus’ months after she being exposed to chemical fumes emitted from a meth-lab she and her fellow officers busted up in Montana.

This is not the worst of it.

Eight years ago, Officer Phoenix lost her two children, Justin and Shasta Surace to a driver who suffered a medical event of some sort while driving. Also killed in the crash were her brother Ronald Phoenix and the driver of the errant car, Lafayette Lee.

I was one of the first people to come upon the scene and attempt to offer aid.

Since that time she fought and eventually won a battle to have a barrier erected dividing the north and south bound roadway on which three of her family members perished. The skid marks on the barrier are proof that lives are being saved since its installation.

She passed that spot this morning — one final time along the Pyramid Highway, en route to Nixon, Nevada. There are three crosses erected in the spot where her children and brother died.

She also passed by the barrier that she was so instrumental in having put up to save lives.

Currently, a request is before Nevada’s U.S. Senator Harry Reid to have that section of the Pyramid Highway between Sparks Boulevard and Highland Drive to the north and Golden View Drive to the south named in her honor. It would be fitting for this courageous officer who did so much for this community and lost so much at the same time.

Yes, I need some comfort food to nourish the sadness I feel for Officer Phoenix’s family. Then perhaps a good cry as well.

Tommy and Adam visited Grandpa every year when it was time to gather the hay. The summer was no exception. Except that they got in an awful lot of trouble that summer. They had lots of help from each other.

Adam talked Tommy into doing the darnedest thing. He talked him into sneaking into Mr. Breedon’s watermelon patch…in broad daylight! Adam offered Tommy a bit of his wisdom “Nobody would ever think we’d be crazy enough to steal water melons in the middle of the day.” Tommy took the bait, hook, line and sinker.

They crept and sneaked and belly crawled their way into the patch. They found the biggest, sweetest watermelon they had ever laid their eyes on. It was so big that, it took both of them to pick it up. Then they started to sneak out.

Click! Click!

Adam took off at a dead run. He left Tommy standing there, balancing that big old eye-popping watermelon in his arms. Tommy was hanging onto it for dear life.

Bang! Bang!

Later that evening, after Grandpa cleaned the rock salt out of Tommy’s hide and tanned Adams, they sat down to dessert and a quiet conversation. “Well, boys, guess you learned a thing or two today.” Grandpa said. It was a statement more than a question.

“Yes, sir,” they responded together. Neither boy could find the courage to look Grandpa in the eye, because each knew that they had done a bad thing. Stealing was wrong.

Grandpa cleared his throat and said, “Never under estimate the number of nobody’s in the world, boys. Nobody can suddenly become somebody especially if you’re making off with his prize melon. Understand?”

The boys replied, “Yes. Sir”

“Also, don’t ever expect your brother to bail you out of trouble that you got yourself into. He could end up leaving you holding that melon. Correct?” Grandpa continued.

“Yes, Grandpa,” they said in one voice.

Grandpa chuckled out loud and then concluded, “Finally, Tommy, you should have ducked when you heard the ‘click-click’ while stealing that melon. Now, pass your Grandpa another piece, Tommy would you?”

O Columbine, lovely purple flower,
Light like the last morning star;
Bright as the rising evening star;
Come unto those in this needed hour
With beauty, comfort near and far,
Bringing forth Christ’s healing power.

There are times when I just want to write. It doesn ‘t matter what the subject is or if I know all the facts.

It ‘s just a case of needing to write. Many times I am hit by what I called the ‘writing bug’ late at night, after everyone including myself has laid down for the night. It is difficult to say why this is.

In all honesty, I thought writing would be my ticket upward in this world ever in need of more and more information. However I’m still a weekend news reporter with very little  to show for picking up his pen save middle age, which comes on me quickly.

When I look around, I’ve come to the conclusion that having good communication and reasoning skills are not enough. Now I wish I had learned to work with my hands repairing engines or doing piece-work in some factory.

Certainly, neither of those two jobs would have been as satisfying as seeing or hearing my words being put to use, but at least I might feel somewhat accomplished . Right now I don’t feel accomplished at anything, especially when I see others my age and younger moving ahead of me in their chosen career fields.

A few years ago I was attack for my thoughts and beliefs. I was accused of being unethical; however it anyone were to truly take the time to dig down beyond all the crap that has been said of me, they ‘d find people who were and remain afraid of being discovered for having no position other than to attack others .

No, I didn’t take any of the rhetoric seriously. How can one?

These sorts of’ people value very little in themselves and only feel good when they think they ‘ve hurt others. All they managed to do was get me fired from a very short­ sighted liberal newspaper .

For that I’ll take credit alone. None of these people are important enough to have caused such a thing with their twisting of sentences and out-and-out lying.

And most of what they said and did was exactly that fabrication by rephrase .

But rather than run and hide, I have a great desire to continue writing . This is what I enjoy, though there is very little fame or fortune in it.

This is when I am at my happiest.

Perhaps someday I will find a greater reward than a part­ time job or working for a mediocre company. Maybe one day I’ll find that just-right relationship where they actually value my ability to connect words and thought together in a cohesive sentence.

My 15-year-old son, Kyle made three very interesting and pointed statements today. I found them to be both funny and true.

And I thought I’d share them with you.

My new cell phone gives me problems from time to time. I handed it to Kyle this afternoon to fix.

He resolved my difficulty within seconds, handing my phone back to me and saying, “If it weren’t for us kids, you parents would be technologically challenged.”

While on our way to the store, Kyle and I were listening to a radio talk show. They were discussing all the new laws in the Golden State. That prompted this response from him, “As I understand it, Nevada is the new west coast since California doesn ‘t think the U.S. exists .”

As we were checking out, I told Kyle to go grab himself a soda pop. He told ·me, “I can’t have a soda even though I want one because I gotta keep myself clean.”

Each one got a laugh out of me.