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Aging of Death Row Raises Humanitarian and Practical Concerns, As Alabama Executes 83-Year Old PrisonerPosted: April 20, 2018
Death row is aging and increasingly infirm and, as a series of recent death warrants suggest, that phenomenon is raising legal, practical, and humanitarian concerns. One year after executing 75-year-old Thomas Arthur, Alabama on April 19 executed 83-year-old Walter Moody (pictured, left), the oldest person and only octogenarian put to death in the United States since executions resumed in 1977. Attempts to execute prisoners debilitated by physical and cognitive impairments exacerbated by aging have proven problematic and inhumane. After canceling his previously scheduled cancer surgery to issue a death warrant, Alabama failed for 2 1/2 hours to set an intravenous line to execute gravely ill 61-year-old Doyle Hamm on February 22. His lawyer moved to bar the state from trying a second time, describing the failed attempt as "torture." Ohio tried and failed to execute terminally ill 69-year-old Alva Campbell (pictured, center) in November 2017. He then died of his terminal illness on March 3. And in late January 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court halted Alabama's scheduled execution of 67-year-old Vernon Madison (pictured, right), who is legally blind, incontinent, and unable to walk independently, and suffers from vascular dementia caused by strokes that have left him with no memory of the offense for which he was sentenced to death. The Court on February 26 agreed to review his claim that his illness leaves him mentally incompetent to be executed. A Washington Post review of Department of Justice data reported that the percentage of death-row prisoners aged sixty or older has more than doubled this century, up from 5.8 percent of U.S. death rows in 2007 to 12.2 percent in 2013. The aging of the row has also affected executions. An Associated Press review of the Death Penalty Information Center execution database found that the median age of an executed prisoner in the U.S. rose from 34 to 46 between 1983 and 2017. A DPIC analysis of U.S. execution data found that only two of the 933 prisoners executed in the United States between 1977 and 2004 were aged 65 or older. That total was matched in a single 35-day period this year between March 15 and April 19, when Georgia executed 67-year-old Carlton Gary and Alabama executed Mr. Moody. In 23 years of executions between 1977 and the close of the 20th century, ten prisoners aged 60 or older were executed. Thirty-six have already been executed this decade, 13 since 2015 alone. The aging of death row raises humanitarian issues, separate and apart from the risk of botched executions. Speaking to Associated Press, DPIC Executive Director Robert Dunham noted that, while many of the prisoners facing execution have been convicted of terrible crimes, the public is "torn between wanting to punish [them] severely and the belief it is beneath us as a nation to kill a frail person who is already dying. It's a challenge to our morality and our sense of humanity," Dunham said. The attempts to execute the infirm also have attracted international attention and approbation. When Alabama sought to execute Madison, David O'Sullivan, the European Union's Ambassador to the United States, wrote "an urgent humanitarian appeal" to Alabama Governor Kay Ivey not to execute him. The Ambassador's letter reminded Alabama that "[t]he execution of persons suffering from any mental illness or having an intellectual disability is in contradiction to the minimum standards of human rights, as set forth in several international human rights instruments." When Ohio sought to execute Campbell, his lawyer, assistant federal defender David Stebbins, predicted that the execution could become a "spectacle" if prison staff were unable to find a suitable vein. "All of this in an attempt to execute an old and frail man who is no longer a threat to anyone," Stebbins said. In a statement that applies to more and more prisoners facing death warrants, Madison's lawyer, Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative, summed up the issue: "Killing a fragile man suffering from dementia," he said, "is unnecessary and cruel."
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Professor John Bessler Traces Italian Philosopher's Abolitionist Legacy in New Book and ArticlePosted: April 19, 2018
In 1764, Italian philosopher Cesare Beccaria wrote the treatise, Dei delitti e delle pene, which author John Bessler (pictured) says spawned global movements for fair and proportional punishment and against practices such as torture and the death penalty. Beccaria's book was a best-seller that swept across Europe and, translated into English in 1767 as An Essay on Crimes and Punishments, into the American colonies, shaping the beliefs of America's founding fathers, and influencing leaders, revolutionaries, and law reformers. In two recent publications, Bessler—a law professor and author of numerous books on the death penalty—traces the lasting influence of the 18th-century Italian nobleman and describes how Beccaria's advocacy of equal treatment under the law and his powerful opposition to torture and the death penalty remains relevant today and has inspired an international movement that, he says, now "involv[es] scores of highly respected anti-death penalty activists and organizations." Bessler's latest book, The Celebrated Marquis, takes its title from a compliment given to Beccaria by the delegates of the Continental Congress. In it, Bessler describes how Beccaria's ideals have taken root in the U.S. and shaped progressive criminal justice reforms across a span of 250 years. His article, The Abolitionist Movement Comes of Age, published in the winter 2018 issue of the Montana Law Review, chronicles Beccaria's historical impact on efforts to abolish the death penalty across the globe. "There was a time when death sentences and executions were almost universally embraced throughout the world and when the punishment of death was the mandatory punishment for a wide array of felonies," Bessler writes. "That has largely changed, with those changes in law and practice taking place in many nations." The death-penalty debate, he writes, has transformed over the centuries "from one that originally focused on absolute power, the divine right of kings, and the asserted right of monarchs to take human life with impunity, to one focused on whether it violates basic or fundamental human rights for the state to kill individual offenders." Comparing it to the anti-slavery movement in the 19th century, Bessler says "today's global anti-death penalty movement ... has finally come into its own on the international stage." Looking forward, he says, one can see a day in the not too distant future in which there is a peremptory international norm against executions and the death penalty itself joins torture as a prohibited international practice.
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Vicente Benavides, Sentenced to Death by False Forensics, to Be Freed After 26 Years on Death RowPosted: April 18, 2018
Mexican national Vicente Figueroa Benavides (pictured), wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in Kern County, California for supposedly raping, sodomizing, and murdering his girlfriend's 21-month-old daughter, will soon be freed after nearly 26 years on death row. He will be the 162nd person and fifth foreign national exonerated from a U.S. death row since 1973. In a media advisory on April 17, 2018, Kern District Attorney Lisa Green announced on April 17, 2018 that her office would be dropping all charges against Benavides, one month after the California Supreme Court vacated the former farmworker's convictions for sexually assaulting and murdering Consuelo Verdugo, which the court called a product of "extensive," "pervasive," "impactful," and "false" forensic testimony. The girl, the court said, had never been sexually assaulted and may actually have died from being hit by a car. At trial, the prosecution presented testimony from forensic pathologist Dr. James Diblin, who told the jury that Consuelo had died from "blunt force penetrating injury of the anus" and claimed that many of her internal injuries were the result of rape. He further testified that arm injuries, other internal trauma, dilated pupils, and compression rib fractures she had sustained had been "caused by tight squeezing during a sexual assault." During post-conviction proceedings, Benavides's lawyers presented evidence from Dr. Astrid Heger, one of the country's leading experts on child abuse, debunking Diblin's false testimony. Dr. Heger described Diblin's assertion that Consuelo's injuries had been the product of sexual assault as "so unlikely to the point of being absurd. … No such mechanism of injury has ever been reported in any literature of child abuse or child assault." Rather, she said, the internal injuries Consuelo sustained were commonly seen in victims of automobile accidents. Hospital records and witness statements obtained by Benavides's appeal lawyers also undermined Diblin's false testimony. Records showed that the examining physicians from Consuelo's initial hospitalization had not seen any signs of bleeding when she was brought to the emergency room, and a nurse who helped treat Consuelo reported that neither she nor any of her colleagues had seen evidence of anal or vaginal trauma when the child arrived. Indeed, the court said, the medical records showed that the injuries to Consuelo's genitalia and anus that Diblin had claimed were evidence of sexual assault were actually "attribut[able] to medical intervention," including repeated failed efforts to insert a catheter and the improper use of an adult-sized catheter on the small child. Associate Justice Carol Corrigan—a former prosecutor—described the forensic testimony that Benavides had brutally raped and anally sodomized Consuelo as "among the most hair-raising false evidence that I've encountered in all the time that I've been looking at criminal cases." On appeal, prosecutors admitted that the forensic evidence they used to convict Benavides was false, but asked the state court to sustain a conviction for second-degree murder. Even after agreeing on April 17, 2018 to drop all charges, District Attorney Green refused to concede that Benavides was innocent of murder. "[I]t doesn't mean he's innocent of the physical child abuse," she said. "My decision not to retry the case is not the same as a finding of factual innocence[.] I'm not stating in any way that he's factually innocent of the death of the child." At least ten men and women have been exonerated from death rows across the United States after having been wrongly convicted for killing a child. In the cases of Rodricus Crawford and Sabrina Butler, the medical evidence also showed that no crime had occurred, but the defendants were convicted based on false forensic testimony. Benavides is the fourth person exonerated from California's death row since 1980. A California prison spokesperson said he is expected the be freed "within a few days," as soon as the Kern County court orders his release. [UPDATE: The court formally dismissed all charges against Mr. Benavides and he was released on April 19, 2018.]
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Sister of Murder Victim and Wife of Death-Row Exoneree Says Death Penalty Fails Victims' Family MembersPosted: April 17, 2018
As the sister of a murder victim and the wife of a death-row exoneree, LaShawn Ajamu has a unique perspective on what victims' families need and how they are treated as criminal cases wend their way through the legal process. And the co-chair of the Murder Victims Families Support Project at Ohioans to Stop Executions strongly believes that the death penalty fails victims' family members. Ajamu, the wife of 150th U.S. death-row exoneree Kwame Ajamu, spoke in London, England on April 7 at a conference of LifeLines, an international organization that provides support for prisoners on death row in the United States. Ajamu's brother, James Nero, was shot to death, but his accused killer—the son of a former Stark County, Ohio sheriff—claimed self-defense and was acquitted. "When the court case was over," Ajamu said, "[t]here was no help except from our own community. My parents, my two other brothers, James's fiancé and my nephew never received any information about resources available to help us deal with the situation in which we found ourselves. None of us had ever experienced traumatic loss like this." Ajamu said that states need to provide "a simple guide and a list of resources that can help the loved ones of murder victims," including trained grief counselors, assistance with funeral arrangements, and financial assistance. Frustrated at the lack of support available to her family, Ajamu became an advocate for the families of murder victims. Ajamu also advocates protecting the integrity and neutrality of government victim assistance programs by making them independent of county prosecutors, where they are housed in most states. "I'm here to tell you that if the crime victim is somehow found in disfavor, or if the victims' family disagrees with the prosecutors' office, their services dry up. That must be unacceptable. Victim services personnel should not be beholden to the county prosecutor." These services, not the death penalty, are what truly help victims' families, she said. "[E]very time they are trying to execute a prisoner, the politicians come out and say 'We need to do this for the murder victims family.' 'We need executions so that the victims family can heal, or have closure.'" Instead of executions, she said, family members "want the truth about what happened, and we want the killer held accountable in a way that he can't do it again. No amount of killing is going to bring our loved one back, and we certainly don't want the state using our pain and suffering to justify another family losing their loved one — even if they are guilty." The death penalty further victimizes families, she said, because the comparative infrequency with which it is sought and obtained is "really saying to most of us is that our loved ones were not valuable enough to them." Finally, she says, her husband's experience proves that "the state makes mistakes. ... No murder victim['s] family wants an innocent person held accountable for the loss of their loved one. Not only does that create more victims, but it leaves the real killer free to kill again. Get rid of the death penalty and you won't risk executing the wrong person," she said.
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Former Prosecutors Say Intellectually Disabled Louisiana Man Entitled to New Trial After Exculpatory Evidence WithheldPosted: April 16, 2018
Forty-four former state and federal prosecutors and Department of Justice officials—including former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey—have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to grant a new trial to Corey Williams (pictured), saying that Caddo Parish, Louisiana prosecutors violated their duty to ensure that "justice shall be done" by withholding exculpatory evidence in a murder case that sent an intellectually disabled teenager to death row. Williams's petition alleges that police and prosecutors knew that Williams had been framed by the actual killers, that police coerced him to falsely confess, and that the prosecution deliberately withheld witness statements given to police that could have helped Williams prove he had been framed. No physical evidence linked Williams to the 1998 robbery and murder of Jarvis Griffin, who was delivering a pizza to a Shreveport home. Several witnesses said they saw Gabriel Logan, Nathan Logan, and Chris Moore (nicknamed "Rapist") steal money and pizza from Griffin, while the sixteen-year-old Williams was simply standing outside at the time. The victim's blood was found on Gabriel Logan's sweatshirt; Nathan Logan's fingerprints were found on the empty clip of the murder weapon; and Moore was in possession of some of the proceeds of the robbery. Only Moore claimed to have seen Williams commit the killing. Williams, who had intellectual disability caused by severe lead poisoning from regularly eating dirt and paint chips as a young child and who as a teenager still repeatedly urinated himself, initially told police he had nothing to do with the killing. But after six hours of police interrogation, Williams confessed to the murder. After detectives presented the older men with Williams's confession, their stories changed to corroborate it. At trial, Caddo Parish prosecutor Hugo Holland presented the confession and Moore's testimony as evidence of WIlliams's guilt. Then, having withheld from the defense police statements that implicated his witnesses in framing Williams, Holland ridiculed the defense claim that Williams had been framed, calling it "the biggest set of circumstances concerning a conspiracy since John Kennedy was killed in 1963." The prosecutors' amicus brief in support of Williams states that "[t]he prosecutor's goal is not only to strive for a fair trial, but also to protect public safety by ensuring that innocent persons are not convicted while the guilty remain free." It stresses that this is a case in which, "[h]ad the statements not been withheld, there is a reasonable probability that the verdict would have been different." Ben Cohen, Williams's longtime lawyer, said that "[w]hat the prosecutor and the police did is outrageous. They knew Williams was innocent and they just went forward anyway.... They don't think his life matters." Eleven men have been exonerated from Louisiana's death row since the 1970s, including the Caddo Parish exonerations of Glen Ford and Rodricus Crawford. All eleven cases involved police and/or prosecutorial misconduct. Holland himself has been implicated in withholding witness statements in another capital prosecution showing the defendant had not participated in the killing. Holland was forced to resign his position as an assistant district attorney for Caddo Parish in 2012 after he and another prosecutor were caught falsifying federal forms in an attempt to obtain a cache of M-16 rifles for themselves through a Pentagon program that offers surplus military gear to police departments. Williams was released from death row after the U.S. Supreme Court decided Atkins v. Virginia, barring the death penalty for persons with intellectual disability, and is currently serving a life sentence.
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Washington Supreme Court Unanimously Finds Reversible Error, But Upholds Prisoner's Conviction and Death SentencePosted: April 13, 2018
A fractured Washington Supreme Court unanimously found that a death-row prisoner's constitutional rights had been violated under circumstances that had always before required overturning a conviction and granting a new trial, but nevertheless voted to uphold his conviction and death sentence. In five opinions spanning 254 pages published on April 12, 2018, the nine justices agreed that Conner Schierman's (pictured) rights to be present and to a public trial were violated during the jury selection process in his case when the court discussed potential challenges for cause related to six prospective jurors in the judge's chambers outside the presence of the defendant and the public without making a record of the proceedings. Under long-established Washington law, such constitutional violations had long been considered "structural error" requiring that a new trial automatically be granted. In the lead opinion in the case, Justice Sheryl Gordon McCloud wrote that the 10-minute proceeding could not have had any effect on the trial and did not undermine public confidence in the justice system. In a concurring opinion, Justice Mary Yu, joined in by three other justices, wrote: "A majority of this court agrees that justice demands we affirm Schierman's convictions, but every member of the court unanimously agrees that our precedent precludes us from doing so. In this direct conflict between justice and precedent, justice must prevail." Four justices dissented from the majority's decision to change exisiting law to uphold Schierman's convictions. Two other justices, and one of the guilt-stage dissenters, also believed that Schierman's death sentence had been unconstitutionally imposed, for a total of six justices who had determined that the constitutional violations in the case required that Schierman be granted a new trial or that his death sentence be overturned. But rather than ruling that a death sentence cannot be imposed for an unconstitutionally obtained conviction, three of the guilt-stage dissenters—Justices Debra Stephens, Charles Johnson, and Susan Owens—joined with the remaining justices to uphold Schierman's death sentence by a vote of 6-3. Schierman was convicted and sentenced to death in King County in 2010 for stabbing to death four members of Leonid Milkin's family while the National Guardsman was deployed to Iraq. He is the last person to have been sentenced to death in King County, which includes the city of Seattle. King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg has advocated abolishing Washington's capital-punishment statute, writing that "the death penalty law in our state is broken and cannot be fixed. It no longer serves the interests of public safety, criminal justice, or the needs of victims." He testified before a state senate committee, "If you look at it carefully and take away the politics and the emotion, by any measure this doesn't work. Our criminal justice system would be stronger without the death penalty." Satterberg said Leonid Milkin "is supportive of the death penalty in this matter and we continue to pursue it, as it continues to be the law of the state." The bi-partisan abolition bill, which has the support of Governor Jay Inslee and the state's last two attorneys general, passed the state senate and a house committee in the 2018 legislative session that ended in March, but never received a vote before the full house. Governor Inslee imposed a moratorium on executions in Washington in February 2014.
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Amnesty International Report: Death Penalty Use Down Worldwide in 2017Posted: April 12, 2018
Use of the death penalty declined worldwide in 2017, according to the Amnesty International's annual global report on capital punishment. The human rights organization recorded 2,591 death sentences imposed in 53 countries in 2017, down 17% from the 3,117 death sentences it recorded from 55 countries in 2016. Executions also fell, with 23 nations carrying out a recorded 993 executions, off 4% from the the 1,032 executions recorded in 2016 and 39% below the 1,634 executions reported in 2015. Two more countries—Guinea and Mongolia—abolished capital punishment, increasing the number of abolitionist nations to 106, and Guatemala outlawed executions for "ordinary crimes" such as murder, bringing to 142 the number of nations Amnesty reports as having "abolished the death penalty in law or practice." As in previous years, Amnesty's execution total does not include the estimated thousands of executions carried out in China or executions in North Korea and Vietnam, all of which treat information on the death penalty as a state secret. Four countries—Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Pakistan—which collectively accounted for 87% of the confirmed executions in the rest of the world in 2016, accounted for 84% of the world's confirmed executions in 2017. The United States dropped to 8th in documented executions (23) in 2017 and ranked 11th in death sentences imposed. For the 9th consecutive year, it was the only country in the Americas to carry out executions. Among human rights violations, Amnesty reported that 15 countries imposed death sentences or executed people for drug-trade related offenses, with China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore executing prisoners for involvement in the drug trade. The secrecy practices in Malaysia and Vietnam prevented Amnesty from determining whether similar human rights violations had occurred in those countries. "Despite strides towards abolishing this abhorrent punishment, there are still a few leaders who would resort to the death penalty as a 'quick-fix' rather than tackling problems at their roots with humane, effective and evidence-based policies," said Amnesty's Secretary General Salil Shetty. "The draconian anti-drug measures widely used in the Middle East and Asia-Pacific have totally failed to address the issue." Amnesty also cited Iran for violating the human rights proscription against applying the death penalty to prisoners charged with offenses committed when they were younger than age 18. Iran executed five juvenile offenders in 2017, and has at least 80 others remaining on death row. Amnesty said Japan, the Maldives, Pakistan, Singapore, and the United States violated the international prohibition on executing prisoners with mental or intellectual disabilities or keeping such prisoners under sentence of death. Amnesty reported that at least 21,919 people were known to be on death rows around the world at the end of 2017.
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New Mexico Supreme Court Hears Argument on Whether State May Execute Last Two Men on Its Death RowPosted: April 11, 2018
Nine years after New Mexico prospectively abolished capital punishment, lawyers for the state's two remaining death-row prisoners argued to the New Mexico Supreme Court that the death penalty was unconstitutionally disproportionate punishment as applied to Timothy Allen (pictured, left) and Robert Fry (pictured, right), and that they should not be executed. The lengthy oral argument on April 10 turned on how the court should go about determining whether a death sentence is arbitrary and disproportionate. State prosecutors urged the court to follow a 1983 decision that would limit the court's review to cases involving the same aggravating factors that were present in the prisoners' crimes. "[T]he ultimate question," said Assistant Attorney General Victoria Wilson, "is: 'Was this sentence imposed arbitrarily?'" On the other hand, the prisoners' lawyers argued that executing the men would be disproportionate punishment and unconstitutionally arbitrary when compared to all the cases in which New Mexico could have imposed the death penalty. Between 1979 and 2009, when New Mexico authorized capital punishment, prosecutors sought the death penalty more than 200 times. The sentence was imposed in only 15 cases, leading to a single execution in 2001, when Terry Clark waived his appeals. During the argument, Justice Charles Daniels questioned whether New Mexico had applied the death penalty in an "evenhanded" manner. "In the first 47 years of our existence as a state, we executed 27 people with fairly regular frequency," Daniels said. "In the next 57 years, we executed one—at a time when there were horrible murders and over 200 where the death penalty was sought." Given that history, he asked, "[c]an we really look in the mirror and say we've walked the talk and imposed the death penalty consistently in New Mexico?" Allen, who suffers from schizophrenia and auditory hallucinations, was sentenced to death in connection with the kidnapping, attempted rape, and murder of a 17-year-old girl in 1994. His lawyer had never tried a capital case, conducted no mental health investigation, and presented no witnesses in the penalty phase of Allen's trial. Fry was sentenced to death for stabbing and bludgeoning a mother of five to death in 2000. Fry's lawyer, Kathleen McGarry, argued: "What we're looking at are cases that are far worse than Mr. Fry's case and yet those persons are not going to be … sentenced to death. How does that make Mr. Fry's death sentence be the poster child of what we're going to do here in New Mexico?"
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After 22 Years, District Attorney's Office to Examine Possible Innocence of Philadelphia Death-Row PrisonerPosted: April 10, 2018
Twenty-two years after Walter Ogrod (pictured) was sentenced to death for a murder he insists he did not commit, a new Philadelphia District Attorney's administration has dropped the office's long-time opposition to Ogrod's request for DNA testing and has referred the case for review by a revitalized Conviction Integrity Unit. As that review proceeds, an hour-long documentary on the case—aired April 8 as part of CNN's Headline News Network series Death Row Stories—presents what Philadelphia Daily News columnist Will Bunch describes as "compelling evidence that the snitch testimony that the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office used to convict Ogrod was fabricated" and that the confession the intellectually impaired man gave to Philadelphia police was coerced. Ogrod was sentenced to death in 1996 for the high-profile 1988 murder of 4-year-old Barbara Jean Horn, whose body was found discarded in a television box on a Northeast Philadelphia street. No physical evidence linked Ogrod to the murder, but four years after the murder, police questioned the 25-year-old truck driver—variously described as "slow," possibly autistic, and lacking "common sense"—for 14 hours, telling him he was repressing memories of the murder. In the documentary, a friend of Ogrod's recounts that Ogrod signed a confession after police told him that if he didn't, he would have to wait for a lawyer in a holding area with other prisoners and "you know what they do to child molesters down there." Author Tom Lowenstein, who investigated the case and wrote the 2017 book The Trials of Walter Ogrod, says in the documentary that the 16-page confession, hand written by the detective, "is a flowing monologue of thought and process and description that Walter Ogrod is not capable of…. He could not have given the confession." Ogrod was tried twice for the murder. In 1993, the jury in his first trial appeared to have acquitted him, filling out "not guilty" on the verdict sheet. But as the verdict was being read, one juror said he had changed his mind, resulting in a mistrial. Following the mistrial, Ogrod was celled with John Hall, a notorious (and later discredited) jailhouse informant nicknamed "The Monsignor" for his proclivity in producing confessions. Hall's widow, Phyllis Hall, explains in the documentary that Hall introduced Ogrod to another prisoner, Jay Wolchansky, and worked with police and prosecutors to feed Wolchansky information to implicate Ogrod in the murder. Wolchansky then testified against Ogrod in his second trial, claiming that Ogrod had confessed. Phyllis Hall says her husband "would get some of the truth and he would sit in his cell and make up stories—and he was darned good at it." For years, Philadelphia's district attorneys—first Lynne Abraham, who oversaw Ogrod's prosecution, and later her successor, Seth Williams—fought requests from Ogrod's lawyers to test DNA evidence that might prove his innocence. While campaigning for District Attorney in 2017, Krasner told Bunch "it is clear that for decades the practice and policy of the District Attorney's Office has been to win convictions at any cost, too often at the cost of justice itself." When he took office in January 2018, Krasner rankled many entrenched prosecutors by emphasizing a reform agenda that included a willingness to take a look at questionably obtained past convictions. Krasner has not spoken about the specifics of the Ogrod case, but told Bunch, "Four-year-old Barbara Jean Horn was murdered. If the wrong person went to death row for it—and I specify that I am saying if—then the person who did murder her walked free."
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Black Prisoner on Georgia's Death Row, Sentenced by Racist Juror, Denied Federal Court Appellate ReviewPosted: April 9, 2018
Less than three months after the U.S. Supreme Court directed a federal appeals court to reconsider whether Georgia death-row prisoner Keith Tharpe (pictured) is entitled to federal-court review of his claim that he was unconstitutionally sentenced to death because he is Black, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has declined to review Tharpe's appeal, saying he had never presented the issue to the state courts. Citing "principles of comity and federalism," the court denied Tharpe's application for a certificate of appealability—a federal court prerequisite for a habeas petitioner to appeal—on the grounds that the Georgia state courts "have yet to examine" Tharpe's juror-misconduct claim. Tharpe was sentenced to death by a Georgia jury that included a racist White juror who called him a "ni***er," and questioned "if black people even have souls." The juror, Barney Gattie, signed an affidavit saying that there were "two types of black people: 1. Black folks and 2. Ni**ers." Tharpe, Gattie said, "wasn't in the 'good' black folks category [and] should get the electric chair for what he did." Gattie's affidavit also said "[s]ome of the jurors voted for death because they felt Tharpe should be an example to other blacks who kill blacks," but denied that race influenced his own vote. When Tharpe first presented the claim to the state and lower federal courts, it was denied based on a state-court rule prohibiting courts from considering evidence questioning why jurors reached their verdict. However, after Tharpe's claim was rejected, the U.S. Supreme Court decided a case in 2017, Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado, that made clear a state rule cannot insulate a juror's overt expressions of racial bias from judicial review. While Tharpe faced imminent execution in September 2017, he asked the state and federal courts to review the issue again in light of Pena-Rodriguez. The Georgia Supreme Court and the Eleventh Circuit both denied his request. Three hours after his execution was scheduled to start, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay of execution based upon his federal appeal. On January 8, 2018, the Court granted Tharpe's petition for certiorari and vacated the judgment of the Eleventh Circuit. The Court said the fact that Gattie had never retracted his "remarkable affidavit" strongly suggested that "Tharpe's race affected Gattie's vote for a death verdict." Tharpe is expected to ask the Supreme Court to review the circuit court's latest ruling. On April 2, he filed a separate petition asking the Court to review the Georgia state court's denial of the issue.
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Poly Convection Tubing 6 mil 30in Diameter (100ft Roll)
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- Heating selected areas of a greenhouse (when the whole house does not need heat)
This polyethylene convection tubing is designed for use in greenhouses, barns, warehouses, and practically any structure in need of even air distribution. It can be used for heating applications, ventilation purposes, directional airflow and more. Transparent and UV stabilized, it is designed to hold up against direct sunlight and damp conditions, while allowing for maximum light penetration. A properly designed tube will make full use of the airflow provided by your fan or blower and helps to distribute the air evenly down the length of the greenhouse.
Custom hole-punched to one of 3 different hole configurations to best suit the needs of the user. The numbers associated with the hole punching options ( ex. 8/4, 7/5, 9/3) coincide with numbers on a clock face (the 3/9 hole orientation directs air in opposite directions). Hole-punch positions can be varied as shown in the above image.
Installation Tips
We recommend tubing be hung from a cable using tube hangers. Hangers consist of a white plastic loop that surrounds the tube and is clipped to the cable using a snap ring. Hangers do not penetrate the plastic tubing. They should be spaced 5-7 feet apart. The convection tubing can be hung with any soft rope or material that will support but not puncture the tubing.
Configure Poly Convection Tubing 6 mil 30in Diameter (100ft Roll)


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Collaboration this Thursday 11/19
•Challenge Day is coming! December 9, 10, & 11 2014 All students who signed up check the list in front of room 38 to see which day you will attend. Tickets to go to Challenge Day will be sent out a week before. Bring your ticket on your date assigned. Don't lose your ticket. We are still accepting spots on the waiting list.
•9th – 11th Grade College Night Library (English) Cafeteria (Spanish) Wednesday, November 19th 6:00-7:00 pm
•Letterman Jacket fittings will be on November 19th. There is a $125 deposit required at the time the appointment is made. Please see the ASB Bookkeeper to set up an appointment.
•ASB is hosting a canned food drive. If our school collects 100 canned goods, Ventura County Star will mention our school's name in the newspaper! If we can collect 600 or more cans, Ventura County Star will come out and take a picture of our students and feature it in the paper! BUT … Rio Mesa, Oxnard, and Camarillo High Schools are all competing for top ranking! Don't let Rio Mesa, Oxnard, and CAM beat us! Donate canned goods by December 3rd and LET'S BEAT THESE SCHOOLS!!!!
•Juniors and Seniors can sign up for the ASVAB Test in the Career Center, room 85. The test will be held on campus on Wednesday, November 19th.
•Hueneme High School's Butterfly Project -Every day, SEVEN children are lost to gun violence. Peer Resource wants to acknowledge those children, and based on the Houston Holocaust Museum's Butterfly Project of collecting 1.5 million handmade butterflies (to represent the 1.5 million children lost during the Holocaust), we have started a school-wide project of collecting handmade butterflies to represent the amount of children that will be lost to gun violence during the 2014-2015 school year. We are asking everyone at Hueneme High School to help us with this project. Our goal is to collect 2,072 butterflies by March 20, so that we can present the school with the project in a case to display in the office on April 24, the national day to remember children to gun violence. The butterflies should be no larger than 2" x 2". Make them as decorative as you would like to. We would like everyone to participate!
Daily Math Tutoring LUNCH AFTER-SCHOOL MON Bettencourt, Rm. 62 Corona, Rm. 75 Adams, Rm. 65 Medrano, Rm.63 TUES Morales, Rm. 64 Diaz, Rm. 60 Adams, Rm. 65 Rincon, Rm. 67 Deckrow, Room 66 WED Fitzmorris, Rm. 59 Adams, Rm. 65 Callis, Rm. 57 Deckrow, Rm. 66 THURS Medrano, Rm. 63 Rincon, Rm. 67 Medrano, Rm. 63 Deckrow, Rm. 66 FRI Kaikaina, Rm. 58 (by appointment) Deckrow, Rm. 66
Club News:
•Link Crew Senators will be meeting in Mr. Thomas' room at lunch on Wednesday, November 19.
•Mathletes Club meet every Thursday at lunch in room 62. This club is also offering tutoring to all students Thursdays at lunch. Please see Mrs. Bettencourt for more info.
•Finance Club meeting Tuesday Nov. 18 at Lunch in Room 68
•To promote awareness of Lung Cancer and Alzheimer's Disease, Peer Resource will be hosting movie days during lunch in Room P8. Popcorn will be sold for $1.00 Showing: Monday November 17-Friday November 21 The Notebook.
•GATE Club Tutoring Available! If you need tutoring for any subject the Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) club students can get you the help you need. Come to room 12 for more information.
Dance Club (Kaikaina). 1st / 3rd Tuesdays each month. Rm 58 Knowledge Bowl (Ehlers): Wednesdays, Rm 27 GeoBowl (Briggs): Thursdays, Rm 56 Science Club (Humphrey). 2nd/4th Fridays each month. Rm 58 Anime Club (Robnett): Monday/Wednesday/Friday, Rm 43 Chess Club (Gomez-Font): Tuesdays/Thursdays, Rm Mariachi (Norwood): Daily practice, Band Room, 330-430p. Drumline (Norwood): Daily Practice, Band Room, 315-530p. Girl's Water Polo Team meeting every Monday at lunchtime. Dr.Who (Bettencourt): Wednesdays, Rm 30 Auxiliary/Marching Band (Norwood): Daily Practice, Band Room, Period 0/315-530p MESA (Wagner): Meeting every Thursday at lunch in room 68 Finance Club (Wagner): will meet on the last Tue of the month at lunch in room 68 Singing club (Jolly): Monday's at lunch in room P8. Folklorico (Medrano): Wednesdays from 3:15-4:15 in room 63 Students against animal cruelty(Herrejon, Cole): Meeting every Wednesday at lunch in room 15.
Baby Dillon Michael Berrelleza arrived on Saturday, November 8.
Brianne and baby are doing well. Grandpa Rene is all smiles.
COACHING VACANCY – Hueneme HS
Boys' Tennis Coach
Interested coaching applicants contact Pablo Gallegos firstname.lastname@example.com
Deadline: November 20, 2014
COACHING VACANCY – Oxnard HS
Girls' Track Coach
Interested coaching applicants contact Rick Garcia firstname.lastname@example.com
Deadline: November 20, 2014
COACHING VACANCY – Pacifica HS
Boys' Tennis Coach
Interested coaching applicants contact Ray Camacho firstname.lastname@example.com
Deadline: December 1, 2014


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Have you ever heard a band at a wedding and thought: "man, they're good! Where else can I see them?" Live bands that play at family events are not often touring or recording artists. But here are 10 Read more →
Seduce Me Review: The Longest Thirty Seconds of Your Life, Baby
Way, way back when Steam Greenlight launched, there was a minor furor over the abrupt removal of the submission Seduce Me for having "offensive content", which raised that old question here in America, why is sex censored so much more heavily than violence? In my mind, there's no reason for it. Sex and violence are two sides of the same coin. One creates life, while the other destroys life, one gives pleasure while the other causes pain, and so on.
And Seduce Me had a golden opportunity to refute its removal from Greenlight by being a sophisticated game about sexuality that could teach its players about the spirituality of sex, and truths about intimacy, womanhood, and manhood.
And No Reply Games firmly grasped that opportunity and shoved it face-first into a porn star's ass. "Why go to all that extra effort, when we can just capitalize on the free publicity Valve has accidentally given us and make a cheap, crappy, blatant cash grab?"
Seduce Me described itself as an "erotic light strategy game". This is not entirely a bald-faced lie. It's more accurate to say this is just a card game with porn in it. Play some cards, see some porn, repeat ad nauseam or donec genitalibus concitato. If you're anything like me, the first option is far more likely.
There's very few good things I have to say about the game, so I'm going to get them out of the way now. I like the art style, the characters are drawn in a realistic 2D style that looks beautiful, the panoramas of the locations are particularly well done. And humorously, the highbrow art style contrasts rather jarringly with the porn – for some reason, the style made me think the porn wasn't going to be all that hardcore, so when I caught my first glimpse of a fully engorged erection going to work, it took me somewhat by surprise.
And I was rather pleased that the artist didn't oversexualize the characters. Yes, they're pretty, I found a couple of the girls in the game even beautiful, but they surprisingly don't have infeasibly gigantic breasts, they have realistic proportions instead. And that's pretty much it for the good stuff.
As far as the gameplay is concerned, you wander around this lavish vacation home looking for people to interact with, and at least there's always something going on nearby, so you don't wind up wondering where the hell everyone disappeared to. But all interactions with other people are done through adaptations of various card games. The "conversation" game is an adaptation of one of my favorite card games, Pitch, and the "intimate chat" game is adapted from Rummy, so right off the bat the games were familiar and I didn't need much tutoring – but I swiftly realized that luck plays a HUGE part in the games. For example, any Pitch player can tell you that if you get a bad hand, there isn't much you can do about it. And a shot of bad luck can have some pretty disastrous results – the "flirt" game in particular is heinous when your luck is shot.
The plot is laughably awful, but fortunately minimal. You're some hotshot guy (no choice, have to be a man), and you get invited to a wealthy socialite's vacation home for a weekend. That's it, that's the story. From there, you just float from room to room looking for people to talk to. The closest thing to drama is when one character gets jealous or angry about the attention you're getting, forcing you into a "confrontation" card game. But obviously, that's less of a plot, and more of an unwanted, unasked for, forced minigame.
The characters are unlikable. I had a hard time choosing which girl I wanted to pour some sugar on, not because I was equally attracted, but because I was equally repulsed. Pietra was the prettiest, but also spoiled and entitled, Cecelia is a milf desperately trying to reclaim her youth through sex, Lilia is an "innocent rich girl" – an oxymoron if I ever saw one – who has somewhat disturbing power fantasies about mistreating her servants and gets annoyingly jealous, and Esper is the slutty maid, apparently hired to be little more than a sex slave and happy to fulfill that role. They're all clichéd archetypes, and not one of them has an interesting emotion or aspiration, just arousal and jealousy.
The music isn't anything special, just your standard easy listening crap, and there's only four songs in the game. It's a shame they didn't go whole hog and use terrible 70's-funk-style music during the sex scenes, because that would've gotten my aural attention.
They're selling all four songs along with the game or separately, but save your money. There's nothing here that anyone's going to want to listen to when the game's over, and it's sure not going to spice up your genital-sharing time.
I'd like to say the game is at least functional, but I can't even say that – the game crashed three times while playing it. Fortunately, the game saves your progress after everything you do, so it wasn't that big of a hassle.
You'd think at least the porn would be decent, but you'd be wrong there, too. Every single sex scene consists of being shown the exact same image three times in a row, just zoomed in or cropped a little. Even the endings are done that way. It's incredibly lazy, and worse yet, I have to say that what little sexual imagery there was did very little to arouse me.
So, no, this game did not need to exist. The card games themselves are okay, but far too luck-dependent, the music is bland and repetitive, and the writing is horrendous. Sure, the art is nice, but if you're reading this article, you already have the internet, and you can find quality erotic art for free, which beats the hell out of paying 13 euros for it (≈17 USD). Or, ahem, so I've heard.
Oh, alright, I've consumed more video games and more porn than anyone should have a right to, but Seduce Me doesn't work very well as either one. If they were asking less for it, I might be more generous, but I just didn't enjoy this game at all, and it's not remotely worth the price. I've gotten maybe thirty seconds of enjoyment out of it – a sensation my female readers will be quite familiar with.
In a very literal sense, Seduce Me failed to seduce me on just about every conceivable level. I'm afraid it takes a lot more than that to satisfy me.
(Note: This review was conducted on a PC after eight hours of gameplay.)
Review Overview
Total Score - 2
Summary : Uninspired gameplay, terrible characters, even the porn is crap. Stay away from this one.


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Posts tagged with Sainsbury's
How online grocery retailers are capitalising on the need for convenience
New data from Kantar has revealed that the UK is the third biggest market for grocery ecommerce.
More surprising, however, is that the US in down in tenth place.
Will Amazon Pantry and Fresh succeed in 2016?
Despite high market penetration relative to other countries, the UK still seems like it hasn't got its head around online groceries.
That's why 2016 will be so interesting, as Amazon continues to finesse its Pantry offering in the UK, which rolled out in November 2015.
Will online groceries ever become less the domain of poor mobile experiences, inflexible delivery and locker trials, and more a fast and regular supplement to local shopping at smaller shops?
I've rounded up some analysis of what might happen in 2016.
Grocery mobile apps: Are retailers catering to repeat customers?
In recent weeks I've been investigating how grocery retailers handle the online customer experience.
Ecommerce is a small but growing channel for the grocery industry so it's important to offer a decent UX.
How grocery retailers use email to convert new customers
In recent weeks I've been conducting various user tests on grocery store websites, and in the process I've registered my details with most of the UK's biggest brands.
My inbox is now slowly filling up with welcome emails and other marketing messages trying to lure me back to their ecommerce sites.
Ocado vs. Sainsbury's: customer journey comparison
Despite the increase in online grocery sales over the past few years ecommerce still only accounts for a fraction of the overall market.
This means there's huge growth potential for digital sales in this industry, but are the UK's major grocery retailers positioned to take advantage of it?
Customer acquisition among online grocers: What's on offer?
When grocery retailers were publishing their sales figures one of the common trends was an increase in online revenues.
This was good news as sales in brick-and-mortar stores were generally down.
Battle of the Christmas retailers: Who's going the extra mile beyond the TV ad?
In the run up to Christmas, which British retailers are going the extra mile to fuel their sales?
Christmas campaigns have become as much of a staple as turkey and brussel sprouts - get it right or face the wrath of the people.
Although we would rather have a face full of mince pies washed down with mulled wine, it's British retailers' Christmas campaigns that are right in our face this November.
Tesco vs. Sainsbury's: which provides the best social customer care?
Yesterday it was announced that Sainsbury's is the most socially influential retail brand on Twitter based on its Klout score.
If you're not aware of what a Klout score is, it's an online social popularity measurement that leaves the more egotistically fragile of us weeping alone in a stationery cupboard. It also has its detractors.
To contradict Sainsbury's achievement, over the past six months, supermarket rival Tesco has fought its way to the top of Leaderboarded's UK Twitter Social Customer Care table, overtaking previous top-spot holders Virgin Media and… yes... Sainsbury's.
Nine of our favourite social campaigns from September
As a new month begins it's time to look back and round up some of the most noteworthy social campaigns we've seen in the last 30 days or so.
This time it includes Burberry, Topshop, Peugeot, Paddy Power, Stonewall, Grant's Whisky and new Instagram ads.
Paddy Power is among the brands that will be speaking at Econsultancy's Festival of Marketing in November. The two-day celebration of the modern marketing industry also features speakers from LEGO, Tesco, Barclays, FT.com and more.
15 features of 11 great mobile sites
Well, this post does what it says on the tin.
Some sites are mobile sites (m dot) and some are responsive.
For more information on mobile design, check out the Econsultancy Mobile Web Design and Development Best Practice Guide.
And, of course, for more on multichannel marketing, come to the Festival of Marketing in London, November 12-13th.
14 cracking UX features of online supermarkets
Picking which online supermarket you prefer to park your trolley in can be based on little more than which supermarket you regularly visit in the real world.
It's the one you're used to, the one you've got a loyalty card with, it's also probably the one that's closest to your home.
We sometimes forget that we needn't be beholden to such boundaries when we're shopping online for groceries. We have the whole of the nation's biggest food retailers to choose from and each has their own particular conveniences.
You're decision on which ecommerce store to shop with may purely come down to which offers the cheapest products, reasonable delivery charges and the availability of a convenient delivery window.
However if all these things are moot, it may also come down to which offers the best user experience.
This post is not meant to definitively suggest which supermarket out of Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's, Waitrose or Morrisons is the best, it's just meant to highlight various UX features and tools that make for a great customer experience, features that other ecommerce site designers could learn from.
How well are grocery brands integrating digital content with ecommerce?
Sainsbury's has unveiled a few tweaks to its ecommerce store as part of a site replatforming that is aimed at improving its multichannel shopping experience.
The new site has one or two new features, including improved navigation, favourites and more personalised offers.
However the addition that caught my eye is the new ability to add ingredients directly from the recipe pages.
I'm surprised that this functionality didn't exist before as it seems like an obvious way of improving the user experience and grabbing some incremental sales.
The huge rush to content marketing also makes these recipe pages important for customer acquisition and engagement, so one would assume that they would have been prioritised before now.


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Hope Springs 1x04 HDTV XviD-FoV.avi
- Category TV
- Type Divx/Xvid
- Language English
- Total size 699.6 MB
- Uploaded By Dita496
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- Last checked 3 months ago
- Date uploaded 9 years ago
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Your IP Address is Location is - Your ISP and Government can track your torrent activity! Hide your IP with a VPN!
Infohash : FFC2C4DF4B3F48E97B4FCCCD7D8811BB7E0189FA
Episode Title: Episode 4
Original Airdate: June 28th, 2009
The women think they are closer to being found after there is news of
Nathan's murder. They decide to steal other people's identities so that
they can leave Hope Springs.
- Hope.Springs.1x04.HDTV.XviD-FoV.avi (699.6 MB)
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I am a political scientist (Ph.D., Notre Dame) and researcher at Facebook. Before joining Facebook, I was a senior research analyst at Langer Research Associates, a leading survey research and analysis firm based in New York, and I served as an Assistant Professor in the Political Studies Division at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) in Mexico City, where I remain an Affiliated Professor.
This is the home of my academic research, which has broadly focused on public opinion, political behavior and survey research methods in the Americas. My dissertation explains why mass commitment to democracy varies across citizens and countries, particularly in the new democracies of Latin America. A paper based on this research received the American Political Science Association's 2014 Franklin L. Burdette/ Pi Sigma Alpha Award, which recognizes the best paper presented at the 2013 APSA Annual Meeting. Beyond this research interest in mass attitudes to democracy, my research also includes a large-scale study of clientelism and electoral intimidation in Latin America and projects employing multilevel regression with poststratification (MRP) to forecast public opinion and electoral behavior in the United States. My research has appeared or is forthcoming in the American Journal of Political Science, Political Behavior, Public Opinion Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, and Latin American Research Review.


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Happy Tuesday! Did you have a good long weekend? I sure hope so!
I love long weekends. I really think that every week should have a 3 day weekend. In my future life, once I have control over my schedule, I really would only like to work 4 days a week. Doesn't that sound amazing? I would also like to live on a beach and win the lottery. Some of these dreams may be a little more realistic than others...
If I did only work 4 days a week just think of all that extra time I would have to spend on the blog! I could probably start posting twice a week. Crazy! Now I just need to make it through the next 2 years of my training and then I will be free to do as I please. That time can't come soon enough!
I wish I had some fun stories to tell you from my weekend. But as per usual it was spent studying. And cooking meals for the week. I am living such an exciting life right now I know. So I won't bore you with any more of the details.
In happier news... Valentines Day was on Friday. Did you do anything special? Or get any special gifts? To be honest I think that Valentine's Day is a total Hallmark holiday - a big scheme to get people to spend more money after the post-Christmas shopping lull... BUT, I also do like the idea of a day that celebrates your relationship. I just don't think you need to go spending crazy money to show someone that you love them. Erik got me flowers this year, and being the flower lover that I am this made me a pretty happy girl. Flowers, kitchen gadgets, chocolate and anything from Anthropologie. Those are the keys to this girl's heart.
In similar news, and totally un-paleo related, did you know that it is New York Fashion Week? One of my favourite times of year! Along with Christmas and summer time of course. Now normally I would be stalking style.com each day to see all the pretty clothes. But sadly, all this Royal College studying is taking away from my precious online clothing viewing. It's tragic! I will definitely be catching up come spring don't you worry. One day I would love to go to New York Fashion Week. Seriously, that would be a dream come true. It would just be so hard to pick only one designer to see! They are all so amazing. Bucket List dreams my friends. Bucket List dreams...
Ok moving right along to food. I can't believe I forgot to share this recipe with you! It has been sitting in the archives for a few months now collecting dust. And that's a shame because I really liked this one. And it is super easy. It is made in the slow cooker and so it only takes a few minutes of preparation and then you're done! I don't think I would have survived this year if it were not for my slow cooker. That may sound dramatic but when you are working 60-70 hours a week and studying 30-40 more hours, that doesn't leave a lot of time for food making. Or anything else for that matter. And considering that most slow cookers cost less than $40 that is money well spent if you ask me. If you haven't invested in one yet I highly suggest that you do. No real food kitchen is complete without a slow cooker in my opinion.
Well my friends I think that is enough babbling from me for today. I hope you like the recipe! I would be thrilled if you visited me on my social media pages, Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook. And if you have any comments or questions please feel free to get in touch.
I also recently started a newsletter and you can sign up below to receive information on new recipe posts, giveaways and deals!
Happy eating everyone!
1 grassfed cross rib beef roast (~4 lbs)
1 can full fat organic coconut milk (I suggest this brand because it is BPA free)
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
1/4 cup coconut aminos
3 TBSP Red Boat Fish Sauce
3 TBSP organic coconut oil (this is my favourite kind)
1 TBSP packed lime zest
2 TBSP chopped chives
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp sea salt
1. Turn your slow cooker onto high heat
2. Place all the ingredients into the slow cooker
3. Cook for 6-8 hours
4. Serve and enjoy!
*** NOTE (Added February 25, 2015): I have had some questions regarding the cooking time for this recipe. Mine worked out fine cooking it on high for 8 hours, but if you are worried you could cook it on high for 4 hours and then on low for another 4 hours (I have also done it this way and haven't noticed a difference in the final product). Keep in mind that these times may be completely different if you aren't using grassfed beef.
Print Recipe
4. Serve and enjoy!
*** NOTE (Added February 25, 2015): I have had some questions regarding the cooking time for this recipe. Mine worked out fine cooking it on high for 8 hours, but if you are worried you could cook it on high for 4 hours and then on low for another 4 hours (I have also done it this way and haven't noticed a difference in the final product). Keep in mind that these times may be completely different if you aren't using grassfed beef.
Print Recipe


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For years when Rebecca Falzano was living in New York City, she woke up every morning wheezing and catching her breath. Her doctor told her she had asthma, but no inhaler fixed her difficult breathing.
She thought she would get better when she moved to Maine - what she knew as home of the Breathe Easy Coalition - but her symptoms got worse. Finally, her doctor recommended a CT scan. She was floored by the result: There was a tumor on her lung.
"This blindsided me as a 28-year-old, active, nonsmoking woman," she says. "I had a lot of the stereotypical thoughts about lung cancer. I thought it was a smoker's disease. I thought, 'How could I possibly have this?'"
Falzano is among one in five women who has lung cancer but has never smoked. She and others with the disease struggle with the stigma tied to lung cancer - when Falzano tells people about her disease, their first question is whether she smoked. She often responds, "Why does that matter?" Lung cancer advocates like Lecia Sequist, a medical oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, say too much shame and guilt is imparted on those with the disease, and it prevents people from talking about lung cancer, which leads to little awareness and advocacy.
Falzano had surgery a month after she was diagnosed in 2010 and then married her husband four months later - balancing wedding planning and an excruciating recovery. Now 32, she works as an editor of a home design magazine in Portland, Maine, and is focusing on being a new parent to a healthy baby girl. "Cancer is never a gift," she says, "but it is certainly an opportunity to evaluate what's important in life."
[Search: U.S. News Top-Ranked Hospitals for Cancer.]
Lung Cancer: The Deadliest Cancer
Lung cancer takes more lives than breast, prostate, colon and pancreatic cancer combined, according to the American Lung Association. The five-year survival rate for those diagnosed with lung cancer is 16 percent. Sequist says there have been some breakthroughs in treatments. The lung cancer rate has fallen 21 percent among men, but for reasons that remain unclear, the rates have risen 116 percent among women. About 160,000 people die from lung cancer every year, according to the National Cancer Institute, and more than half die within one year of being diagnosed.
Diane Legg, 51, has lived with late-stage lung cancer for seven years. Doctors discovered the growth by accident in 2004, through a CT scan that was meant to check on a pulled back muscle. When she went to see a pulmonologist, he told her it was highly unlikely she had lung cancer given her health history. Still, she knew anyone could be affected. A friend, who was also a nonsmoker and had a healthy lifestyle, was diagnosed with lung cancer four months earlier. During Legg's biopsy, her friend was at the back of her mind. She thought, "Could this happen to me, too?"
The doctor called her and confirmed she had lung cancer. "It was absolutely shocking and appalling," she says.
Legg underwent surgery and chemotherapy. Throughout the treatment, she continued to work in industrial sales for General Electric. Her friend had undergone the same treatment, but died only nine months after she was diagnosed. As a result, Legg became heavily involved in advocacy and awareness efforts.
Her lung cancer returned in 2006. The tumors are growing slowly, so she isn't undergoing treatment, but will do so in a few months. She suffers shortness of breath, fatigue and coughing. She resigned from her job to focus on her health and has become heavily involved in LUNGstrong, a nonprofit she founded that raises money for lung cancer research. She's also focusing on her husband and three boys. "The most important thing for me during my entire life was to be a mom," she says. She also does endurance sports and says lung cancer hasn't stopped her from living an active life. "Having a respiratory disease, but being able to do such physical activities has been freeing for me," she says.
[Read: Diet Changes That Might Cut Breast Cancer Risk.]
Lung Cancer Causes
The causes of nonsmokers developing lung cancer remain unclear. Some people who never smoke appear to be more susceptible to the disease, while others smoke their entire lives and never get lung cancer. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, a branch of the World Health Organization, announced in October that air pollution was a leading cause of lung cancer.
Other causes of lung cancer include secondhand smoke, genetics and exposure to radon, uranium, arsenic, nickel and hazardous chemicals like asbestos. Heather Edmonds, 35, of Washington, D.C., lost both of her parents to lung cancer. Neither smoked, so she had their house tested for radon. The results came back negative. Her siblings thought there might be asbestos in the buildings where they worked, but no tests were conducted.
[Read: What Causes Cancer? 7 Strange Cancer Claims Explained.]
Lung Cancer's Toll
Edmonds, her father and her brother were caretakers for their mother. When her father was also diagnosed with lung cancer, her sister helped as well. "My mom isolated herself from people," Edmonds says. "I would take her on car rides to get her out of the house, but she would never get out of the car. My dad was stubborn because he wanted to do all the things he used to, but he physically couldn't, and that's what frustrated him the most."
Edmonds reflected on the emotional difficulty of being a caretaker. "I tried to be positive around them all the time," she says. "I felt helpless because I didn't know how to fix their cancer. I would never cry in front of them because they needed strength to get through the chemo, radiation, hair loss, weight loss and feeling sick. It's physically demanding with the cleaning, cooking, hygiene and going to appointments. I became a comedian of sorts just to make my parents laugh."
Lung Cancer Advocacy
November is National Lung Cancer Awareness Month, and advocates are working to erase the stigma associated with the disease, which they say results in lower funding for lung cancer research. The anti-smoking efforts began as a way to educate the public about the dangers of smoking, but turned into "equating smoking to evil," Sequist says. Society thinks of lung cancer as something people have brought upon themselves, so there is less sympathy around it, she adds.
Still, a woman is 13 times more likely to develop lung cancer if she has smoked, and she is also susceptible to heart disease, stroke, cataracts and other forms of cancer. It's simply better for your heart and lungs to quit smoking, Sequist says. She encourages people, however, not to differentiate smokers with lung cancer from nonsmokers with lung cancer. "They are all people with lung cancer," she says.
[Read: 12 Reasons to Really Quit Smoking.]
Patients and advocates hope survivors will change the associations people have with lung cancer and follow the lead of the breast cancer movement. "They have survivors," Legg says. "Survivors make the best advocates. We don't have many survivors with lung cancer. We need more."


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NEWARK, N.J. – A Rutgers University professor convicted of sexually assaulting a disabled man she said had consented to the relationship by communicating on a keyboard is set to learn her fate.
Anna Stubblefield was chair of the university's philosophy department. She is scheduled to be sentenced in Newark on Friday.
Prosecutors contended she used her position to take advantage of the 34-year-old man, who has cerebral palsy and is unable to speak.
Stubblefield testified during the trial that she and the man were in love and that he consented to the sexual activity in her office by communicating through assisted typing on a keyboard.
Stubblefield faces a maximum prison sentence of 40 years.


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Check with your GP, physiotherapist or rheumatologist before starting any new exercise programme particularly if:
- You've had spinal surgery or joint replacement surgery
- You have any other medical conditions
- You get chest pain, palpitations (irregular beating of the heart), unexplained breathlessness, dizziness or have lost consiousness
- You are on medication for your heart or blood pressure
- You are pregnant
- You are experiencing a flare up of your AS
- You are not used to exercise
- You are aged over 65 or have had AS for more than 10 years
When you are exercising
Remember to seek medical advice if you become faint, short of breath, dizzy, unwell or experience unaccustomed chest pain during an exercise session.
Some trained gym staff may not have heard of AS and may not understand how it affects you. Take time to explain your condition. This short document is designed to explain AS to gym staff. Do download it and give it to staff.
Don't overdo it. Keep within your limits, especially when you first start.
You will have good and bad days where you are able to do a bit more or may need to do a little bit less.
Pick a good time of day to exercise - most people with AS experience some pain and stiffness in the mornings, so this probably isn't a good time to exercise.
Don't worry if you have some mild aches and pains when you are exercising. This is normal for people with AS. The pains should ease off after the exercise session is completed. If you have anything more than mild aches and pains that do not ease after the exercises, stop and seek medical advice.
Use a regime that involves low weights and high repetitions. Remember you are trying to stay mobile, strong and healthy. You are not training for a weight lifting competition.
Maintain a good posture with all of your exercises.
Vary your exercises. Remember that you need to do a mix of strengthening, cardiovascular and stretching exercises.
Contact sports
Having AS means that you are at greater risk of having thinner bones (osteoporosis). During contact sports you may experience hard knocks and blows that may cause a bone to break.
People with AS may also have stiffening or fusion of the spine. This means that you may be at risk of breaking one of the bones in your spine (your vertebrae) during contact sports.
If you take part in contact sports then do discuss it with your physiotherapist and get their advice for you as an individual.
High impact sports
High impact sports involve pounding actions, including running, which can cause extra stress on the joints of the legs and the spine. This in turn can lead people with AS to experience a flare up in their condition, that is, more pain.
If you are already taking part in high impact exercise do monitor your symptoms and be open to seeking alternative forms of exercise if it causes your AS to flare up.
It is possible that your body's tolerance to high impact exercise changes over time and you find that it auses you pain when this never used to be the case. Continuing to push yourself in an activity that causes your condition to worsen will not benefit you in the long term.
If you are considering high impact exercise for the first time do seek advice from your physiotherapist.
Avoid high impact sports if you are experiencing an AS flare.


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Patents Lawyers in District of Columbia
Showing attorneys 1–6 out of 6 attorneys available for your search query.
David Ludwig800-747-9354
I am a partner at DunlapWeaver PLLC. My practice focuses primarily on civil litigation in the areas of patent, trademark, copyright, internet / domain names, commercial transactions, government contracts, community associatio... » Read more
Sharmian L. White202-627-6910
Soft intellectual property, including trademark, copyright, trade secrets. Business formation and civil litigation, including infringement litigation. Also nonprofit legal issues. Harvard College (B.A., cl, 1990) Univer... » Read more
Kevin McNeely202-274-0214
Douglas Eric Ringel202-220-4225
The Florida Bar Board of Legal Specialization and Education
Douglas Eric Ringel
Board Certified Specialist in Intellectual Property Law
Deepak Gupta202-470-3826
Robert Charles Hill202-721-7205
Showing attorneys 1–6 out of 6 attorneys available for your search query.


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This post is a part of Panini Week!
This sandwich always reminds me of Steve Martin whenever I make it. "I haven't had arugula in 6 weeks!" If you know what that movie is based on the quote, withOUT clicking this link to cheat, then you get…bragging rights.
Or virtual brownies or something. And I'll think you're really cool!


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PROFIBUS is the worldwide standard communication protocol for industrial automation. Grid Connect provides a large selection of industry leading products for PROFIBUS including ProfiTrace and COMbricks PROFIBUS Troubleshooting products as well as Hubs, Repeaters, Cables and much more! Our Sales and Engineering staff are experts in PROFIBUS and can help you find the PROFIBUS solution that works best for your application.
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Featured Photo: Tangier Generations (Tangier, Morocco)
To walk the streets of Tangier is to cross the threshold of a swarming hive. A teeming colony of entrepreneurs —reliant on wits, stamina and a few practiced phrases— trail foreigner visitors like a highly mobile shopping network. We expected this. And the vibrant, evolving city still charmed us with its hopeful energy. But it was this quiet moment, discovered with a backward glance and captured in this featured photo, that embedded itself as my most cherished Moroccan memory.
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Given that the workers' compensation prices were below the group health prices and Medicare rates, policymakers might need to consider whether the fee schedule decrease was too much for office visits.
Cambridge, MA (PRWEB) January 13, 2014
A new study by the Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) examines the impact of the 30 percent reduction in the Illinois medical fee schedule that was enacted in 2011. Prior to the reduction, the Illinois fee schedule was one of the highest in the nation.
The study, The Effect of Reducing the Illinois Fee Schedule, looks at how prices paid for medical services changed and whether there were any services for which the cuts may have been so large as to raise concerns about access to care for injured workers.
For example, the workers' compensation prices paid for the most common office visit were 18 percent lower than the estimated group health prices and 15 percent lower than the Medicare rates in 2012.
"Given that the workers' compensation prices were below the group health prices and Medicare rates, policymakers might need to consider whether the fee schedule decrease was too much for office visits and whether access to care for primary care may have been impaired," said Richard Victor, WCRI's executive director.
The study observed the following after the fee schedule reduction:
- On average, medical prices paid fell by 24 percent.
- Prices paid for common surgeries were 107–231 percent higher than prices paid by Illinois group health insurers and 237–455 percent higher than the Medicare rates in Illinois. This raises the question about whether the reductions could have been even larger without affecting access to care by surgeons.
- Prices for common office visits (primary care) were 12–18 percent lower than group health prices and up to 15 percent lower than the Illinois Medicare rates. This raises a concern about access to primary care for injured workers.
The study also found that the 30 percent reduction in the fee schedule in Illinois resulted in a smaller decrease of 24 percent in the average price paid for professional services. Furthermore, more frequent billing of more complex office visits with higher prices in Illinois was observed after the fee schedule cut.
To purchase a copy of this study, click on the following link: http://www.wcrinet.org/studies/public/books/il_fs_reduction_book.html.
The Cambridge-based WCRI is recognized as a leader in providing high-quality, objective information about public policy issues involving workers' compensation systems.
The Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) is an independent, not-for-profit research organization based in Cambridge, MA. Since 1983, WCRI has been a catalyst for significant improvements in workers' compensation systems around the world with its objective, credible, and high-quality research. WCRI's members include employers; insurers; governmental entities; managed care companies; health care providers; insurance regulators; state labor organizations; and state administrative agencies in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.


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Joey Hand racing at K1 Speed Sacramento!
31 July 2013
Current driver of BMW Team RBM and Sacramento native, Joey Hand, visits K1 Speed Sacramento with family.
"I think Joey Hand is the best young American sports car talent out there right now. What he has is a really good feel for a race car."
- Boris Said
Joey Hand made his move to sportscars after three seasons in Toyota Atlantic competition, and has been winning races and competing for titles ever since.
Motorsport is a family tradition in the Hand household. His father made a name for himself as a successful stock car driver. Soon after, Joey would launch his career in karting before taking a step up to single–seater racing.
2004 brought a new start for BMW on the GT racing scene. Hand ended his debut season in the Grand–Am Series with one win and six podium finishes. After a stint with Panoz, Hand returned to BMW in 2009. Together with Auberlen he helped the team to its first victory in the GT class, a pole position, and the fastest lap in Mid-Ohio.
Hand enjoyed a year of firsts in 2011. Starting with an overall win in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, the 32-year old Californian added a 12 Hours of Sebring victory with BMW teammates Dirk Müller and Andy Priaulx. Hand and Müller would go on to two more GT wins and an additional three podiums, shared at the ALMS GT Driver's championship. Hand also earned his first start at the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans, finishing third with Müller and Priaulx.
Tags: Alms, Andy Priaulx, Bmw, bmw team, debut season, dirk müller, dtm, family tradition, first victory, Grand Am, Gt Class, gt racing, Indoor Go Kart Racing, indoor go kart track, Indoor Kart, indoor kart racing, Indoor Karting, indoor karting center, junior league, junior racing, juniors, K1 Speed, karting, karts, mid ohio, panoz, Podiums, Pole Position, racing, rbm, Rolex 24 At Daytona, single seater racing, stock car driver, three seasons, Tweets


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To book this cottage, please fill out the online form. Alternatively, you can fill out our printable application form and email it to reservations (@)ontariocottagerentals (dot)com or fax it to 705-788-3728. We will contact you regarding availability once the application form has been received.
Check-in: Friday after 4:00pm
Check-out: Friday before 10:00am
The sweet smell of a cottage-cooked meal, water lapping against the shore, Dad snoring from the swinging hammock, and the gleeful laughter of children's play. Nothing fancy, nothing out of the ordinary, and nothing short of extraordinary.
Stepping through the doors of this cottage is like stepping into the nostalgia of your favourite memories. Cozy up in the family room and choose from one of the provided movies and games. The large windows and beautiful pine ceilings of this sweet little haven bring the charm of nature right in. The open-concept living room and kitchen is the perfect place to let the carefree chatter ring, and you can plant yourself right in the middle by sitting at the raised counter. Gather at the table and let family conversation fill the air as you pass the meal around. When dinner's done, there's a dishwasher rinse away all your worries. If you need to get away by yourself, there is an extra sitting room, complete with a TV and VCR. Out in front of the cottage, there is a screened-in porch.
There are three bedrooms complete with carpet flooring. The master bedroom features a queen and the second bedroom has a double. The third bedroom is great for the kids with a single bed and a set of bunk beds. The three-piece bathroom has a tub and shower.
Just outside, there is a lovely deck with a barbeque and a Muskoka chair. Across the small lane way, there's a great grassy area for a game of catch. A picnic table can host a Crazy 8's tournament over a barbequed lunch. And of course, there's the hammock nestled in the trees. Down at the waterfront, the dock gets sun from noon to sunset. Enjoy swimming out to the floating dock where the water is 10ft deep. A paddleboat and a canoe can be taken around the quiet lake for some smallmouth bass fishing. Children can play on the small sandy beach and splash in the three-feet-deep water. At the end of the day, the fire pit can keep you toasty warm up as you recall a familiar campfire tune.
Relax and let go. With a comfy cabin to sleep in, simple watercraft, a sun-drenched dock, and the gently beckoning hammock, you'll be happy and you'll know it, clap your hands.
View Comments from Previous Vacationers


text: Electric and Natural Gas What's RegulatedThe California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) regulates investor-owned electric and natural gas utilities operating in California. Through its oversight over utilities, the CPUC has played a key role in making California a national and international leader on a number of energy-related initiatives designed to benefit consumers, the environment, and the economy. Energy ProgramsThe energy work responsibilities of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) are derived from the California State Constitution, specifically Article XII, Section 3 and other sections more generally, numerous state legislative enactments and various federal statutory and administrative requirements which the Staff on behalf of the CPUC either carries out as an adjunct to federal authority or represents the Commission and the people of the State of California in federal legislative, regulatory or judicial matters. The various mandates are represented among the following program areas: Electric CostsElectric Power Procurement and GenerationInfrastructureCustomer Energy ResourcesEnergy EfficiencyEnergy Advice Letter and Tariff InformationElectric Rates Natural GasThe California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) regulates natural gas utility service for approximately 10.8 million customers that receive natural gas from Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), Southern California Gas (SoCalGas), San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), Southwest Gas, and several smaller natural gas utilities. The CPUC also regulates independent storage operators Lodi Gas Storage, Wild Goose Storage, Central Valley Storage and Gill Ranch Storage. Read more about Natural Gas and California . If you are looking for information on the Aliso Canyon Well Failure, please visit this page. If you are looking for information on PG&E's GT&S (A.17-11-009) and GCAP (A.17-09-006) proceedings, please visit this page. Renewable Natural Gas


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These reviews are unforgivably late, but the election ended up swamping all of my time — you know, because I thought I was living in a country that wanted to be saved and not one that chooses free stuff over freedom.
My bad.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter [Blu-ray]
Despite a terrific title and premise, the story just doesn't deliver. The mash-up of a young Abe Lincoln discovering a hidden world of vampires he must contend with as he moves up the ladder of American politics and historical greatness, just doesn't work. Tone is everything in a film and this one is never not awkward. The action scenes, which are all CGI and flash, salvage nothing.
Hollywood Elsewhere's Jeff Wells actually put his finger on the problem when he suggested a different approach: Think how much better the story would've been had Lincoln learned of this secret vampire world as president; and after winning the Civil War and unifying the country, faked his own assassination in order to save his country one last time. An older, wizened, and exhausted Lincoln hunting vampires. Now that would've been something.
Chernobyl Diaries (DVD + Ultraviolet Digital Copy) (2012)
A group of American twenty-somethings on vacation hire a black market tour guide to take them through the ruins of a city abandoned after the 1986 Russian nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. Obviously, they end up running into much more than they bargained for.
Though (thankfully) it doesn't use the conceit of "found footage," "Chernobyl Diaries" does still give off that vibe thanks to a low budget and amateur actors. The set-up is surprisingly good, as are the actors. The tension builds slowly, thanks to subtle clues, but once it all hits the fan the story falters until it eventually collapses.
Fun but nothing special.
The Lucky One (DVD+UltraViolet Digital Copy) (2012)
As an Iraq War vet who believes a photo of a lovely woman (Taylor Schilling) worked as a talisman to keep him alive, Zac Efron is surprisingly good in the lead role. But because the film is based on another Nicholas Sparks novel, what's bound to happen after he tracks the woman down is glaringly obvious before the opening credits are even done rolling. And that hampers the last half of the film in a very big way.
Still, in its values and themes, what we should appreciate is an old-fashioned romance set in a beautiful part of Louisiana. What we can't embrace, though, is a clichéd plot that never surprises beyond the fact that it seems to go on forever.
Dark Shadows (Blu-ray + DVD + Ultraviolet Digital Copy Combo Pack)
After many successful pairings ("Sweeney Todd," "Ed Wood," "Edward Scissorhands," "Sleepy Hollow," "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"), director Tim Burton and his star Johnny Depp deliver their second dud in a row ("Alice In Wonderland" was the first) with this absolutely dreadful remake/reimagining of a forty year-old daytime soap opera.
Depp plays a vampire plopped into 1972 after being buried alive for two centuries, and what follows is a breathtakingly unfunny fish-out-of-water story.
Before the movie started, I told my wife that anything starring the trifecta of feminine movie star awesome that is Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, and Eva Green would be worth the purchase price regardless of the end result. Other than the polls, never have I been more wrong.
Snow White and the Huntsman (Two-Disc Combo Pack: Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy + UltraViolet)
This feminist fairy tale reimagining was a huge hit, but an undeserved one. Over-plotted, overwrought, and absurdly dull, there isn't a single moment or scene that doesn't play out like a high-end video game brought to the silver screen. Most glaringly bad is Charlize Theron as the Evil Queen who chews the scenery like Al Pacino on meth.
Movies this bad that are this big of hits make me weep for the future.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC


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The Other War That Should Be Stopped
The world's attention has been focused on the war on Iraq. But another war--this one UN-sanctioned--has been going on simultaneously: the war on drugs. In my view, every sensible person should want this largely ignored war to end as well. While the UN should play a role in leading Iraq toward a free and democratic society, it must also change dramatically its own course in the war on drugs and lead the world to a saner policy.
In 1998, to celebrate the 10 th anniversary of the adoption of the third Convention on Narcotic and Psychotropic substances, the United Nations convened a special General Assembly session to discuss the issue of illicit drugs. At the end of that forum, UN member states adopted a political declaration that mandated the UN Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) "to develop strategies with a view to eliminating or significantly reducing the illicit cultivation of the coca bush, the cannabis plant, and the opium poppy by the year 2008."
On April 16 th -17 th , the international community will re-convene in Vienna to reckon with the results of the policies the UN has pursued. But five years into the program, one thing is clear: the results are grim. According to a UNDCP report issued in 2002 called Illicit Drug Trends , new markets for narcotics are expanding faster than old ones are being shut down. Drug dealers, like sharp businessmen everywhere, have gone out and found new markets. Eastern countries (the postcommunist world in Europe and the richer countries of Asia) are consuming more and more drugs, because the older markets of Western Europe and North America are saturated.
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|To find the lowest Penlac solution prices, click below on the strength of interest.
|Choose Strength for: Penlac solution - Brand Version
The lowest prices for Penlac solution from online pharmacies and prescription discount cards! Before you buy Penlac solution, compare the best prices on Penlac solution from licensed, top-rated pharmacies in the U.S., Canada, and internationally. Find the lowest cost Penlac solution from the best pharmacy.


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CNET News Video
Tech Minute: Tips to resell your iPadThe problem with technology and gadgets is that as soon as you buy something, a better, faster, smaller version comes out. The good news is that when kept in nice condition, your devices may fetch a fair amount of money on the resell market. In this Tech...
To resell an iPad, or any gadget really, you need to keep it looking as pristine as possible. This means investing in a good case to prevent little dents. Obviously a ding here and a ding there doesn't affect the device's capabilities but for the prospective buyer, a newer looking gadget is lot more appealing. Same goes for the screen. Since the iPad's retinal display is a huge selling point, keep your screen scratch free with a good screen cover. You'll benefit too with fewer fingerprints and less glare. When initially purchasing your device, skip Apple's tempting offer for free engraving. While the service can personalize a gift or identify the iPad as yours, it makes it a lot harder to resell if you're info is all over it. And finally, keep all of the original packaging that comes with your iPad. The box, inserts, user guide and even all the plastic wrappings and packaging. With a clean gadget secured in the original box, might as well be as good as new. In San Francisco, I'm Kara Tsuboi cnet.com for CBS News.


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LABADEE, Nord, HT (sentinel.ht) – The presumptive President-elect Jovenel Moïse hoped to move pass an unraveling electoral process by declaring the elections over. The candidate for PHTK said during a visit to the cruise ship, Harmony of the Seas, that he is thinking about projects for the future not the vote verification process that is underway.
Mr. Moïse told Gerald Maxineau of Le Nouvelliste that the elections were over and he has definitively turned the page. When asked about a possible decision by the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) tribunal to recount the votes, Moïse said that this was not the time for such a move.
"The people have finished making their decision. We are not going to talk about voting, but rather about the future of the country," said Moïse.
The candidate for Parti Haitien Tet Kale (PHTK) appeared to extend an olive branch to opponents, particularly the three candidates who had filed disputes with the electoral tribunals. He told Mr. Maxineau, "we will see what can be done for the country in concert with the candidates who have taken part in the elections."
Jovenel Moïse has been introducing himself as president-elect of all of Haiti and has been hammering his call for the nation to unite. "Mete tèt ansanm (Put our heads together)… the country should unite. It is extremely important for the well-being of the country," he said.
The presumptive president-elect was in Labadee, a large beach-side property leased to Royal Caribbean Cruiselines, where participated in events on the occasion of the first stopover of the Harmony of the Seas.
On board the ship, Moïse addressed an audience of politicians and entrepreneurs, where he assured that his administration would be engaged in strengthening the economy through partnerships, not through demagogic "witch-hunting".
Harmony of the Seas is the world's largest cruise and it docked in Labadee with over 6,500 passengers.