[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., NEB., CALIF., FLA.

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 19


PENNSYLVANIA:

Death penalty sought for man accused in double slaying----Investigators allege 
Matthew Becker killed his pregnant girlfriend; Prosecutors cite aggravating 
circumstances in seeking deathIntelligencer


Matthew Becker will face the death penalty when he is tried for allegedly 
killing his pregnant girlfriend, investigators said.

Prosecutors on Tuesday filed a notice to seek the death penalty, citing 
multiple aggravating circumstances in the Aug. 12 homicide of Allison Marie 
Walsh and her unborn daughter.

Police allege Becker, 22, shot Walsh in the head inside Becker's Mastersonville 
home after a disagreement over plans for the night.

Walsh, 7 1/2-months' pregnant, died inside 2666 N. Colebrook Road. The unborn 
baby was taken to Hershey Medical Center but died as well.

In the filing, prosecutors cite three specific aggravators and a catch-all 
aggravator to be presented at trial.

They are:

• Becker presented a grave risk to another person (the baby) when he fired the 
gun at Walsh.

• There were multiple victims of a single act.

• Walsh was in or beyond her third trimester of pregnancy at the time of the 
killing.

Baby Alexandria was due almost one week ago.

Assistant district attorneys Mark Fetterman and Deborah Greathouse are 
prosecuting the case. Fetterman filed the death-penalty paperwork Tuesday 
afternoon.

Becker has been at Lancaster County Prison without bail since he was arrested 
Aug. 18.

A trial is likely next year, unless a plea is made.

Becker contends that he shot the woman by accident. At a preliminary hearing 
last week, troopers testified that Becker admitted to pointing a gun at Walsh.

Dennis Charles, Becker's attorney, said the gun went off by accident. From the 
start, Becker proclaimed the shooting was accidental, Charles argued.

Charles said the alleged offenses, even if proven true, warrant only 
manslaughter charges.

However, troopers testified, there was a history of violence and threats in the 
couple's 1-year relationship.

Calling the relationship one of "disharmony," troopers said that Becker himself 
admitted to threatening Walsh before with a weapon.

One likely point of argument at trial will be whether Becker knew how to use 
the gun that was fired on the night of Aug. 12.

Becker had bought the pistol — with Walsh by his side — hours before the 
shooting, it was said at the preliminary hearing.

Charles said his client didn't know how to handle the weapon. Becker wasn't 
trained regarding its use at the gun shop, the lawyer said.

Becker initially told police different versions of how the gun fired, troopers 
testified. None of the explanations was plausible, police said, because the gun 
had safety features to prevent misfires.

(source: lancasteronline.com)






NEBRASKA:

Death penalty eyed in slaying


Prosecutors may seek the death penalty in the case of a Mitchell man charged 
with killing his stepdaughter.

Salvador Carl Lopez, 32, has been charged with 1st-degree murder in the Sept. 
21 death of 8-year-old Kerra Wilson. He appeared for the 1st time in district 
court Tuesday.

Prosecutor Joe Stecher, a Sioux County deputy attorney and a former U.S. 
attorney for the District of Nebraska, filed a notice of additional aggravating 
circumstances in the case, the necessary filing for the state to seek the death 
penalty in the case.

In order to seek the death penalty, the state must indicate, and later prove, 
that at least 1 aggravating circumstance exists in the case. The complaint 
identified Lopez's attempt to conceal the crime or the perpetrator as the 
circumstance.

The aggravating circumstance could come from Lopez's initial statements to 
police or other acts he committed as part of the crime that have not been 
released to the public. Investigators had searched for two days, beginning 
Sept. 21, for Kerra.

Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy attorney James Mowbray will represent 
Lopez, who is currently scheduled to be tried in March.

Mowbray said after the hearing that the defense believes it is likely that it 
will need to seek a change of venue because of Sioux County's population.

"Due to the lack of people, I believe we will have a problem seating a jury," 
he said. Sioux County has a population of 1,311 people. Mowbray said he 
believes it will be easier to seat a jury in Scotts Bluff County, which has a 
population of 36,970, despite extensive media attention.

"(Potential Scotts Bluff County jurors) will know something about the case," 
Mowbray said. "Obviously, (the case) was on the national news. We won't get 
away from that, but we'll have an easier time . of finding 12 jurors in Scotts 
Bluff County."

(source: Omaha World-Herald)






CALIFORNIA:

Death penalty subject of Sac State art exhibit


Malaquias Montoya, an artist who created controversial works surrounding the 
debate on capital punishment, opened his exhibit in the Sacramento State 
Library Gallery Annex Thursday.

The exhibit, "Pre-Meditated: Meditations on Capital Punishment," opened with a 
reception that included guest speaker Mike Farrell, president of the local 
chapter of Death Penalty Focus. He is best known for his role as B.J. Hunnicutt 
in the television series, M*A*S*H.

Montoya has been making posters against the death penalty since 1976 when he 
watched the trial of George Jackson, an American convict killed 3 days before 
trial. Capital punishment had always been a subject of importance to him, but 
he did not know much about it.

"I am not a scholar on the subject by any stretch of the imagination," Montoya 
said. "Something happened when I was young. My father was abusive and I hated 
him. But my mother told me, ‘Your father was born a child just like you, but he 
grew up and something made him go bad.'"

After that, Montoya grew compassionate and understanding of his father.

"And then I started to dislike the things that made him ugly, not him. And 
that's when I started thinking politically," Montoya said.

In 2000, when it seemed executions were happening monthly in Texas, Montoya 
thought of having a show on the subject.

"I put the work together and opened it in Notre Dame, which is a Catholic 
University. There were a lot of comments, and it led to an interesting debate," 
Montoya said. "It then moved to Duke University, Chicago, Los Angeles, the 
Nelson Gallery in Davis."

There are silk screened series of lynchings, paintings of the first woman 
executed, penalizing of the innocent and excerpts and depictions of court cases 
involving mentally retarded prisoners.

"The killing of the mentally retarded was hard to believe," Montoya said. "One 
man had his last supper and saved his piece of cake. When the guard asked him 
if he wanted to eat it, the prisoner answered he wanted to save it for when he 
got back. He had no idea what was happening."

According to a study done on inmates by the Human Rights Watch, America has 
more mentally ill in jail than in hospitals.

"It makes me feel anger, horror, pity, and rage at the people that continue to 
insist this is a civilized solution while blinding themselves to this ugly 
reality," Farrell said. "I think it's obvious why it's wrong, but Malaquias 
depicts it in a more nightmarish sense."

Farrell said one of the things he admired most about Montoya's work was that it 
showed there was no humane way to impose the death penalty.

"It's brutal, and it really portrays that there is no humane way to take a 
life," Farrell said.

On the wall opposite the entrance, there is a plaque that reads, "For there to 
be an equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had 
warned his victim in advance of the fate at which he would inflict a horrible 
death on him, and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy 
for months. Such a monster does not exist in private life."

Farrell said he is often accused of only caring about the murderer. He said 
everyone is affected or injured when violent crime occurs, and believes part of 
the $180 million that America has spent so far on the death penalty should be 
put towards dealing with the results of that act.

"What about life in prison without the possibility of parole?" asked Farrell 
Thursday.

He said the perpetrator should be required to work and the money they would be 
compensated should be donated to a victim relief fund.

"I support the nonviolent message and nonviolent protest. I'm against capital 
punishment," said Jason Youngkin, a second year grad student majoring in 
teaching. "I'm an artist as well, and this imagery is moving and powerful."

At one of his shows, Montoya said he saw a man looking at one of his paintings, 
crying. He did not walk up to him and ask him why, and decided to give him his 
space. After the show, the man walked up to Montoya and gave him a big hug.

"He was in jail, and one day, another prisoner patted him on the back, which 
meant he wanted to give him something," Montoya said. "The man reached behind 
him and pocketed the piece of paper, forgetting about it. Later that night when 
he remembered, he took it out and looked at it. It was one of my paintings."

It was being passed around to the inmates, Montoya said.

"You always wonder when you do 500 posters, is this going to do any good? Is 
this going anywhere?" Montoya asked.

Farrell said Montoya uses his talent to ask important questions of society.

"The questions that need to be asked," Montoya said. "The fundamental right to 
life is often abused."

(source: The (Sacramento State University) State Hornet)






FLORIDA:

Duval jury opts for death penalty in 2008 murder; defendant declined to have 
his family testify


A Jacksonville jury recommended the death penalty Tuesday for a convicted 
murderer who went against his attorney's advice to allow his family to testify 
in his behalf.

Michael Mulugetta Yacob, 26, was convicted Oct. 6 in the fatal shooting of 
19-year-old Moussa Maida during a May 2008 robbery at Maida's family-owned 
convenience store in Arlington.

Yacob told Circuit Judge Adrian G. Soud Tuesday he did not want his family to 
go through the pain of testifying despite the judge's efforts to ensure Yacob 
understood the consequences.

The exclusion of that testimony forced Soud to make a ruling before the jury 
entered the courtroom that restricted the testimony of Yacob's lone witness, an 
investigator for the Public Defender's Office.

Because prosecutors could not cross-examine potential witnesses who could 
explain Yacob's background, Soud said the investigator could not speak on 
several topics pertaining to the hardships and accomplishments of his life.

Among those topics include the several moves he made growing up as an immigrant 
from Africa, the social challenges he faced as a result of those moves, the 
abuse he suffered from a father who his defense said abandoned him as a child, 
his parents' divorce resulting in his mother's move to Seattle and his academic 
record.

Those factors were never presented to the jury who voted 10-2 Tuesday in favor 
of the death penalty.

A video played during his trial showed the entire robbery that resulted in 
Maida's murder on May 4, 2008.

Maida had just opened up the Snappy Food Store on Trollie Lane that morning 
when a masked Yacob entered the store and forced him into the cashier's booth, 
as seen in the video.

After forcing Maida to open the safe and give up the money, Yacob began to flee 
but stopped when he saw Maida press a button that locked him in the store. 
Maida sheltered himself inside what he thought to be a bulletproof glass 
enclosure.

But after Yacob missed with a first shot, he took better aim and fired the 
fatal blow that somehow pierced the glass and struck Maida in the chest.

Yacob managed to get away but was charged with first-degree murder in 2010 
after DNA found at the scene was linked to him while incarcerated in another 
case.

Maida's mother, Samar Safar, held her head down as a victim advocate read her 
interpreted statement to the jury.

"Since his death, I feel like all my happiness is gone," Safar said. "I don't 
like my life without my Moussa."

The Maida family moved to the United States from Syria when Moussa was 13. 
Because he spoke English much better than his parents, he took on more 
responsibilities than an average teen at the store and at home, his sister 
testified.

"Moussa took me under his wing and helped me adjust to life in the United 
States," said Cristen Maida, 19. "I could ask him things I couldn't ask my 
parents."

"I can remember riding around with him, listening to music and singing to the 
top of our lungs."

Yacob is set to appear back in court Nov. 18 to allow his attorneys one final 
plea of leniency to Soud.

(source: Florida Times-Union)