[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., OKLA., CALIF., USA, UTAH, IDAHO, COLO.

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 11


TEXAS----death penalty-related

Texas Ranked Top Exporting State for 10th Consecutive Year


Texas has been ranked the top exporting state in 2011 for the 10th year in a 
row, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Commerce, a sign of 
Texas' continued role as a leader in the global marketplace.

"For a full decade now, Texas has been the nation's epicenter for international 
trade thanks to the continued strength of our state economy and the 
opportunities created by our business climate," Gov. Perry said. "We remain 
committed to the bedrock conservative values of low taxes, reasonable 
regulations and fair courts that attract and keep employers in Texas, and we 
will continue to develop the world-class workforce necessary to meet the 
demands of any 21st century employer."

Texas' exports in 2011 totaled more than $249.8 billion, up 20.7 percent from 
$206.9 billion in 2010, outperforming overall U.S. exports, which grew by 15.8 
percent in 2011. The state's top export recipients were Mexico, Canada, China, 
Brazil and the Netherlands, which respectively imported $86.6 billion, $21.9 
billion, $10.9 billion, $9.9 billion and $9.0 billion in Texas-manufactured 
goods. Texas' top exporting industries in 2011 were petroleum and coal 
products, chemicals, computer and electronic products, non-electrical 
machinery, and transportation equipment.

In 2011, Site Selection Magazine, DCI and Area Development Magazine each ranked 
Texas as the best business climate. Additionally, Texas won Site Selection 
Magazine's 2010 Governor's Cup for the most new and expanded corporate 
facilities announced over the year. According to USA Today, Texas has moved 
past New York as the nation's second largest economy, and the Wall Street 
Journal has credited the state's low taxes and employer-friendly environment 
with helping make Texas the job creation capital of the nation. Additionally, 
Texas consistently ranks among the top states for Fortune 500 headquarters.

For more information on 2011 export data, please 
visithttps://www.wisertrade.org/naics/ftbegin.

http://governor.state.tx.us/news/press-release/16925/#When:22:29:00Z

(source: Press Release, Governor's Office)






PENNSYLVANIA:

Outside jury slated for death penalty trial in slaying of central Pa. wildlife 
officer


A jury from another county will be brought in to hear the death penalty trial 
of a central Pennsylvania man accused of having gunned down a wildlife 
conservation officer.

An Adams County judge agreed to a defense request for a jury to be chosen in 
another county and brought in for the trial of 28-year-old Christopher Johnson 
of Fairfield.

Johnson is charged in the November 2010 shooting death of wildlife conservation 
officer David Grove outside Gettysburg.

Officials said Grove was patrolling on his own along a dark stretch of rural 
road when he confronted a poacher and was shot 4 times.

Chief Public Defender Kristin Rice argued that pre-trial publicity had been "so 
pervasive and sustained" that her client would have been unable to get a fair 
trial.

(source: Associated Press)






OKLAHOMA:

Oklahoma governor halts executions set for next week


Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin granted a 30-day stay of execution on Thursday to 
a convicted murderer scheduled to be put to death next week so that state 
attorneys could study whether he should be granted clemency.

Garry Thomas Allen, scheduled for lethal injection on Wednesday, pleaded guilty 
to 1st-degree murder in the 1986 shooting death of his estranged girlfriend. 
But the state's pardon and parole board recommended his death sentence be 
commuted to life in prison.

Brad Henry, Oklahoma's Democratic governor at the time of the recommendation, 
never acted on it, leaving Republican Fallin as the condemned man's last hope, 
said Alex Weintz, the governor's spokesman.

The 30-day reprieve will give state attorneys time to study the "unique legal 
circumstances" of the case, said Weintz.

"We are dealing with a man's life and she takes it seriously," Weintz said.

Allen was convicted of killing Gail Titsworth in the parking lot of a day care 
center while she was picking up the couple's 2 young sons, according to court 
documents.

After shooting the woman 4 times in front of shocked witnesses, Allen was 
wounded in the head by an Oklahoma City police officer while the 2 men 
struggled.

Allen lost his left eye and suffered permanent brain damage from the head 
wound, according to court records, but a jury found him competent to stand 
trial in 1987.

Allen then insisted on pleading guilty because he did not want to put his 
family or the family of his girlfriend through any more hurt, appellate court 
records show.

More than 10 years after his guilty plea, the issue of competency was raised on 
appeal by a clinical psychologist who testified Allen's brain injury made him 
unable to understand or assist in his legal appeals, according to court 
records.

If Allen is not granted clemency by Fallin, the governor's order calls for him 
to be executed on March 16.

Oklahoma has the highest rate of executions per capita of population of any 
state in the nation since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 by the U.S. 
Supreme Court. The state has executed 97 people since 1976, the latest of which 
was Gary Welch on January 5, 2012, according to the Death Penalty Information 
Center.

(source: Reuters)






CALIFORNIA:

Serial killer’s tip leads to remains of 2nd body


Information provided by a California death row inmate who was 1 of the 2 
notorious “Speed Freak Killers’’ led to the discovery Friday of a 2nd set of 
human remains, this time believed to belong to a 16-year-old girl who went 
missing nearly 3 decades ago.

Specially trained dogs led authorities to a partial human skull and bones 
buried on a remote Calaveras County property, said Deputy Les Garcia, spokesman 
for the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Department, which is leading the search.

(source: Associated Press)


USA----film review

Death Row----(Documentary -- U.S.-U.K.-Austria)----By Justin Chang


A Creative Differences and Skellig Rock production in association with Spring 
Films and Werner Herzog Film. Produced by Erik Nelson. Executive producers, 
Dave Harding, Henry Schleiff, Sara Kozak, Andre Singer, Nick Raslan. 
Co-producer, Amy Briamonte. Directed, written by Werner Herzog.

Portrait: James Barnes

Running time: 47 MIN.

With: James Barnes, Ted Goodyear, Jeannice Barnes.

Portrait: Hank Skinner

Running time: 47 MIN.

With: Hank Skinner, David Bowser.

Portrait: Joseph Garcia and George Rivas

Running time: 47 MIN.

With: Joseph Garcia, George Rivas, Norvell Graham, Joey Contreras.

Portrait: Linda Carty

Running time: 47 MIN.

With: Linda Carty, Chris Robinson, Connie Spence, Jouvelle Joubert, Michael 
Goldberg.

The critique of capital punishment Werner Herzog initiated with "Into the 
Abyss" comes to riveting fruition in "Death Row," a weighty and probing look at 
the practice of legally sanctioned execution. More humane treatise than searing 
polemic, this powerful companion work offers 4 criminal case studies that will 
conveniently fill broadcasters' slots at an absorbing 47 minutes apiece. Viewed 
together in one 3-hour-plus sitting, however, they build a stealth argument 
about the humanity of the accused and the potential pitfalls of due process 
that, given Herzog's rep, could merit select theatrical and festival attention 
following the docu's Berlinale premiere.

Each segment begins with a shot that moves from an empty prison cell to an 
adjoining death chamber with an awaiting lethal-injection gurney, over which 
Herzog solemnly intones that he respectfully disagrees with the practice of 
capital punishment. Viewers may recall the words and images from "Into the 
Abyss," which blended interviews with 2 Texas convicts and the family members 
of their alleged victims, placing crime and punishment in a disturbing context 
of everyday violence and tragedy.

The portraits in "Death Row," devoted to four men and one woman awaiting 
execution, are not only shorter and narrower in focus but also more pointedly 
shaped and structured to interrogate the morality of the death penalty. 
Herzog's personal views notwithstanding, however, the films are strikingly 
undidactic and, as one would expect from the director, as invested in eccentric 
human details as in questions of law and order; it's up to discerning audiences 
to see the implicit parallels and contrasts and grasp the director's 
overarching argument.

Convicted of the 1998 murder of his wife, James Barnes was serving his sentence 
in Florida State Prison when he admitted to killing another woman under even 
more brutal circumstances, a confession that landed him on death row. 
Intercutting conversations with Barnes and with his twin sister, Jeannice, 
Herzog doesn't soft-pedal the ghastly nature of his subject's crimes, clearly 
rooted in an abusive upbringing that led to drug use and arson. Yet the 
filmmaker's larger point is that even someone with Barnes' rap sheet is 
entitled to due process of law, a principle not especially evident in the 
state's eagerness to expedite his execution, even when details surface that 
suggest future trials may be in order.

Unlike Barnes, Texas death-row inmate Hank Skinner maintains his innocence, 
despite having been convicted of a 1995 triple homicide on strong evidence. 
Easily the film's most Herzogian figure, Skinner is funny, articulate and well 
read, dropping out-there references to Gilgamesh and at one point delivering a 
fascinating speech on the subject of one's last meal. Indeed, he's one of those 
lucky souls who has enjoyed this privilege and lived to tell about it, having 
received a last-minute stay of execution -- a process that throws into stark 
relief the swift, arbitrary manner in which life can be either spared or taken 
by the state.

The fairness of certain death-penalty practices is further explored in the 
third and meatiest chapter, devoted jointly to Joseph Garcia and George Rivas. 
Both were members of the notorious Texas Seven, a group of prisoners whose 
meticulously rigged 2001 breakout from a Texas maximum-security prison was 
documented in the 2007 docu "The Hunt for the Texas 7" and is so entertainingly 
recounted here that it begs the question of why a feature hasn't been developed 
yet. Far less diverting, however, is this segment's grim focus on Rivas' 
senseless, unpremeditated killing of a cop, which landed him and his five 
surviving cohorts on death row. The law that binds all accomplices under one 
death sentence comes in for considerable scrutiny here; so does Rivas himself, 
the one inmate here who acknowledges his actions with deep remorse.

Linda Carty, by contrast, denies any involvement with the crime of which she 
was convicted, the 2001 murder of her neighbor Joana Rodriguez. Carty insists, 
none too convincingly, that she was framed by drug dealers, though one of her 
accomplices, Chris Robinson, chillingly paints her as the mastermind of a 
scheme to steal Rodriguez's infant son. Their competing testimonies, and the 
fact that Carty's British citizenship entitled her to certain legal rights that 
went unmet at the time, add layers of ambiguity to a case that features by far 
the film's least sympathetic culprit.

Viewer perceptions of guilt or innocence, indifference or remorse, are of 
course beside the point, even if they're an essential component of "Death 
Row's" cumulatively overwhelming emotional impact. "He does not appear to be a 
monster," Herzog says of the bright, highly articulate Barnes, a statement so 
plainly true that it takes a moment to grasp what the director no doubt knows, 
that appearing and being are 2 different things.

At every turn, Herzog makes as clear as he can how he went about interviewing 
his subjects, reminding them and the audience that his films are not intended 
to facilitate their exoneration. Yet the fact that no execution dates have been 
set for Barnes, Skinner, Garcia, Rivas and Carty as of 2012 (another telling 
contrast with "Into the Abyss") creates an unmistakable sense of lives hanging 
in the balance, upping the urgency of the film's rigorous moral inquiry.

Camera (color, HD), Peter Zeitlinger; editor, Joe Bini; music, Mark Degli 
Antoni; sound, Eric Spitzer, Jeff Duncan, Randy Foster, Michael Lile, Al 
McGuire, Steve Osmon. Reviewed at Berlin Film Festival (Berlinale Special), 
Feb. 8, 2012. Running time: 188 MIN.

(source: Variety)



UTAH:

Utah allows firing squad request to avoid execution delay


Utah prosecutors have reluctantly allowed a condemned killer to seek execution 
by firing squad rather than by lethal injection, saying they want to avoid 
further delays in putting him to death.

The request by Michael Archuleta, 49, convicted of the 1988 slaying of a 
college student, follows recent talks among state lawmakers and criminal 
justice officials about possibly returning to firing squads as an execution 
option in light of the current shortage of lethal-injection drugs.

If Archuleta gets his way, he would ultimately become only the fourth to be 
executed by shooting in the United States -- all of them in Utah -- since the 
U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976. The last was in June 
2010.

Utah, the last state to carry out executions by rifle volley, officially did 
away with the practice in 2004 under pressure from death penalty opponents and 
human rights activists who vehemently opposed firing squads as barbaric.

But the statute to abolish firing squads carved out an exemption for those 
death row inmates, like Archuleta, who had already requested it as their 
preferred manner of execution.

Approving Archuleta's request on Wednesday, state District Court Judge Donald 
Eyre Jr. signed an execution warrant ordering him to be put to death by firing 
squad on April 5.

Archuleta was convicted in 1989 of 1st-degree murder for the 1988 beating death 
of Gordon Church, who was kidnapped and sexually abused during the slaying.

Thomas Brunker, capital case coordinator for the Utah State Attorney General, 
said on Friday his office disagreed with Archuleta's request for a firing squad 
but opted not to challenge it for practical reasons.

"Our view was that was legally not appropriate," he said. "If we had to 
litigate that, it would push everything back."

Archuleta's reasons for seeking death by firing squad remained murky. "I 
haven't really talked to him about why, and that's just his expressed method of 
execution," his attorney James Slavens said.

Despite prosecutors' decision to go along with the mode of execution sought by 
the inmate, Archuleta's execution is likely to be delayed beyond April 5 due to 
appeals his lawyers plan to bring in the federal courts, Brunker said.

EXECUTIONER'S SONG

All 3 inmates last executed by firing squad in Utah had requested that manner 
of death, including Gary Gilmore who became the 1st person put to death after 
the Supreme Court's landmark 1976 ruling.

Gilmore's 1977 death, the subject of Norman Mailer's bestseller "The 
Executioner's Song," gained nationwide attention and sparked anguished debate 
about capital punishment. The American Civil Liberties Union fought 
unsuccessfully to block it.

The Utah statute that did away with firing squads for new death row inmates 
still contains language that would permit the general reinstatement of the 
practice if lethal injection were to one day be found unconstitutional, Brunker 
said.

Oklahoma law, likewise, would allow for execution by firing squad only if 
lethal injection and electrocution were ruled unconstitutional, according the 
Death Penalty Information Center.

Denny LeBoeuf, director of the ACLU's capital punishment project, which opposes 
all U.S. executions, noted that in past executions, Utah authorities placed a 
blank round in the chamber of one of the rifles used so that each gunman was 
able to believe he did not fire the fatal shot.

"If there's nothing wrong with this, how come we're allowing this little out, 
this little moral out for people who are actually doing the shooting," she 
said.

Officials with the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice have 
recently held discussions with state legislators about the possibility of 
relying on firing squads if drugs for lethal injection cannot be obtained.

Executions have been delayed in some states in recent months by a shortage of a 
key anesthetic used in the lethal injection "cocktail" to render a prisoner 
unconscious before another drug to stop the heart is administered. The scarcity 
occurred after the main U.S. manufacturer ceased production of the anesthetic 
last year.

"The issue has been discussed," said Ric Cantrell, chief of staff of the Utah 
Senate. "But there is no bill file for it, there is no sponsor, there is no 
immediate need."

(source: Reuters)






IDAHO:

20 years since Robin Row killed her husband, 2 kids


Exactly 20 years ago, Robin Row set fire to her Ada County home, killing her 
husband and 2 children. She is the only woman on Idaho's death row.

It was early morning on February 10, 1992 when Robin Row set her home on fire. 
The carbon monoxide killed her husband Randy Row and her 2 children 10-year-old 
Joshua and 8-year-old Tabitha.

Row was sentenced to death, and she continues to appeal that decision. In 
August 2011, a federal judge dismissed her entire appeal, but cleared her to 
ask a higher court to consider some other issues in her case, including whether 
her attorneys were ineffective and whether she was forced to wait too long to 
be arraigned.

Randy Row's sister: "I don't think she deserves to be alive"

Now 20 years after the shocking triple murder, the victims’ families are 
waiting to see if Row's death sentence will be carried out.

"She did get the death penalty, and it's just being dragged on and on and on at 
the expense of everybody," Randy Row's older sister Chris Danielson said. "I 
could understand them saying, well, we gotta give her a chance or whatnot, well 
she didn't give them a chance. They [the victims] didn't get 20 extra years on 
their lives."

Danielson says hearing of each of Robin Row's appeals makes waiting even more 
difficult.

"It's almost like pouring salt into your wounds. Like, is it ever going to get 
over? Is it ever going to get over? It's like c'mon, what was all that stuff we 
went through when we went to trial and they found her guilty?" Danielson said.

Lead investigator: 'She is an extreme psychopath'

Current Ada County Sheriff Gary Raney was the lead investigator on this case in 
1992. He was the detective who made the arrest.

"This was probably the most premeditated, in some ways, premeditated for gain 
murders that I've seen," Sheriff Gary Raney said.

Robin Row had taken out life insurance policies on her family; there was a 
quarter million dollars covering her children. The most recent policy had been 
taken out just a couple weeks before their murders.

"For her, it was a matter of would I rather have this money or would I rather 
have my husband and my 2 kids. She's a sociopath, so she could make the 
decision, I'd rather have the money," Raney said.

Sheriff: Robin Row likely killed her 2 other children

Raney believes Robin Row also killed her other 2 children, but was never caught 
or charged.

"As I investigated it and learned... I believe, that she killed a 15-month old 
daughter in New Hampshire in 1976 and her 6-year-old son in California in 
1980," Raney said. "So she had killed 2 of her children before, without being 
caught, and I was determined that if in fact this was murder, that I was going 
to do everything I can to collect the evidence and make sure she didn't get 
away with it again."

Raney says the New Hampshire case involved a daughter who's cause of death was 
listed as SIDS, but now he says evidence shows children that age do not die 
from SIDS. He believes Robin Row smothered the baby. "She was in a situation 
where the child was a burden to her, so she was looking for other 
opportunities, again a matter of convenience," Raney said.

In 1980, Raney says Robin Row was staying in a borrowed cabin with her 
6-year-old son Keith when a fire broke out and killed him. He says forensics 
suggest the boy's bedroom door was locked and an electric heater was pushed up 
against his bed blankets. Raney says the boy probably tried crawling to the 
door, couldn't get out, and died trying to get to the window.

Raney believes Keith's murder is chargeable, and that Robin Row could have been 
accused of that murder if the Boise case hadn't gone forward. He says Robin Row 
collected $28,000 in life insurance from Keith's death.

'I think she deserves the death penalty'

"For me understanding her personality and what she did, I think she deserves 
the death penalty," Raney said. "But every day up until that day, she's not 
able to manipulate other people, she's not able to get anything out of her web 
of lies, she's not going to kill anymore children. So she sits there 23 hours a 
day on death row and waits for that day to come, then there's probably some 
justice alongside that."

Raney says Robin Row has exhausted what could be considered her significant 
appeals, though no timeline can be certain for her case.

"I know that she has lost her final, significant appeals," Raney said. "She's 
on the, what might be classified as 'grasping at straw' appeals, the final 
opportunities. I don't expect those to go anywhere. As to what the timeline 
would be for those to be exhausted and what ultimately will be decided about 
serving the death warrant..."

If Robin Row is ever issued a death warrant, she would be brought from the 
Pocatello women's prison to the maximum security prison in Boise to await 
execution.

Row is represented by the Federal Defender Services of Idaho.

(source: KTVB News)






COLORADO:

Murder-for-hire suspects plead not guilty, may face death penalty


Prosecutors are considering whether to seek the death penalty against 3 
suspects in a Douglas County murder-for-hire plot after the 3 men pleaded not 
guilty to 1st-degree murder charges Friday.

The man accused of carrying out the murder plot, 26-year-old Josiah Sher, 
already faces the death penalty for his alleged role in the killing of Amara 
Wells and her brother-in-law Bob Rafferty in Feb. 2011.

The district attorney's office indicated it will make the decision on seeking 
the death penalty against the 3 suspected co-conspirators within 60 days.

“The decision to seek the death penalty in any case is probably the most 
difficult decision that a prosecutor has to make," said Karen Steinhauser, a 
University of Denver law professor and former Denver assistant district 
attorney.

The Douglas County double-murder is considered especially heinous.

Sher, a former Army sergeant, allegedly carried out the brutal killings for 
$20,000 at the request of Wells' estranged husband Christopher Wells. The 
couple was reportedly going through a bitter divorce at the time.

The bodies of Amara Wells and Bob Rafferty were found shot, stabbed and burned 
inside Rafferty's home in Keene Ranch.

Four men are accused of orchestrating the murder-for-hire plot.

Prosecutors say Christopher Wells hired Sher and 2 former co-workers to kill 
his wife Amara, his sister Tammy Rafferty and her husband Bob Rafferty. Wells' 
sister Tammy wasn't at the home the night of the murders.

Micah Woody allegedly was in charge of hiring Sher as the group’s killer, 
buying Sher a gun and giving him instructions on when and where to carry out 
the murders.

Matt Plake is accused of helping Sher plan the crimes and driving him to the 
Keene Ranch home. Plake allegedly helped dispose of evidence, including guns 
and bloody clothing.

"The prosecutor has to decide whether to seek the death penalty against people 
who didn't actually pull the trigger," said Steinhauser.

Jurors would be asked to consider the brutality of the crimes and each man's 
level of participation.

“What was their involvement, how much involvement did they have (and) what is 
their background," Steinhauser pointed out.

Prosecutors would also be raising the burden for jurors to consider all the 
facts of the case.

"To I don't think just beyond reasonable doubt but really beyond all possible 
doubt," the veteran prosecutor said.

That’s one reason the death penalty is rarely sought in Colorado.

Prosecutors are likely to decide whether to seek the death penalty before 
Wells' next court appearance on April 10. Woody and Plake are due back in court 
on April 20.

(source: KDVR News)