[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., N.C., KY.

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 4



PENNSYLVANIA:

Keystone College to present lecture by death row exoneree


An individual with experience dealing with the issue of the death penalty in 
America will visit Keystone College for a lecture next week. Former death row 
inmate Ron Keine will share his story of being convicted and later exonerated 
for murder during a lecture at 7 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 10 in Brooks Theatre.

Keine was 1 of 4 men convicted of the murder, kidnapping, sodomy and rape of a 
University of New Mexico student in 1974. He and his co-defendants were 
sentenced to death before an investigation by The Detroit News uncovered 
findings that prosecutors coerced testimony from a key witness in the trial.

After the murder weapon was traced to a law enforcement officer who admitted to 
the killing, Keine was released in 1976.

Now an assistant director of membership and training for Witness to Innocence, 
the nation's only organization of exonerated death row survivors and their 
loved ones, he lectures across the country on the death penalty.

The lecture is being presented in conjunction with a special topics course on 
capital punishment offered at Keystone by Associate Professor Stacey Wyland and 
Assistant Professor Deborah Belknap, J.D., Ph.D.

(source: golackawanna.com)






NORTH CAROLINA:

Death Penalty Decision Pending for Pharmacy Professor Murder


A North Carolina District Attorney will announce next week whether he will 
pursue the death penalty against 2 men charged with beating a University of 
North Carolina (UNC) Eshelman School of Pharmacy professor to death.

Derick Davis II, 23, of Durham, and Troy Arrington Jr., 27, of Chapel Hill, 
both face 1st-degree murder and robbery charges in the fatal July 2014 beating 
of Feng Liu, a UNC research professor, The Herald Sun Reports. They are 
scheduled to appear in court on November 12, 2014.

The suspects allegedly beat Liu with a landscape stone at 1 p.m. on July 23, 
2014, as the professor was walking near the UNC campus. Liu's wallet and 4 
credit cars were also stolen when he was killed.

Both suspects had recently been released from jail when the incident occurred. 
They remain in Orange County Jail in Hillsborough without bond.

(source: Pharmacy Times)

****************

Arden woman named to anti-death penalty group's board


An Arden psychologist who lost her sister to murder has been appointed to the 
board of a national group working to abolish the death penalty.

Jean Parks was selected Oct. 25 as 1 of 8 board members of Murder Victims' 
Families for Reconciliation, a Raleigh-based organization that represents 
people who have lost loved ones to murder and who work to end capital 
punishment.

The group sponsors programs and public awareness events across the country, as 
well as lobbying state legislatures to halt the death penalty. The group also 
promotes a new system of victim advocacy that includes advocacy independent of 
law enforcement and prosecutors, financial resources for burial expenses, 
expenses for time off from work for court proceedings, and counseling, Parks 
said.

"I oppose the death penalty for many reasons, but the 1st reason is that it 
creates another grieving family," Parks said. "MVFR empowered me to become an 
activist for death penalty repeal, and I want other victim family members to 
have that same support and encouragement," Parks said.

As a board member, she will be involved in overseeing MVFR's programs and 
finances.

Parks, 59, has been a member of the group since 2007. "I heard about an 
execution coming up and tried to imagine myself being a family member of the 
person about to be executed, and how powerless and full of grief I would feel," 
Parks said of her interest in the cause. "What I was imagining was similar to 
what my family had gone through when Betsy was murdered."

Betsy Rosenberg was murdered in 1975 in Raleigh while a 24-year-old student at 
N.C. State University. She had studied for exams late one night at the campus 
library and was returning to her car when she was attacked and beaten to death, 
her purse stolen.

A man who was convicted of the crime is serving a life sentence, but he has 
maintained his innocence.

Parks said MVFR's work has taken on new urgency recently after several 
high-profile exonerations of death row inmates, including that of North 
Carolina's longest serving death row inmate, as well as botched executions in 
several states.

While the death penalty is still technically allowed in North Carolina, the 
last execution in the state was in 2006.

MVFR executive director Scott Bass said Parks is "a long-time MVFR member who 
is committed to bringing together victim family members and educating the 
public about the ways that the death penalty causes suffering for families and 
fails to serve their practical needs for services such as counseling and victim 
advocates, help with funeral expenses, or community violence prevention.

"Our board members are the voice and face of MVFR. They know the pain of losing 
family members to violence, and they understand what it takes to create a 
criminal justice system that better responds to victims' needs. They have seen 
firsthand that an ineffectual and error-prone death penalty does not honor the 
victims of murder."

(source: Citizen-Times)






KENTUCKY:

Judge denies death penalty in murder case


A woman's life was fought to be kept off of the line last week in Perry County 
Circuit Court as her attorney argued against allowing her case to be escalated 
to a capital trial.

Billie J. Caudill, 31, of Whick, was indicted last year on charges of DUI third 
offense, driving on a DUI suspended license, and three counts of murder. In 
July 2013, Caudill was behind the wheel of a vehicle that crossed the 
centerline on Highway 15 and collided with another vehicle, leading to the 
deaths of her husband, Danny Caudill, who was a passenger in her car, and 
William Belcher and his wife Lillie, who were driving the vehicle that was 
struck.

Commonwealth's Attorney John Hansen told the Herald last year that test results 
of samples taken after the accident showed that Caudill was intoxicated at the 
time of the incident.

Early in October, Hansen entered a motion to seek the death penalty in the 
case, something that had been hotly contested in previous court proceedings due 
to the fact that the trial was set for Nov. 3.

Caudill's attorney, Brent Flowers, argued in court Thursday morning that there 
had not been nearly enough notice given of the Commonwealth seeking the death 
penalty before the trial was set to begin. Flowers added that the motion was 
filed less than 2 weeks prior to the trial, and that in capital trials in the 
past, even so much as more than 40 days had been ruled as insufficient time for 
the defense to prepare for a death penalty case.

Flowers told Perry County Circuit Judge Bill Engle that if that was not enough 
of a reason to exclude the death penalty in the case, the case itself did not 
warrant capital punishment.

"Based purely on statute for what is something that is eligible for the death 
penalty and then looking at the Commonwealth's notice and then looking at the 
indictment, this isn't something that's eligible for the death penalty," he 
said.

Flowers went on to explain that an intentional murder is the only multi-murder 
charge eligible for the death penalty in Kentucky, adding that the Commonwealth 
was seeking wanton murder charges, which are not eligible.

"The only thing that I could possibly think of the Commonwealth arguing in this 
case is, well, she intentionally drove a car and when she drove a car that 
constituted wanton behavior, which resulted in death," Flowers said, explaining 
that the contradiction in the terms "wanton" and "intentional" in Kentucky 
statute would still keep the case from being a capital trial.

Hansen responded to Flowers, saying that anyone who willingly gets intoxicated 
and gets behind the wheel of a car is responsible for the lives of those 
driving on the road with them.

"This defendant intentionally got herself stoned, and went out driving," Hansen 
said. "The ... injuries received by the Belchers and Caudills were caused by 
horrific trauma caused by the insidious actions of this defendant, we know that 
to be true, that's not going to be an issue decided in this case."

Hansen went on to say that a vehicle is a weapon that can be used to harm 
multiple people, and since Caudill knowingly used that weapon while she was 
under the influence she should be held accountable since she knew what could 
happen.

"We feel that this is an act of ... intentional murder," Hansen said.

After nearly 2 hours of argument, Judge Engle ruled that the case was not 
eligible for the death penalty mainly because of the type of case it was.

Caudill was indicted on a Class A Felony, Engle said, not a capital offense, 
and a Class A Felony only allots for a punishment of years to serve.

The trial for Caudill was continued for later this year. A status hearing was 
set for Nov. 20.

(source: Hazard Herald)