[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., KAN., MO., ARIZ.

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 24




TEXAS----new execution date:

Manuel Garza has been given an execution date for April 15 (2015); it should be 
considered serious.

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

Executions under Rick Perry, 2001-present-----278

Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982-present----517

Perry #--------scheduled execution date-----name---------Tx. #

279------------Oct. 28------------------Miguel Paredes--------518

280------------Jan. 14------------------Rodney Reed-----------519

281------------Jan. 15------------------Richard Vasquez-------520

282------------Jan. 21-------------------Arnold Prieto--------521

283------------Jan. 28-------------------Garcia White---------522

284------------Feb. 4--------------------Donald Newbury-------523

285------------Feb. 10-------------------Les Bower, Jr.-------524

286------------Mar. 11-------------------Manuel Vasquez-------525

287------------Mar. 18-------------------Randall Mays---------526

288------------Apr. 15-------------------Manuel Garza---------527

(sources: Texas Department of Criminal Justice & Rick Halperin)






FLORIDA:

Jury finds Seminole man guilty of 1st-degree murder in killing of estranged 
wife----Dwayne White, 44, on trial for 1st-degree murder


A Seminole County man accused of murdering his estranged wife was found guilty 
of 1st-degree murder on Thursday.

A Seminole County man accused of murdering his estranged wife testified in his 
own defense on Thursday.

Dwayne White, 44, for on trial for the Aug. 29, 2011 stabbing death of 
42-year-old Sarah Rucker.

Once the state rested its case on Thursday, White's defense team asked the 
judge to toss out the case. The judge denied the request and the defense then 
asked for the case to be declared a mistrial because of an evidence gathering 
issue. The judge also denied that request.

Prosecutors said there are bloody hand print matches and cellphone pings that 
prove White slashed Rucker's throat with a pocket knife.

The state said Rucker can be heard on a 911 call begging her husband to stop 
beating her not long before her death.

White has continuously denied killing Rucker but admitted to fighting with her 
a few hours before she was discovered face-down in a pool of blood outside a 
Longwood sandwich shop.

White had previously claimed he was nowhere near the sub shop, but testified on 
Thursday that he did go to the sub shop. He admitted he found Rucker's dead 
body, but didn't call police. He said he panicked and went home.

In the recorded statement, White repeatedly indicated that it was unfair how 
focused law enforcement authorities were on him.

When investigators asked White how they were going to resolve the path to the 
truth he said, "The resolution is to go find who did it, and stop saying I did 
it."

Investigators said there is a documented history of domestic violence between 
the separated couple.

A jury came back with the guilty verdict only a few hours after starting 
deliberations. The state is seeking the death penalty in this case. The jury 
will be back in court Tuesday for a hearing on the death penalty portion.

(source: WESH news)






KANSAS:

Surviving victim of Carr brothers speaks out against court ruling


My name is Andy Schreiber. I am 1 of 2 surviving victims of the Carr brothers' 
December 2000 murderous crime spree in Wichita. I've sat silently for more than 
12 years, but I'm now breaking that silence to share my thoughts on the recent 
Kansas Supreme Court ruling vacating the death sentences for both brothers 
(July 26 Eagle). This decision left me no choice but to speak out.

The death penalty is a legally acceptable penalty: It is not murder. It is a 
valid and legal form of punishment that was voted on and enacted by the Kansas 
Legislature. What the Supreme Court has done - not only in the Carr brothers' 
case, but in all other capital murder cases since the death penalty was 
re-enacted in 1994 - is effectively eliminate the death penalty by judicial 
edict. A majority of the Supreme Court justices have allowed their personal 
political views of the death penalty to cloud their impartiality in these 
cases. The reason the U.S. Supreme Court has reinstated several of the death 
sentences vacated by the Kansas Supreme Court is because these decisions were 
legally flawed.

Everyone is entitled to a fair trial, not a perfect trial. I challenge anyone 
to find a perfect capital murder trial where no errors were made, especially a 
case as complicated as this one. However, in a case like this one where 
evidence of guilt is so overwhelming and where any error, when weighed against 
the totality of the evidence presented against each defendant, could not 
possibly have resulted in a different verdict had it not occurred, the case 
should be affirmed. That was basically then-Justice Nancy Moritz's dissenting 
opinion in this 6-1 decision to vacate both death sentences.

Any retrial or resentencing is an enormous waste of time and taxpayer money, 
not to mention the anguish it will cause the victims and our families, as we're 
forced to relive each and every horrifying detail of the crimes all over again 
- twice - because of the separate penalty trials ordered by the state Supreme 
Court.

In the 14 years since these vicious crimes were committed, those of us affected 
by these 2 animals have picked up the pieces and carried on with our lives. 
We've started families and careers, though all the while haunted by the 
possibility of having to do this all over again.

Eric Rosen and Lee Johnson are 2 of the justices who voted to vacate the death 
sentences in this case. Appointed Supreme Court justices must face a retention 
vote every 6 years, and both Rosen and Johnson will be on the Nov. 4 ballot. I 
urge you to speak out, just as I have here, and vote "no" to remove Rosen and 
Johnson from the bench.

(source: Opinion, kansas.com)






MISSOURI----impending execution

Religious leaders ask Governor to stop execution


Religious leaders from around Missouri are calling on Gov. Jay Nixon to call 
off the scheduled execution of Missouri death row inmate Mark Christeson.

Christeson is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Wednesday. He was 
convicted of killing a mother and her 2 children near Vichy in February 1998. A 
jury in Nevada convicted Mark Christeson in 1999 of 3 counts of 1st-degree 
murder and recommended a death penalty.

The letter, signed by several religious leaders including Bishop James Johnston 
of the Catholic Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau, asks the governor to 
grant Christeson clemency based on allegations of attorney incompetence and 
questions about Christeson's mental competence. The letter calls out the 
federally appointed defense counsel for "egregious actions" in missing 
deadlines for federal review of the case.

The letter also points out that Christeson was enrolled in special education 
classes when he was in school, was 18 at the time of the murders, had low 
performance in school and suffered several head injuries that resulted in him 
losing consciousness. It also notes Christeson's family had a history of mental 
illness, chaos, violence and pedophilia.

The signers also argue that the death penalty does not protect or heal 
communities, but promotes vengeance and the perpetuation of violence.

(source: KSPR news)






ARIZONA:

Arizona challenged to abandon secrecy on death penalty drugs


The secrecy imposed by Arizona on the source and quality of the lethal 
injection drugs it uses to kill death row inmates has been challenged in a new 
lawsuit brought by the Guardian and other media organizations.

In the lawsuit, filed with a federal court in Phoenix, the Guardian together 
with the Associated Press and four of Arizona's largest news outlets argue that 
the state's refusal to disclose any information about its lethal injection 
drugs is a breach of the public's 1st amendment right to know about how the 
death penalty is being carried out in its name. It follows a groundbreaking 
first amendment case brought by the Guardian and others in Missouri in May.

In tune with many other death penalty states, Arizona has gone to great lengths 
to hide the provenance and nature of the medical drugs it uses to execute 
prisoners. Supplies of the medicines have run low in the wake of a worldwide 
boycott of US executions, and as a result the department of corrections has had 
to resort to increasingly imaginative sources which it has shrouded in secrecy 
in an effort to keep supply lines open.

But recent botched executions have highlighted the problematic nature of such 
creative sourcing and secrecy, and the heat has been turned up on death penalty 
states to subject themselves to more accountability. In Arizona, it took Joseph 
Wood almost took hours to die from an experimental concoction of midazolam and 
hydromorphone.

Eyewitnesses reported the prisoner gulping more than 600 times. It was later 
revealed that Wood had been injected with 15 doses of the 2-drug cocktail out 
of the view of public witnesses to the execution.

Use of midazolam in executions in recent months has proved particularly 
problematic and contentious. It has been associated with gruesome and prolonged 
deaths in Florida, Ohio and Oklahoma.

The Arizona complaint has been joined, in addition to the Guardian and the 
Associated Press, by 2 of the state's most important newspapers, the Arizona 
Republic and the Arizona Daily Star. 2 major television channels, KPNX-TV 
Channel 12 and KPHO Broadcasting Corporation, are also party to the suit.

The action is lodged in the US district court in Arizona and is directed 
against Charles Ryan, director of the department of corrections, and the 
state's attorney general, Thomas Horne, both in their official roles. The 
Guardian and fellow plaintiffs are represented by the Media Freedom and 
Information Access Clinic at Yale law school, with the assistance of Ballard 
Spahr LLP in Phoenix.

Unlike most other lawsuits that have been brought relating to the creeping 
secrecy that surrounds lethal injection drugs - which have argued the 
prisoners' constitutional rights have been violated - the Arizona lawsuit 
starts with the principle that the public has a right to know how capital 
punishment is being carried out.

The complaint argues that "the public cannot meaningfully debate the propriety 
of lethal injection executions if it is denied access to this essential 
information about how individuals are being put to death by the state." It says 
that the established constitutional right of public access to aspects of 
government procedures means that the state should be obliged to reveal "the 
source, composition, and quality of drugs, as well as the protocols, that have 
been or will be used in lethal injection executions and to view the entirety of 
anexecution".

This is the 4th lawsuit that the Guardian has launched against various 
manifestations of secrecy in the US death penalty. As well as the actions in 
Arizona and Missouri, there are ongoing legal complaints currently before the 
courts in Pennsylvania and in Oklahoma, where the state is being challenged for 
having drawn the curtain halfway through the botched execution of Clayton 
Lockett in April.

(source: The Guardian)