[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----S.DAK., COLO., ARIZ., CALIF., WASH., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 8



SOUTH DAKOTA:

Husband Charged With Murder In Mitchell Death


A Mitchell man has been arrested and charged with the murder of his wife.

Mitchell Police say 49-year-old Donald McDougal was arrested just before 10 
p.m. on Saturday. McDougal was charged with 1st degree murder and an alternate 
count of second degree murder in the death of 49-year-old Janie McDougal.

Police say they were called to McDougal's apartment on South Main Avenue in 
Mitchell just after 11:30 p.m. on September 1st. Inside, they found Janie 
McDougal's body. After conducting an autopsy, they ruled her death as 
suspicious.

If convicted, Donald McDougal may face the death penalty or life in prison.

The Mitchell Police are asking for any information regarding people coming or 
going from this apartment on September 1st. Anyone who may have information is 
asked to contact police or the Mitchell Area Crimestoppers.

(source: KDLT news)






COLORADO:

Documentary on convicted murderer Nathan Dunlap stirs debate about Colorado's 
death penalty---CNN documentary aired Sunday night

A CNN documentary on Nathan Dunlap's 1993 murder rampage and death sentence 
aired Sunday night amid growing debate about capital punishment in Colorado - 
and about 2 weeks after the governor said in an interview for that show that he 
could grant Dunlap clemency.

The documentary did not include Gov. John Hickenlooper's clemency comments - 
which were obtained by a political blogger through an open-records request for 
the interview recording - though it did outline how the case has become a 
political talking point in this year's gubernatorial election. Hickenlooper 
told CNN he could grant Dunlap clemency if he is not re-elected in November.

"I think Nathan deserves to meet his maker," Bobby Stephens, the sole survivor 
of Dunlap's rampage, said on the show.

The 45-minute documentary is part of CNN's "Death Row Stories." The show 
details how Dunlap shot five people, four of them fatally, at an Aurora Chuck 
E. Cheese where he once worked. CNN said they chose not to include 
Hickenlooper's clemency comments because they could be a "distraction" to 
voters.

Hickenlooper - who is barely featured in the documentary - granted Dunlap a 
temporary reprieve in May 2013 after a judge set a date for his execution 
following years of appeals. "We knew that when we were making this decision, we 
were making the hardest decision - we would be criticized from both sides," 
Hickenlooper, who is against the death penalty, said on the show of the 
reprieve. "We try to hear all the voices and all the perspectives, but you try 
to get to justice."

(source: The Denver Channel)






ARIZONA:

Corrections department renews registration to import execution drug


The Drug Enforcement Administration has renewed the Arizona Department of 
Corrections' registration to import pentobarbital, the drug of choice for 
executions in states that allow lethal injection.

The notice comes just 6 weeks after the state executed Joseph Wood Jr. using a 
different set of drugs, midazolam and hydromorphone, in a process that took 
almost 2 hours and that witnesses said left Wood gasping for air.

"I would think they want it (pentobarbital) because what happened during their 
last execution was an embarrassment," said Richard Dieter, executive director 
at the Death Penalty Information Center. He called pentobarbital the "most 
desired drug for states who administer the death penalty."

(source: correctionsone.com)






CALIFORNIA---new death sentence

Man sentenced to death for murdering Subway worker in Whittier


A judge, following a jury's recommendation, sentenced a man to death today for 
murdering a worker at a Subway sandwich shop in Whittier and a man in a San 
Gabriel parking lot during robberies about a decade ago.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ronald S. Coen ordered Leonardo Alberto 
Cisneros, 30, to be transferred to San Quentin State Prison sometime within the 
next 10 days.

"When all appeals have been exhausted ... the warden is ordered to put the 
defendant to death," Coen said.

An automatic appeal will be filed in the case.

Cisneros was convicted of 1st-degree murder on May 7 for 2 killings. On Dec. 
10, 2004, 22-year-old Pasadena City College student Joseph Molina was killed 
during a heist at the Subway store in the 5400 block of Norwalk Boulevard. 
Earlier, on Aug. 4, 2004, Dianqui Wu, 50, of Rowland Heights was killed in the 
1800 block of South Del Mar Avenue in San Gabriel.

Jurors found true the special circumstance allegations of murder during the 
course of a robbery and multiple murders. They also found Cisneros guilty of 16 
counts of robbery and one count of attempted robbery. Some of those counts 
involved armed robberies at other businesses in the San Gabriel Valley area. On 
May 23, they recommended the death penalty.

In his closing argument, Deputy District Attorney Frank Santoro told the 
eight-man four-woman panel that Cisneros "does not deserve to walk around a 
prison or be in prison."

"He turned into a monster, a ruthless, brutal killer," the prosecutor said.

3 members of Molina's family, some wearing T-shirts with his likeness, offered 
statements to the court today. They included a measure of forgiveness for 
Cisneros.

Calling the defendant "some nervous, misguided thief," Molina's uncle Marty 
Speer said he hoped Cisneros "doesn't have evil in him" and that the killing 
was "just a horrible mistake."

Josephina Molina, the victim's mother, said she wanted Cisneros to repent. 
Otherwise, Molina said, the defendant would suffer "eternal damnation in hell."

Molina said she had come to a difficult personal decision. "I have decided 
today to extend my forgiveness to you, Mr. Cisneros," she said.

Cisneros scribbled notes throughout the family's comments, not turning to look 
at them.

Following the sentencing, Santoro was less forgiving, saying that the shootings 
were gratuitous. Cisneros could have walked away with the money, leaving his 
victims unharmed, the deputy district attorney said.

"He did it because, basically, he was an evil man," Santoro said.

One of Cisneros' attorneys, Nancy Sperber, had implored jurors to spare her 
client a death sentence. She told jurors that life without the possibility of 
parole, the other sentence jurors could have recommended, was "not something to 
treat lightly."

"It is serious," she said. "It's not a sentence to a country club."

Santoro said the punishment was justified.

"It's an appropriate sentence in this case," Santoro said. "It took a long 
time, but justice was finally served."

4 others were charged in connection with some of the crimes.

Mitzie Ann Oso, 35, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in both killings 
and was sentenced to 8 years in prison.

Jose Resendez, 37, pleaded guilty to 2nd-degree murder and robbery involving 
Wu's death, while Bernadette Corvera, 33, pleaded guilty to 2nd- degree murder 
and robbery involving Molina's death. They were each sentenced to 15 years to 
life in state prison.

Sara Lopez, 32, pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact in Wu's 
death. She was sentenced to 3 years probation.

(source: Daily Breeze)






WASHINGTON:

Carnation Killers May Receive Death Penalty


Washington may seek the death penalty against the couple behind the Carnation 
Massacre, a Christmas Eve shooting spree that left three generations of a 
family dead, the state's Supreme Court ruled.

On Christmas Eve 2007, Michele Kristen Anderson and her boyfriend, Joseph 
McEnroe, murdered her parents, her brother and his wife, her 6-year-old niece 
and 3-year old nephew in her hometown of Carnation, Washington, a rural town 25 
miles east of Seattle.

It is unclear what the couple's motive was for the shootings.

Prosecutors sought the death penalty for the crimes, but the trial court 
derailed the prosecution's plans in January, ruling that the state failed to 
allege the absence of "sufficient mitigating circumstances to merit leniency." 
The court then gave prosecutors 2 weeks to amend the charging information.

If sentenced to death, Anderson would be the first woman in Washington's 
history to receive the ultimate punishment.

The state appealed the order, and the Washington Supreme Court reversed the 
ruling last week.

"The death penalty notices in the 2 cases before us complied with the state 
statutory charging requirements of RCW 10.95.040. Each notice alleged that 
'there [is] reason to believe that there are not sufficient mitigating 
circumstances to merit leniency,'" Justice Gordon McCloud said, writing for the 
nine-justice court.

Washington State law does not require that a state give criminal defendant 
adequate notice of the "essential elements of the crimes charged" in the 
charging information.

In this case, "the notice of special sentencing proceeding afforded the 
defendants statutorily required notice that the State intended to prove the 
absence of sufficient mitigating circumstances to merit leniency," McCloud 
said.

However, the court denied the state's request to reassign the case to a 
different judge on remand, because prosecutors never asked the judge to recuse 
himself.

"[E]ven where a trial judge has expressed a strong opinion as to the matter 
appealed, reassignment is generally not available as an appellate remedy if the 
appellate court's decision effectively limits the trial court's discretion on 
remand," the 19-page opinion held. (Emphasis in original.)

(source: Courthouse News)






USA:

Feds explore death for 2 gang leaders----Sanctioned killings to silence 
witnesses alleged in racketeering indictment


One is considered a senior-level "shot caller," doling out advice to younger 
gang members, coordinating a lucrative drug-trafficking and prostitution 
business and giving the go-ahead for killings as a brutal form of discipline.

The other is said to lead a younger clique of gang members, guiding criminal 
enterprises from armed robberies to murders.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in San Diego, which is prosecuting the pair as part 
of a wide-ranging racketeering conspiracy, is now exploring whether the 
totality of the alleged crimes warrants the death penalty for the two men, 
Randy Alton Graves, 51, and Terry Carry Hollins, 32.

Federal death penalty cases are rare nationwide, and even rarer in San Diego. 
There are currently 61 inmates on federal death row; two are from California, 
neither of whom are from San Diego, the Death Penalty Information Center 
reports.

Since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988, 3 people have been 
executed.

Last week, local federal prosecutors set in motion a process to decide whether 
this is the right case for the most extreme sanction. On Wednesday, a judge 
appointed 2 experienced death-penalty attorneys to assist the lawyers 
representing the defendants. Those defense teams will grow in the coming weeks 
as they bring on veteran death-penalty investigators, law clerks and mitigation 
specialists.

Their goal is to create what's called a "mitigation package" to present to 
prosecutors. It will lay out arguments for why their clients don't meet the 
threshold for capital punishment.

If local prosecutors decide to go forward with the recommendation, it will be 
up to the attorney general in Washington, D.C., to make a final determination 
of whether to pursue death. A decision could be more than a year away.

Graves' attorney, Jeremy Warren, contends this is not an appropriate case for 
the death penalty.

"Mr. Graves was not a participant in any violent crime alleged in the 
indictment and therefore should not be a candidate for being killed by our 
government," Warren said.

This death-penalty investigation process has been done twice in San Diego in 
recent memory: In 2007 prosecutors here explored going for the death penalty 
for Francisco Javier Arellano Felix because of his status as a drug kingpin, 
and in 2006 for 2 Mexican Mafia prisoners charged with murder and other crimes.

In the end, the attorney general declined to pursue capital punishment in both 
cases.

Federal guidelines spell out some of the criteria considered in a potential 
death-penalty case: the strength of the evidence, the role of the defendant, 
whether the defendant has shown interest in agreeing to a life term or 
accepting responsibility, and whether the crimes were committed to obstruct 
justice or in retaliation for the victim's cooperation with law enforcement.

That last condition could weigh strongly against Graves and Hollins.

Both are accused of running their crews with iron fists, having zero tolerance 
for snitches and few qualms about silencing them permanently, according to a 
95-page complaint, which charges a total of 17 people.

Besides running a drug sales and prostitution operation, Graves oversaw the 
gang in general, often being the one who gave advice, issued orders and handled 
bigger problems, the FBI's task force investigation found. He called younger 
members his "soldiers" and Hollins his "young general."

Hollins, aka "Caby," led a younger subset of the gang, called 3-Babiez, the 
documents say. In December, he and 2 others were arrested on suspicion of 
stealing about $1,000 from a Logan Heights business in an armed robbery, 
authorities said.

Prosecutors accuse Hollins of participating in a 2012 killing of a rival gang 
member in retaliation for a carjacking. And he was also present when his crew 
shot fellow gang member Meashal Fairley 4 months later in front of a nightclub, 
the records state. Fairly was suspected of cooperating with law enforcement.

When one of Fairley's friends voiced anger at the killing, she was gunned down 
at a Halloween costume party. Hollins and some of his crew posed for pictures 
at the crime scene, and in cellphone videos bragged about being willing to kill 
anyone, even women, the complaint states.

The killings continued to shake the gang. When a pregnant woman then criticized 
the gang for the deaths of her two friends, she was targeted, prosecutors said. 
She and her fetus survived a shooting, but Graves encouraged others to find her 
in the hospital and finish her off, the records say.

"Mount up, load up and y'all handle this," he is recorded as saying in a 
wiretapped conversation with a fellow gang member. "The message has been that 
for years - you snitch, you go, period."

In February, Hollins believed fellow gang member Paris Hill gave a statement to 
police about another killing. Suspecting Hill was cooperating with police, 
Hollins called Graves and asked for advice on what to do. The court documents 
say Graves told someone he replied that what Hill did was "in violation and 
violations get dealt with. Period. No ifs, ands or buts."

On March 1, Hollins told Hill to come with him and they ended up at a party, 
where Hill was shot and killed. Some partygoers had been warned that a 
youngster was going to get "disciplined" that night, the compliant says.

When Hollins was arrested after the killing, their were concerns his girlfriend 
might snitch. Graves then OK???d her killing, authorities say. "Yeah she gotta 
go, she shared too much,??? he was recorded as saying.

Authorities immediately put the girlfriend into protective custody. Wiretaps 
caught the gang's members expressing frustration at their inability to find 
her.

2 of the defendants have pleaded guilty to their roles in Graves' 
drug-trafficking business, and two others appear ready to do so next week.

The slayings, and the numerous other criminal acts outlined in the charging 
document, make for a complex case. Graves' attorney said in court last week 
that he's still going through the more than 70,000 wiretapped conversations - 
about 1/2 of which involve his client.

Attorneys for both men argued to the judge that it will take time, up to a year 
if done right, to prepare their arguments against the death penalty. That will 
include learning everything possible about Graves' and Hollins' backgrounds, 
family history and mental health, and understanding all angles of the case. The 
assistant U.S. Attorney, Stephen Wong, has argued that it can be accomplished 
in much less time - 90 days. The judge is expected to set a timeline this week.

Graves, aka "Sweets," is described in court documents as an "O.G." or "original 
gangster" of the West Coast Crips, a decades-old street gang that boasts 
several hundred members split into smaller groups. In San Diego, the gang 
claims a territory that includes Sherman Heights, Logan Heights and Grant Hill, 
on the edges of downtown.

San Diego defense attorney Knut Johnson, who represented one of the Mexican 
Mafia figures during a death penalty consideration, said the job the defense 
has in front of them now shouldn't be taken lightly.

"This is the most important type of criminal case the federal system can 
handle, and they have to be handled with the utmost seriousness," said Johnson, 
who isn't involved in this case. "To understand why someone shouldn't be 
executed for doing something very bad, assuming they even did it, you have to 
go back and present a complete portrait of the person, going back to before 
birth."

Both the death-penalty lawyers appointed to the case have years of experience 
in such matters. Mark Fleming and Dean Steward both were brought on to 
represent a leader of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang charged in a 
racketeering conspiracy of murder and attempted murder in Santa Ana. The white 
supremacist leader escaped death in 2006, getting 4 life sentences instead. 
Fleming was also on the death-penalty defense team of Jared Loughner, who 
wounded then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in an assassination attempt in Tucson, 
Ariz., and killed 6 others. Loughner pleaded guilty and avoided capital 
punishment.

(source: UT San Diego)