[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----IA., KAN., MO., OKLA.

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 18



IOWA:

Peter Neufeld of The Innocence Project to Deliver 35th Bucksbaum Lecture


The co-founder of an organization that seeks to exonerate wrongly convicted 
inmates through DNA testing will deliver the 35th installment of the Martin 
Bucksbaum Distinguished Lecture Series at Drake University.

Peter Neufeld, co-founder of The Innocence Project, will deliver the free 
public lecture at 7 p.m. Tuesday, October 27, in the Drake University Knapp 
Center. Seating is general admission and tickets are not required.

The Innocence Project is a national non-profit organization that represents 
hundreds of inmates seeking post-conviction release through DNA testing and 
pursues institutional reform to identify and address the systemic causes of 
wrongful convictions.

More than 300 people have been exonerated by DNA testing in the United States, 
including 18 people who served time on death row. The Innocence Project's 
full-time staff attorneys provided direct representation or critical assistance 
in almost all of those cases, with the assistance of students at the Benjamin 
N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University. The wrongly convicted 
individuals served an average of 14 years in prison before exoneration and 
release.

"The increasing public attention to the issues of mandatory sentences and the 
nation's level of incarcerations make this an important time to hear more about 
the work of the Innocence Project," said Neil Hamilton, professor at Drake Law 
School. "The number of individuals the Project's lawyers have helped free from 
prison makes the group a key player in efforts to improve the justice system in 
the United States."

The Innocence Project advocates for more rigorous scientific validation of 
forensic procedures and other techniques routinely used by law enforcement 
outlets and prosecutors in criminal justice cases. Among the first 325 
DNA-based exonerations in the United States, eyewitness misidentification was a 
contributing factor to wrongful convictions in 72 % of cases. Unverifiable or 
improper forensics were a contributing factor in 47 % of cases; false 
confessions in 27 % of cases, and the use of informants in 15 % of cases.

"For years, despite lacking a proper scientific foundation, many forensic 
practitioners have offered either unvalidated evidence or grossly exaggerated 
the value of the evidence, particularly in forensic disciplines that examined 
pattern, impression, and trace evidence, e.g. comparison of bite marks, shoe 
prints, bullets, and hair," Neufeld wrote in a March 30 op-ed to The New York 
Times. Other contributing factors include government misconduct and bad 
lawyering, according to the Project.

In addition to working to free wrongly convicted inmates, the Innocence Project 
also includes a policy department that works to pass laws and implement 
policies that prevent wrongful conviction; a strategic litigation department 
that works to improve case law through targeted legal work; and a social work 
department that supports exonerees as they rebuild their lives post-release.

Neufeld is a partner in the New York civil rights law firm of Neufeld Scheck & 
Brustin, LLP, where he focuses on constitutional law and police misconduct. 
When not acting as primary counsel, Neufeld has provided pro bono services to 
dozens of lawyers representing the accused in death penalty cases. He has 
lectured and taught students, lawyers, judges, legislators, and scientists on 
subjects at the intersection of science and criminal justice. Before 
co-founding the Innocence Project, Neufeld taught trial advocacy at Fordham 
University Law School.

(source: Drake University news)






KANSAS:

Jury selection begins for white supremacist's murder trial


An avowed white supremacist who admitted he killed 3 people outside 2 Jewish 
sites seemed upbeat as jury section began in his capital murder trial. Officers 
wheeled Glenn Miller into a Johnson County courtroom on Monday; he was wearing 
a jacket and tie and his hair was neatly combed.

Miller, 74, lives near Marionville, Mo. He has chronic emphysema and has been 
using a wheelchair and oxygen during courtroom proceedings since his arrest in 
April 2014.

Miller admits he gunned down a woman, man and teenager outside 2 Jewish centers 
in Overland Park. He said he was targeting Jews, although none of the 3 victims 
were Jewish.

Miller represents himself in the trial, which likely will last several weeks. 
He could get the death penalty if he's convicted of capital murder. A judge 
ordered his lawyers to be present to continue the trial in case he decides to 
remove Miller from the courtroom for misbehavior or impermissible statements. 
The judge refuses to let Miller use the defense that his intent to kill Jews 
was for the greater good of society because Jewish people have taken over 
important societal institutions.

Miller offered to plead guilty in return for not getting a death penalty if 
he's allowed to make a statement about why he committed the murders. The 
Johnson County district attorney refused to accept the guilty pleas, but won't 
say why because of the judge's gag order on attorneys in the case.

(source: ky3.com)






MISSOURI:

Judge sets trial date for Craig Wood for murder of Hailey Owens


A man charged with kidnapping, raping, and killing a 10-year-old girl is now 
set for trial in September and October of next year. A judge on Monday 
scheduled Craig Wood's trial to begin on Sept. 26, 2016, possibly to last until 
Oct. 21.

Wood is charged with grabbing Hailey Owens off a street near her home in 
western Springfield on Feb. 18, 2014, throwing her in his pickup, raping her, 
fatally shooting her in the head, and putting her body in a plastic tub in his 
home's basement in central Springfield. Prosecutors want a death penalty if 
they get a first-degree murder conviction.

Defense attorneys wanted plenty of time to prepare for trial, because of other 
pending death penalty cases. They asked for the trial to be scheduled in March 
2017. Prosecutors told a judge that they could be ready in March 2016. Greene 
County Circuit Judge Tom Mountjoy on Monday split the difference; he didn't go 
with the prosecutors' date to try to ensure Wood's right to effective counsel 
is not violated. It's possible the date could change.

Defense attorneys, prosecutors and the judge agreed months ago that Wood's jury 
will come from Platte County, on the north side of the Kansas City metro area 
near Kansas City International Airport, because of extensive publicity about 
Hailey's murder. The trial will be in Springfield with a sequestered jury.

Wood was a coach and aide at Pleasant View Elementary and Middle School, north 
of Springfield, at the time of Hailey's murder. He worked for the Springfield 
School District for 16 years. Investigators have not said, if they know, why 
they think Wood kidnapped a girl from another school and area of the city where 
he neither lived nor worked. Hailey attended Westport Elementary School.

(source: ky3.com)






OKLAHOMA:

When in doubt, decline use of death penalty


As the controversy involving convicted killer Richard Eugene Glossip plays out 
in Oklahoma, it is receiving a fair amount of attention in Glossip's native 
state, Illinois.

Ironically, Glossip wouldn't face the same fate if he had been convicted of 
murder in Illinois, and as doubt lingers about Glossip's guilt as his execution 
date nears, it indicates why Illinois is on the right side of the capital 
punishment question.

Glossip, 51, was born and raised in Galesburg, and in an interview published 
last weekend, he told his hometown newspaper, The Register-Mail, Oklahoma is 
going to "kill an innocent man'' if they carry his execution out.

He was convicted in 1998 of killing Barry Alan Van Treese, owner of a Best 
Budget Inn in Oklahoma City. Prosecutors said Glossip feared being fired and 
devised a plot to kill Van Treese. The motel's maintenance man, Justin Sneed, 
pleaded guilty to killing Van Treese. He admitted to bludgeoning him to death 
in a hotel room and testified against Glossip in exchange for a sentence of 
life without parole.

Despite vigorous objections from Van Treese's family, Glossip has maintained 
his innocence and has drawn some prominent people to his side.

Sister Helen Prejean, Glossip's spiritual advisor and author of "Dead Man 
Walking," a book which examines moral issues related to the death penalty, has 
repeatedly defended the death row inmate. Susan Sarandon, who played Prejean in 
the movie adaption of "Dead Man Walking," also has rallied to his defense.

When Van Treese was murdered in 1997, forensic science was not nearly advanced 
as it is today, and Glossip was convicted largely on circumstantial evidence 
and the testimony of Sneed.

Doubt of Glossip's guilt has remained ever since, and O'Ryan Justine Sneed, 
Sneed's daughter, has written a letter asking for clemency for Glossip. She 
said her father has expressed his desire to recant his testimony, and the 
letter included this paragraph:

"I am sure that Mr. Glossip did not do what my father originally said, that he 
did not hire my father to kill Mr. Van Treese, and he doesn't deserve to die 
over my father's actions. One innocent life has already been taken by my 
father's actions. A second one doesn't deserve to be taken as well."

The letter was written long after Glossip was originally convicted, had that 
conviction overturned, and was convicted anew in 2004. Thus, it is not 
considered evidence. But it does cast only further doubt on Glossip's guilt, 
and just a glimmer of doubt is all it should take to call off the execution.

That's what former Illinois governor and current Kankakee resident George Ryan 
concluded when he suspended executions in 2000. Ryan, once an ardent death 
penalty supporter, acted after growing doubts about the justice system and 
after courts threw out the death sentences of 13 condemned men.

Shortly before leaving office in 2003, Ryan cleared death row, commuting the 
sentences of 167 inmates to life in prison. In 2011, Gov. Pat Quinn took the 
final step by abolishing the death penalty completely.

Many critics of those moves remain, and it's not hard to understand their 
objections. If it is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that someone has taken a 
life or lives, then perhaps they should pay with their own.

But, if there is any doubt, and even if it further develops only after someone 
is found guilty in a court of law, than how can you carry out an execution? 
Ryan saw sense in that argument.

Will Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin come to the same realization before Sept. 16, 
Glossip's scheduled date to die by lethal injection? It doesn't appear so, as 
just last week, she issued a statement saying Glossip's execution will move 
forward because she is convinced of his guilt and his conviction was upheld by 
the U.S. Supreme Court.

But Supreme Court decision or not, it's difficult to discount the other factors 
that might indicate Glossip is not guilty. The same can be said for many other 
death penalty cases, and because of it, Oklahoma and the other 30 states that 
still allow the death penalty should consider following the lead of Illinois.

(source: Editorial, Kankakee Daily Journal)

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

Why Oklahoma County Backed Off On Pursuing The Death Penalty


Oklahoma County was once among the top 2 % of counties nationwide that 
accounted for 56 % of the people sitting on death row as of 2012, according to 
the Death Penalty Information Center.

Between 1980 and 2001, Oklahoma County District Attorney Robert Macy won 54 
death penalty convictions, just over 2 per year during the 21-year period. But 
according data analyzed by the Marshall Project, Oklahoma County has only sent 
3 people to death row in the past 6 years.

So what happened?

Former Oklahoma City criminal defense attorney Doug Parr says Oklahoma County 
prosecutors are far more reluctant to issue death sentences after a 2001 
investigation into police chemist Joyce Chilcrist after her scientific analysis 
resulted in an innocent man spent 15 years in prison for a faulty rape 
conviction:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation reviewed her cases in April 2001, finding 
that she deliberately and repeatedly falsified DNA matches, withheld 
exculpatory evidence, and failed to test samples sent to her laboratory. Macy 
stepped down unexpectedly in June of 2001 but said the investigation wasn't 
behind his early retirement. He cited a desire to spend more time with his 
family. He died in 2011.

>From 1980 to 1993, Gilchrist provided evidence for thousands of the Oklahoma 
County DA's criminal cases, including just over 1/2 of the convictions that 
resulted in the death penalty. 11 of those people were executed before their 
cases could be reviewed for errors.

In 2007, an Oklahoma County death row inmate was exonerated after Gilchrist's 
testimony in that case was proven fraudulent. The state government and 
innocence organizations continue to review other cases where convictions were 
secured largely by her testimony.

(source: KGOU news)