[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----KAN., OKLA., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 25



KANSAS:

Cross: Confident white jurors will find him innocent


A white supremacist accused of killing 3 people at Jewish sites in Johnson 
County made it only a few words into the 1st sentence of his opening statement 
before an assistant prosecutor objected and jurors were removed from the 
courtroom.

Kansas Death Penalty Defense Unit attorney Ron Evans says in a motion for a 
continuance filed Tuesday that Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe 
recently told him of his decision to seek the death penalty against 73-year-old 
Frazier Glenn Miller Jr.

Frazier Glenn Cross Jr. is representing himself in the capital murder trial 
stemming from the April 2014 killings in Johnson County.

The 74-year-old Aurora, MO, man, who also goes by the name Glenn Miller, 
attempted Monday to lay out a defense contending that Jewish people are 
committing genocide against the white race. All 3 victims were Christian.

Cross said, "If you believe our people have a right to survive on earth," that 
he is confident the white jurors' conscious "will find me innocent."

The judge told him that he cannot argue about "Jews taking over the world" 
during the guilty or innocent phase, only during the penalty phase.

Cross has repeatedly admitted to killing William Lewis Corporon, 69, and his 
14-year-old grandson, Reat Griffin Underwood, at the Jewish Community Center in 
Overland Park, and Terri LaManno, 53, at the nearby Village Shalom retirement 
center on April 13, 2014.

Assistant District Attorney Chris McMullin began his opening statement with 
what he said was a quote from Cross as he was sitting in a police car in a 
parking lot where he was found shortly after the shootings.

"My name's Glenn Miller, I am an anti-Semite, I hate (expletive) Jews. How many 
did I get?" McMullin quoted.

McMullin graphically described the wounds Corporon and Reat suffered as they 
were hit in the head with shotgun blasts at point-blank range. He spoke of 
LaManno, who was visiting her dying mother, being frozen in fear as Cross 
pulled a shotgun from the trunk of his car after a different gun failed to 
fire.

Thomas Bates is a combat medic in the Army and worked part time at Jewish 
Community Center. When he heard the shots he ran to his truck to get his gun 
and trauma bag.

"I grabbed my trauma bag, said a prayer and ran towards the gunshots," said 
Bates as he rushed to try to save Reat.

"Isn't it obvious when someone is shot in the head at close range with a 
shotgun that the shooter intended for the victim to die quickly without 
suffering?" Cross asked.

Bates didn't agree.

"My opinion anytime an individual uses a firearm, other than self-defense, the 
intention is to make that person suffer," Bates said.

Prosecutors said Cross plotted the attacks for weeks and was armed with 4 guns 
to carry out his plan. They say Cross admitted his crimes to a friend and a 
jailhouse recording.

"I did it. I'm proud of it. I planned it. I plotted it. I schemed it," McMullin 
quoted.

McMullin objected before Cross could complete his 1st sentence for opening 
statements.

Cross had told Judge Thomas Kelly Ryan earlier that he twice offered to plead 
guilty to 1st-degree murder if prosecutors would take the death penalty off the 
table, but they refused. He started to tell jurors of those failed offers 
before McMullin spoke up.

"If he wants to confess, that's fine, but we can't talk about things not in 
evidence," the prosecutor said after jurors left the room. "If the state said 
that, there would be an immediate mistrial. We don't want a mistrial."

With the jury excused, Ryan warned Cross to only talk about what will be 
presented in trial. Not his motive.

Cross has said he is suffering from chronic emphysema and wanted to kill Jewish 
people before he died. He also has said he didn't know all 3 of the victims 
were Christians, or that the teenage victim was so young.

He argued that if he couldn't convince jurors he had a valid reason for his 
actions, there was no way he would be acquitted. Ryan responded that the 
present phase of the trial was not the place to present evidence of his 
intentions, but was to determine whether he committed capital murder.

Ryan also told Cross he couldn't present to jurors his belief that the 
mainstream media and the Federal Reserve are controlled by Jews or argue that 
Jewish people are committing genocide against the white race.

"What you're telling me is I'm not going to have a chance at all of being found 
not guilty," Cross said. "What in the world would make me do such a terrible 
thing? I will prove genocide is being committed against white people."

Cross told the judge he wants to the chance to explain to jurors his intentions 
on that day in April.

"I want to explain why I did what I did, what was in my mind, what was my 
intention. And there is a lot of stuff in my mind. Are you going to let me 
explain what was in my mind? What in the world would make me do something this 
horrible?" Cross said.

Cross is a Vietnam War veteran who founded the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux 
Klan in his native North Carolina and later the White Patriot Party. He ran for 
the U.S. House in 2006 and the U.S. Senate in 2010 in Missouri, each time 
espousing a white-power platform.

Cross, who has no formal legal training or significant courtroom experience, 
fired his 3 defense attorneys in May. They are on stand by in case he has 
questions.

If convicted, Cross could be sentenced to death. He has said he was willing to 
plead guilty if the death penalty were to be taken off the table.

Cross told one witness that he was a brave man for chasing after him. Cross 
fired after Mark Temme but missed.

8 witnesses testified Monday. Court is in recess and will pick back up at 9 
a.m. Tuesday.

(source: kctv5.com)






OKLAHOMA----impending execution

Prejean, Sarandon, Knight and exoneree Nate Fields to appear on Dr. Phil on 
behalf of Richard Glossip


Anti death penalty activist Sister Helen Prejean, award winning actress Susan 
Sarandon, legal team member Don Knight and Illinois exoneree Nathan "Nate" 
Fields will appear on The Dr. Phil Show to advocate for the life of Oklahoma 
death row inmate Richard Glossip.

Recently receiving a whirlwind of press from Sr. Helen???s work and Ms. 
Sarandon, the Glossip supporters will attempt to lay out the details of his 
case that they believe will show that Glossip is an innocent man, although he 
is scheduled to be executed in McAlester on September 16

According to Glossip's close friend Kim Van Atta, the airdate is September 8th, 
but he says "I understand the show was so powerful that Dr. Phil would like to 
air it sooner if he can, and wants to contact his Governor."

Nathson "Nate" Fields, also a guest, will tell how he was acquitted on April 8, 
2009, of double homicide for which he spent almost 20 years in prison, 
including more than 11 years on death row.

To date, there have been 155 exonerations in 26 different States. Oklahoma has 
had 10.

Knight said, "Dr Phil gave the telephone number to the Governor's office to his 
TV audience and told them to call. He's really against the injustice of 
executing an innocent man."

In Oklahoma City, The Dr. Phil Show can be seen on KWTV, News9 at 3 p.m., 
Monday through Friday.

For more information about Nathson Fields, visit the Witness for Innocence 
website. For more information about Richard Glossip, go to 
www.sisterhelen.org/richard.

(source: The City Sentinel)






CALIFORNIA:

3 judges appointed by Democrats will hear California death penalty appeal


The constitutionality of California???s death penalty system will be reviewed 
next week by a panel of three Democratic appointees on the U.S. 9th Circuit 
Court of Appeals.

Judges Susan P. Graber and Johnnie B. Rawlinson, Clinton appointees, and Paul 
J. Watford, an Obama appointee, were randomly assigned Monday to hear an appeal 
of a federal judge???s ruling that struck down the state???s death penalty law 
as unconstitutional.

Graber is a former Oregon Supreme Court justice. After joining the federal 
appeals court, she was once asked to recuse herself from a death penalty case 
out of Arizona because her father was killed in a carjacking nearly 40 years 
earlier.

One of the teenagers sentenced to death for her father's killing later had his 
sentence overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. Graber declined the recusal 
request in the Arizona case, which also involved a carjacking and killing.

Rawlinson is viewed as one of the most conservative Democratic appointees on 
the court. A former prosecutor from Las Vegas, Rawlinson was the only member of 
an 11-judge panel to vote to uphold a felony conviction of Barry Bonds, the 
former San Francisco Giants baseball player.

Watford, a former federal prosecutor, is viewed as a potential candidate for 
the U.S. Supreme Court if a seat opens up while President Obama is in office. 
He is generally described as a moderate.

The three are scheduled to hear arguments in Pasadena on Aug. 31 on last 
year???s death penalty ruling by U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney, 
appointed by former President George W. Bush.

Carney, based in Orange County, decided California's system of capital 
punishment was so plagued by delays and uncertainty that it violated the 
constitution's ban on cruel or unusual punishment.

Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris appealed the ruling to the 9th Circuit. The court 
has allotted each side 20 minutes for arguments.

UC Irvine Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky described the judges as moderates.

"No one can look at this panel and say it is a slam dunk based on who the 
judges are," Chemerinsky said. "It is not the most conservative panel, and it 
is not the most liberal. It's in the middle."

(source: Los Angeles Times)

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

Death sentence in 1993 murder upheld


The state Supreme Court upheld the death penalty sentence of a Moreno Valley 
resident on Monday, Aug. 24, who instructed gang members to shoot anyone who 
resisted their carjacking attempts, an instruction that led to the death of a 
woman motorist in 1993.

Jack Emmit Williams, who was 32 at the time of his 1998 conviction, was not the 
shooter but deemed criminally responsible for the death of carjack victim 
Yvonne Los, an Air Force nurse and mother of 2. The shooter in the case, Alonso 
Dearaujo, was sentenced to life in prison after a jury deadlocked 10-2 for 
death.

Williams talked to others, mostly teens, about forming a gang to commit crimes, 
including robbery, carjackings and kidnappings, and using the money to buy a 
house, invest in stocks and start bank accounts for the participants, according 
to court records. He told the others what to do.

In the appeal, the defendant alleged numerous errors in his trial cumulatively 
prejudiced him and warranted a reversal. The justices found no error or 
prejudice and upheld the death sentence.

(source: Press-Enterprise)


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

Defendants officially enter not-guilty pleas----Jury selection scheduled to 
begin Sept. 12, 2016


Attorneys for the defendants in the 2014 Bank of the West robbery, shooting and 
hostage siege formally entered pleas of not guilty Monday afternoon, after 
which Judge Bernard Garber set a start date for the trial of Sept. 12, 2016.

"I've been asking them to enter pleas for several months,??? Deputy District 
Attorney Robert Himelblau said after the 30-minute court session. "I'm glad 
they entered pleas."

The attorneys for 20-year-old Jaime Ramos and Pablo Ruvalcaba, 22, left San 
Joaquin County Superior Court without commenting.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Ramos, who is suspected in the 
events that ended in the death of hostage Misty Holt-Singh. Ruvalcaba faces 
life without the possibility of parole if convicted of dropping off the gunmen 
for the robbery. 2 robbers were also killed in the shootout that ended 
Holt-Singh's life in the July 16, 2014, tragedy.

Himelblau argued to no avail Monday that the trial should start as soon as 
January. Garber ruled against Himelblau, saying the massive amount of pretrial 
discovery for the defense attorneys makes a speedier trial date unrealistic.

"The bulk of the material has been turned over," Himelblau said. "The defense 
has had this case for more than a year with a vast amount of information. I 
haven't heard good cause from the defense. 'Gee, it's a lot of stuff' isn't 
really good cause."

Ramos' attorney, Jonathan Fattarsi, said it is rare for a case in which a 
defendant faces the death penalty to begin much sooner than within 2 years of 
the crime.

"I challenge Mr. Himelblau to name a death-penalty case under 2 years," 
Fattarsi said. "I need more time."

Garber sided unhesitatingly with the defense.

"The court has to balance the people's rights vs. the defendants' rights," 
Garber said. ???There's an overwhelming amount of discovery. I've never seen a 
case with more discovery. ... We have to give the defense all the benefit as 
far as the amount of time."

Jury selection is set to begin Sept. 12, 2016, with opening arguments possibly 
beginning less than 3 weeks later, Garber said.

(source: Stockton Record)






USA:

Bring Back the Gallows?


Reading between the lines of the U.S. Supreme Court???s majority decision in 
Glossip v. Gross, it would be easy to conclude that the recent spate of botched 
executions is actually the fault of death-penalty abolitionists.

In Glossip, the Supreme Court narrowly held that the three-drug cocktail used 
to execute prisoners in Oklahoma and several other states did not violate the 
Eighth Amendment???s proscription against cruel and unusual punishment. In so 
doing, the Court rejected the prisoners' claims that midazolam, the drug 1st 
administered during an execution, was not consistently powerful enough to 
render the condemned insensate to the 2nd drug (which paralyzes the prisoner) 
and the 3rd drug (which stops the heart). The Court suggested that the choice 
of sedative was not to blame for Oklahoma's horrific execution of Clayton 
Lockhart, who woke up moaning in the middle of the process. Instead, the 
problem was a faulty execution protocol, which has since been corrected by the 
state.

But that was not the majority opinion???s central point. Writing for the Court, 
Justice Samuel Alito argued that because the death penalty is constitutionally 
permissible, it must be practically implementable. To succeed in their claims, 
the prisoners must show that "the risk of severe pain presented by an execution 
protocol is substantial when compared to the known and available alternatives." 
The word "available" is key - the Court's aim is to prevent morally motivated 
market pressures from thwarting a state's right to put criminals to death.

The trouble, from Alito's perspective, is that two alternative drugs widely 
considered to be preferable to midazolam for use in execution are no longer 
available - thanks to people who oppose the death penalty. The original 
sedative used in the 3-drug cocktail was sodium thiopental - a powerful and 
fast-acting barbiturate. Alito recounts how anti-death penalty activists 
pressured the only American manufacturer of the drug to cease making it 
domestically, and to refuse to sell its Italian-made product for use in lethal 
injections in the United States. In January 2011, the drug company ceased 
manufacturing sodium thiopental entirely. With the original drug of choice no 
longer available, capital-punishment states turned to pentobarbital, another 
barbiturate. That drug was used in all 43 executions carried out in the United 
States in 2102. But the same thing happened again. Anti-death penalty advocates 
successfully lobbied the Dutch manufacturer of the drug to stop selling it for 
use in executions. With strong barbiturates no longer available, 
capital-punishment states turned to midazolam, a less powerful sedative in the 
benzodiazepine family of drugs.

The Court's message to death-penalty abolitionists and to drug companies that 
refuse to be complicit in capital punishment is clear: They have not stopped 
executions; they have only made them potentially more gruesome. The Court's 
threat is also clear: If the manufacturers of midazolam now decide to step 
aside, the states can always return to the firing squad or the electric chair 
or even bring back the gallows.

The Court's message must be resisted, because it involves an illegitimate 
effort to shift moral responsibility. The blame for botched injections falls 
squarely on the states that impose the death penalty, not upon those who are 
trying to abolish it. Drug companies that refuse to provide powerful 
barbiturates for use in capital punishment are not responsible for the state's 
decision to go ahead with less powerful drugs despite the risks, or even with 
alternative means of execution if drugs are no longer available. Similarly, 
medical professionals who give notice of their refusal to oversee an execution 
on moral grounds are not guilty of what happens in their absence. The state's 
decision to go ahead with the execution under those circumstances is the 
determinative factor.

There are important moral debates to be had about what constitutes 
impermissible complicity with state-sponsored killing. The Catholic tradition 
considers this question - one of the most difficult in moral theology - under 
the framework of "cooperation with evil." It requires nuanced moral analysis 
and fine distinctions, and often generates much disagreement among 
knowledgeable people of goodwill. For example, we can argue about whether a 
drug company opposed to capital punishment can rightly take the position that 
it will provide the sedatives to insure the condemned prisoner will feel no 
pain, but will not supply the paralytic agent or the heart-stopping dose. Some 
opponents of the death penalty might accept that reasoning; others might say 
that even providing the sedatives is too much involvement in the state's 
machinery of death.

But what we can't reasonably argue about is the moral responsibility for any 
decision to go forward with an execution. That falls squarely upon the state - 
not upon those who conscientiously refuse to provide sedatives for such a 
lethal purpose.

(source: commonwealmagazine.org)

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

Boston Marathon bombing trial juror speaks out about death penalty decision


A juror in the trial of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev says he 
probably would not have voted for the death penalty had he known that the 
families of some victims preferred a life sentence.

Kevin Fagan spoke to WBUR-FM (http://bit.ly/1V6XfIS ) on Monday, the same day a 
federal judge rejected a motion by The Boston Globe to publicly release the 
names of all jurors.

Fagan is believed to be the first juror to speak publicly using his name.

He did not discuss deliberations but said he likely would have changed his vote 
in the penalty phase had he been aware of opposition to the death penalty by 
the parents of 8-year-old Martin Richard, killed in the blasts.

The 23-year-old Fagan also said he could relate to Tsarnaev because they are so 
close in age.

(source: Associated Press)