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

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 26



KANSAS:

It is time for repeal of death penalty


James Latham and Ronnie York were army deserters barely out of their teens when 
they went on a cross-country killing spree. One of their seven murder victims 
was killed in Kansas. For that, they were sentenced to death and on June 22, 
1965, became the last condemned criminals to be executed in Kansas. That is 50 
years without capital punishment in Kansas.

I commend leadership of the Kansas Federation of College Republicans for taking 
a stand against the death penalty and calling for legislators and Gov. Sam 
Brownback to repeal the law. Maybe these college students should be running the 
state. They aren't afraid to think for themselves rather than follow the bell 
mare of conservative dogma. They understand pretending to practice capital 
punishment is almost as expensive as actually executing someone occasionally.

The resources that go into maintaining a law that isn't likely to be used could 
put more troopers on the highways and better equip them to help people. Taking 
a stand that is pro-life from pre-birth to natural death makes sense to these 
young Republicans.

I'd like to ask Rep. J. R. Claeys, of Salina, to explain his nonsensical 
statement connecting cop killers and child rapists and what that has to do with 
the position taken by college Republicans. Also, explain how Kansas is going to 
be measurably improved by starting back down a road not traveled in 50 years. 
Leaders of the college Republicans have the vision to see keeping the death 
penalty "in no way matches up with our conservative values." They hope to 
"promote a culture of life and fiscal responsibility." The clown show that is 
the old guard Republican Party in Kansas is in jeopardy. Principled young 
Republicans are waiting in the wings giving hope to conservatism in our 
traditionally red state.

STEVE ROBERTS, Topeka

(source: Letter to the Editor, Capital Journal)

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

Kansas College Republicans Latest Conservative Group To Oppose The Death 
Penalty"----I can't support a policy that would endanger one innocent life."


The Kansas Federation of College Republicans last week joined what appears to 
be a growing conservative movement to call for an end to the death penalty.

The KSFCR, an umbrella group for the state's college Republicans, last week 
unanimously passed a resolution supporting a repeal of the death penalty in 
Kansas. The resolution marks the 1st time the group has taken a position on the 
issue.

"Our job is to inform the party where our generation stands on social issues," 
Dalton Glasscock, a junior at Wichita State University and chairman of the 
KSFCR, told The Huffington Post Monday. "In the past, college Republicans have 
largely just agreed with the national party. But we need to show the 
generational shift."

Glasscock said that for young conservatives who oppose the death penalty, it's 
ultimately a matter of consistency. He noted that the KSFCR has "a 100 percent 
pro-life state board."

"I am pro-life, from conception to natural death," said Glasscock, who also 
cited the "the fiscal cost" of capital punishment. "But it's not just about 
life -- it's about the inherent distrust of the government that's common in my 
generation."

Abolishing the death penalty is usually thought of as a goal of social 
progressives, but Marc Hyden of the group Conservatives Concerned About the 
Death Penalty said it's quickly becoming a conservative cause, too -- albeit 
for different reasons.

"The narrative is changing around the death penalty," Hyden told HuffPost. "The 
state Republicans took the death penalty off their platform, so it makes sense 
the College Republicans went along with this resolution."

"My experience in talking to colleges across the U.S. [is that] younger people 
tend to be more skeptical of government power," he went on. "And there's no 
greater power than taking a human life."

Clayton Barker, executive director of the Kansas Republican Party, confirmed 
that after years of supporting the death penalty, the state party now holds a 
neutral stance on the issue.

"We do a platform every 2 years, and this year it was left out," Barker said.

Hyden noted that in states that have the death penalty on the books but rarely 
use it, support for the punishment eventually tends to wane. Kansas is one such 
state -- the last time it carried out an execution was 1965. It has abolished 
and reinstated the death penalty three times since the early 1900s. The most 
recent attempt at abolition, in 2010, fell one vote short.

While Glasscock sees the shift against death penalty as an issue of particular 
importance to millennial conservatives, Hyden notes that many older Republicans 
have long opposed the punishment and are only now gaining enough momentum to 
issue meaningful calls for abolition.

Yet even as those calls grow louder -- especially in conservative Midwestern 
states -- there's still plenty of pushback.

Nebraska legislators successfully repealed the state's death penalty earlier 
this year, in a push that drew bipartisan support and even survived a veto 
attempt by Gov. Pete Ricketts (R). The state's harshest penalty is now life 
without the possibility of parole -- but a group of Nebraskans have mounted an 
effort to restore the death penalty by ballot referendum.

"I just think -- move delicately. It's OK to have different opinions with 
somebody. But have conversations," Glasscock said, acknowledging that there are 
strong feelings on both sides of the issue. "My recommendation is to 
investigate and know where you stand instead of just believing [an issue is 
right] -- and [be] willing to change your opinion."

Glasscock said that hearing stories from death row exonerees ultimately caused 
him to change his views, which had previously been staunchly pro-death penalty.

"I can't support a policy that would endanger 1 innocent life," he said. "Even 
if it's the worst of the worst, we can incarcerate them so they're not a danger 
to society. It's not worth endangering an innocent person."

Hyden offered an ambitious forecast of what the future holds for capital 
punishment -- not only in Kansas but around the country.

"There are a handful of states I'm telling everyone to keep their eye on in 
coming years. Delaware, New Hampshire, Montana -- they had a 50-50 tie last 
time they voted on [repealing the death penalty], and they don't use it much 
either," he said. "But I think Kansas is pretty close."

Rick Halperin, an expert on the death penalty who leads Southern Methodist 
University's Embrey Human Rights Program, said he strongly agreed with Hyden's 
assessment.

"Kansas has had a recent history of strong abolition efforts," Halperin told 
HuffPost in an email, adding that the strongest anti-death penalty movements 
tend to be the ones that bring together a bipartisan coalition. "In today's 
climate, it has become much more politically acceptable for those from the 
political right to join this cause."

A major common factor linking states like Kansas, Montana and New Hampshire is 
that they haven't used their death penalty in years, according to Fordham Law 
professor and death penalty expert Deb Denno. Montana's last execution was 
almost a decade ago, while New Hampshire hasn't carried out an execution since 
1939.

"The entire culture is changing," Denno told HuffPost. "The pieces of this 
puzzle have been here for decades... and now we're lining up the dominos in a 
certain way and watching them fall."

(source: Kim Bellware, Huffington Post)






NEBRASKA:

Nebraskans for the Death Penalty to Announce Their Numbers Wednesday


Nebraskans for the Death Penalty will announce Wednesday how many signatures 
they have collected across the state for its petition to bring the issue of the 
death penalty before Nebraska voters.

The petition needs 5 % of registered voters to get on the 2016 ballot. If 10 % 
of registered voters have signed the petition it would suspend the law 
repealing the death penalty in Nebraska until it's voted on in 2016. Signatures 
must be collected from 5 % of registered voters in 38 of Nebraska's 93 
counties.

Holdrege's Vincent Allard says he has collected 381 signatures in Phelps 
County, which would be more than 6 % of registered voters in the county.

"I guess I've always believed in the death penalty. If it's enforced, I think 
it will do some good," Allard said.

His wife Lori was with him when he found out how to properly get people to sign 
the petition.

"He's going to go and he's going to do it if he makes up his mind he's going to 
do it," Lori Allard said.

He met with people in Holdrege, Funk, Loomis, Atlanta and Bertrand.

"In some ways I think the Legislature overruled this and I don't like to be 
ruled by just a few people," Allard said.

He knocked on people's doors, called voters on his flip phone and set up tables 
in front of local restaurants.

"I personally believe the death penalty needs to be reinstated. I allowed him 
to sit out there and collect signatures," said the owner of Country Cookin', 
Cherie Brendel.

Allard is hopeful Nebraskans for the Death Penalty got enough people to sign.

"If what happened around the state is what happened here in Phelps county, yes 
they made it," Allard said.

Their numbers will be released around 3 p.m. on Wednesday.

(source: nebraska.tv)






CALIFORNIA:

Death Penalty Delays Not Violative of Eighth Amendment, Unanimous California 
Supreme Court Holds


The lawyer for a death row inmate failed to demonstrate that systematic delays 
in the resolution of capital cases result in an arbitrary process that violates 
the Eighth Amendment, the California Supreme Court unanimously ruled yesterday.

The court, which has rejected such arguments in the past, asked the parties for 
supplemental briefing on the issue after a federal district judge ruled last 
year that such delays rendered the state's death penalty unconstitutional.

But while Ropati Seumanu is free to make a more individually focused argument 
in a habeas corpus petition, Justice Kathryn M. Werdegar wrote, he is not 
entitled to have his sentence overturned merely because more than 14 years have 
elapsed since he was sentenced to die for a murder in his hometown of Heyward.

"Our conclusion would be different were the California Department of 
Corrections and Rehabilitation to ask all capital inmates who have exhausted 
their appeals to draw straws or roll dice to determine who would be the 1st in 
line for execution," the jurist said. "But the record in this case does not 
demonstrate such arbitrariness," she continued.

"Unquestionably, some delay occurs while this court locates and appoints 
qualified appellate counsel, permits those appointed attorneys to prepare 
detailed briefs, allows the Attorney General to respond, and then carefully 
evaluates the arguments."

Those delays safeguard the defendants' rights, rather than violate them, she 
said.

Seumanu was 22 when he, his brother and 2 teenagers stole a car one night in 
May 1996 and confronted Nolan Pamintuan, 25, who had just returned from a 
pre-wedding dinner with his fiancee, according to testimony.

The robbers took an inscribed Movado watch his fiancee had given him as a 
wedding gift and $300 that they forced him to withdraw from a bank ATM. After 
expressing irritation at the fact he had no more money to give them and had 
reached the ATM's withdrawal limit, Seumanu killed him with a shotgun blast to 
the chest, according to the testimony.

His brother, Tautai Seumanu, pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to 28 
years to life in prison, and the two teenagers were given shorter sentences for 
manslaughter, kidnapping and robbery.

Ropati Seumanu, who served as a deacon in the First Samoan Gospel Church, where 
his father was pastor, was also described by a witness as the founder of a gang 
called Sons of Samoa, affiliated with the Crips. Witnesses said he committed 
numerous assaults in the years before the murder.

In addition to rejecting Seumanu's Eighth Amendment claim, the justices 
concluded that he was not entitled to a reversal based on prosecutorial 
misconduct.

Werdegar was critical of Deputy District Attorney Angela Backers for, among 
other things, telling the jury that Seumanu's lawyers were putting on a "sham" 
defense and didn't believe their client's alibi, for asking jurors to view the 
case through the eyes of the victim, who begged for his life before being shot, 
and for telling the jury - after the defense lawyers introduced themselves and 
their client - that the deceased was her "client."

But none of those remarks affected the verdict, Werdegar said, because the 
evidence of guilt was strong and the jury was properly instructed not to be 
swayed by prejudice or sympathy and that the remarks of counsel were not 
evidence.

The case is People vs. Seumanu, 15 S.O.S. 4375.

(source: Metropolitan News Company)






USA:

Tsarnaev Juror Changes Mind About Death Penalty----He didn't know 8-year-old 
victim's parents opposed it


During the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, jurors saw and heard heartbreaking 
testimony about the final moments of 8-year-old Martin Richard, the youngest 
person killed in the Boston Marathon bombing. What they didn't hear about was 
the fact that Martin's parents didn't want Tsarnaev to get the death penalty, 
and the 1st juror to speak about the case says he wouldn't have chosen death if 
he had known. Kevin Fagan tells WMUR that he "probably" would have changed his 
vote in the penalty phase of the trial - though if he had known, he "wouldn't 
be on the jury either" because they had been ordered not to access media 
coverage of the trial.

Martin's parents, whose daughter lost a leg in the bombing, didn't want 
Tsarnaev to get the death penalty because they didn't want to have to relive 
the horror through the inevitable years of appeals. Northeastern University law 
professor Daniel Medwed tells the Boston Globe that Fagan's change of heart 
probably won't play a major role in any appeal because there's plenty of 
precedent for judges not allowing testimony on victims' views of the death 
penalty. Fagan is co-authoring an online book about the trial, and Medwed says 
"the fact that he is selling a book makes me discount what he says." (In the 
James Holmes case, the grandfather of a victim says the courts should go after 
the juror who spared Holmes' life.)

(source: newser.com)

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

Feds Weigh Whether to Seek Death Penalty for Charleston Killer


The federal government's decision about whether authorities should seek the 
death penalty against the man accused of killing 9 African-Americans in 
Charleston is still likely months away, South Carolina U.S. Attorney Bill 
Nettles said in a recent interview with Free Times.

The federal case against alleged Charleston shooter Dylann Storm Roof got off 
to a surprising start last month when Roof???s lawyer, David Bruck, indicated 
to a federal judge in Charleston that Roof wished to plead guilty to the 33 
federal hate crime charges levied against him. Prosecutors allege that Roof 
outlined his hate-filled worldview in a racist online manifesto and that he 
told others he hoped to incite a "race war" with his actions.

However, Bruck told the judge that he couldn???t advise his client on whether 
to enter that plea until he knows whether Roof could face a death sentence. A 
temporary "not guilty" plea was entered on Roof's behalf.

The 21-year-old also faces murder charges from state prosecutors. Ninth Circuit 
Solicitor Scarlett A. Wilson has not yet said whether her office plans to 
pursue the death penalty in the case.

Nettles says once his office decides on its recommendation, U.S. Attorney 
General Loretta Lynch would weigh it before coming to a final decision. The 
South Carolina prosecutor, an Obama appointee who has held the post since 2010, 
called the process and decision "extraordinarily complex," noting that 
generally "enormous deference is given to victims."

In this case, many family members have garnered worldwide admiration for their 
forgiveness of Roof.

"I have never witnessed such a pronounced expression of hope or grace," Nettles 
says. "A lot of the victims have already expressed forgiveness that is 
unfathomable."

Along with interviews with family members of victims, Nettles, a former public 
defender who has worked on capital cases from the other side of the courtroom, 
says the federal government's protocol puts in place "layers of review to 
balance competing interests."

A Department of Justice spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. 
Bruck, Roof's attorney, also could not be reached.

Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a 
Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that seeks to provide unbiased information and 
analysis of the death penalty, says federal prosecutors will weigh several 
factors in making a decision. (Bruck, Roof's lawyer, is on the board of the 
center.)

The wishes of victims' families, the cost of a capital trial and whether local 
prosecutors can seek the death penalty themselves are big factors, he says.

Roof's potential capital charges differ from the ones against Boston terrorist 
Dzokhar Tsarnaev, Dunham says. State authorities in Massachusetts cannot pursue 
the death penalty because capital punishment has been ruled unconstitutional 
there.

Dunham also says that Roof's indication that he would prefer to plead guilty 
would save both the federal government and the shooting victims' families a 
prolonged trial and hefty costs.

"He's expressed willingness to plead guilty, and if the death penalty were off 
the table that would give the family members of the homicide victims an 
opportunity to give their statements without cross-examination or interruption 
during sentencing proceeding," Dunham says. "They could say what they had to 
say without being subjected to re-traumatization through a trial."

The federal government also has tools the state does not - the ability to put a 
permanent muzzle on Roof. As they have done with Tsarnaev, "special 
administrative measures" could be imposed on Roof, meaning his contact with the 
outside world would be severely limited, Dunham says. In essence, Roof could be 
barred from publicly expressing racist views.

"The federal prosecution has the ability to essentially make Dylann Roof 
disappear from view," Dunham says. "His ability to become a symbol for white 
supremacists disappears."

A trial on Roof's state murder charges has been set for July 2016. No further 
hearings have yet been scheduled by federal prosecutors in the case.

(source: free-times.com)