[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, TENN., KAN., NEB., WYO. CALIF.

Thu Aug 27 08:50:15 CDT 2015

Aug. 27

OHIO----mother may face death penalty

Bellefontaine Mom Indicted for Murder of Sons, Could Face Death Penalty

An Ohio woman accused of killing her 3 sons over a 13-month period out of 
jealousy at the attention her husband paid them has been indicted on aggravated 
murder charges and could face the death penalty.

Aggravated murder charges against Brittany Pilkington in Bellefontaine were 
announced Tuesday by the Logan County prosecutor.

Investigators say the 23-year-old smothered 2 sons, 1 in July 2014 and the 
other on April 6. Authorities took custody of her 3rd son after he was born 3 
months ago, but a judge allowed him to return home because there wasn't 
conclusive evidence the older boys had been killed. The 3rd son died Aug. 18.

Pilkington's mother said Pilkington told her in a jailhouse phone call that 
she's innocent.

Pilkington is jailed on $1 million bond.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Women on Death Row

Brittany Pilkington of Bellefontaine could face the death penalty if she's 
convicted of murdering her 3 young sons by suffocation, but ABC 22/FOX 45 
wanted to find out how her case stacks up against other capital cases in Ohio 
that involve women.

In Ohio, death sentences for female suspects are so rare that there currently 
is only one woman on the state's death row; 71-year-old Donna Marie Roberts.

"She was a middle-aged, short lady who had been used to a very privileged 
lifestyle," said Attorney for the State LuWayne Annos during a 2013 hearing at 
the Supreme Court.

She was describing Donna Roberts' motivation for hiring a hit man to kill her 
husband to cash in on the insurance money.

"She never said to the court 'Don't sentence me to death'," Annos continued.

Roberts was sentenced and imprisoned in 2003, and has remained on death row 
ever since, even though she tried to appeal the sentence twice.

"Are you more responsible if you hire it done, or if you do it yourself might 
be the question there," said Jefferson Ingram, a criminal justice professor at 
the University of Dayton who studies the death penalty.

Jefferson said he believes planning a murder makes cases more likely to be 
death penalty eligible. "A woman who would hire a hitman to take out her 
husband has clearly done that, she's planned it out ahead of time. But, in the 
cases of suffocation it's not an instant death, there was planning and ongoing 
planning while that's going forth so it's difficult to say which one is worse."

In another Miami Valley capital case, China Arnold faced the death penalty 
after she was accused of microwaving her 4-week-old baby, Paris, to death in 
2005.

Arnold was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 
the crime, but also appealed the conviction while her family maintained her 
innocence. Arnold could be seen crying in the courtroom during a sentencing in 
2011.

Ingram thinks that show of emotion may have helped Arnold escape the death 
penalty, the same way he thinks it could hurt Brittany Pilkington, who after 2 
appearances in court has shown little emotion. Prosecutors described her affect 
as "flat" during her interviews, and those close to her report she did not cry 
at the funerals for her first two sons, Niall and Gavin.

"[She] doesn't have the demeanor of someone who has some remorse, then that may 
help get the death penalty, too," Ingram said.

Donna Marie Roberts remains on Ohio's death row with no scheduled execution 
date.

Pilkington's case will be heard again in Logan County in September.

(source: ABC news)

TENNESSEE:

Tennessee will keep lethal injections for death row executions, court rules

Judge rejects claim from 33 death row inmates and says they did not prove the 
1-drug method led to a painful and lingering death

A judge in Tennessee has upheld the state's lethal injection process for 
executing inmates, hours after a federal judge in Mississippi said that state's 
process may break the law.

At issue in both cases is the efficacy of the states' execution drugs. US 
states have been experimenting with various combinations of lethal injection 
since a European-led boycott made it difficult to obtain the drugs they require 
to carry out executions.

Tennessee uses a single drug, pentobarbital, to execute its inmates; 
Mississippi relies on a 3-drug mixture including a pentobarbital or midazolam, 
sedatives that are followed by a paralysing agent and a drug that stops an 
inmate's heart.

In Tennessee, Davidson county chancery judge Claudia Bonnyman said from the 
bench that the plaintiffs, 33 death row inmates, did not prove that the 1-drug 
method led to a painful and lingering death.

She also said the plaintiffs did not show during a lengthy trial that there had 
been problems in states where the method was used.

"Plaintiffs were not able to carry their burdens ... on any of their claims," 
Bonnyman said.

In Mississippi, meanwhile, US district judge Henry T Wingate said Mississippi's 
plans did not appear to include a drug meeting the legal requirement for an 
"ultra short-acting barbiturate" that would render a person unconscious almost 
immediately.

3 death row prisoners sued, saying they could remain conscious during 
execution. During the lawsuit, Mississippi changed its procedure to say it 
would use midazolam as a sedative, after the US supreme court approved the 
drug's use in Oklahoma.

Mississippi officials have said they struggle to buy pentobarbital because 
death penalty opponents had pressured manufacturers to cut off the supply.

Midazolam has been implicated in troubled executions in Arizona, Ohio and 
Oklahoma that went on longer than expected as inmates gasped and made other 
sounds.

The US supreme court ruled 5 to 4 in June that Oklahoma's use of midazolam in 
executions did not violate the 8th amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual 
punishment.

Grace Simmons Fisher, a spokeswoman for the Mississippi corrections department, 
wrote in an email that the order barred the state from using any drug to 
execute a condemned inmate. The state quickly filed notice on Tuesday saying it 
would ask the 5th US circuit court of appeal to overturn Wingate's order.

Mississippi is one of a number of states facing legal challenges to lethal 
injections. Hood's office asked the state supreme court in July to set a 
Thursday execution for convicted murderer Richard Jordan, one of the plaintiffs 
in the suit, but the state court did not act.

In Tennessee, the protocol calls for the use of pentobarbital mixed to order by 
a pharmacist, because the only commercial producer of the drug has placed 
restrictions on its distribution to prevent it from being used in executions.

Tennessee has not executed an inmate for more than 5 years because of legal 
challenges and problems in obtaining lethal injection drugs. Politicians moved 
from a 3-drug lethal injection method similar to Mississippi's to a 1-drug 
method and to reinstate the electric chair as a back-up. Both changes brought 
challenges, and all previously scheduled executions have been put on hold.

Although Tennessee has yet to carry out an execution using compounded 
pentobarbital, state attorney Scott Sutherland has said that Texas, Ohio and 
Georgia have had more than 30 successful and painless executions with that 
drug.

(source: The Guardian)

KANSAS:

Kansas College Republicans push to repeal the death penalty

Kansas College Republicans say their conservative and religious views led to 
their decision to officially oppose the death penalty.

"It actually is against my religion," said Paige Hungate, a WSU sophomore and 
chairwoman of the WSU Republicans. "I believe that life begins at conception 
and ends at natural death and I don't think there should be any deviation 
between those 2."

"We wanted to be truly, 100% pro-life. If one innocent person is put to death 
then it's not worth the policy," said State Chair for the Kansas Federation of 
College Republicans Dalton Glasscock, a Junior at WSU. He says the overall cost 
as well as a distrust of government also went into the decision.

By passing a resolution in support of repealing the death penalty KSFCR hopes 
to change the mindset of their party and ultimately get rid of the death 
penalty in Kansas.

"Let people know there is a change and shift and its okay to differ on some 
issues and that's how you actually make real changes in the party," Glasscock 
said.

Right now the Kansas Republican Party isn't taking a side on the controversial 
issue.

"We are neutral we're not technically for or technically against because many 
of our members have such passion on this issue," said Kansas Republican Party 
Chair Kelly Arnold.

Arnold said a move by the college Republicans could certainly get the party 
talking by the time they vote on their official platform in 2017.

"I fully expect this to be a hot issue at that meeting. It could sway some 
votes," he said.

"I think we have a lot of good talking points on it," said Hungate.

"It's okay to challenge what you've always believed and come up with different 
opinions, different ideas and really debate those ideas back and forth," 
Glasscock said. He says he has already gotten positive feedback from some 
Republican leaders.

The death penalty has been banned several times in Kansas, but was re-instated 
in 1994. However, no one has been executed in Kansas since 1965.

(source: ksn.com)

NEBRASKA:

Fate of Nebraska's Death Penalty Likely to Rest With Voters

Nebraska's death penalty won a last-minute reprieve on Wednesday when a group 
fighting to keep the punishment announced that it has collected more than 
enough signatures to stop its repeal and place the issue before voters in 2016.

Nebraskans for the Death Penalty, which was heavily financed by Republican Gov. 
Pete Ricketts and his family, said it had gathered 166,692 signatures from all 
93 of the state's counties. Nebraska's unicameral Legislature voted in May to 
repeal capital punishment over the objection of Ricketts, becoming the first 
traditionally conservative state to do so in 42 years.

The pro-death penalty group needed roughly 57,000 valid signatures from 
registered voters to force a statewide referendum, and double that number to 
immediately halt the death penalty repeal that was set to go into effect on 
Sunday. Organizers appear to have exceeded the 10 percent of registered voters 
hurdle needed to block the repeal until the November 2016 general election.

"Nebraskans sent a strong message about crime and punishment in our state by 
signing this petition in extraordinary numbers," said state treasurer and 
former attorney general Don Stenberg, a co-chair of the petition drive.

The likely referendum could prompt both sides to pour money into the state in 
hopes of swaying voters, said Douglas Berman, an Ohio State University law 
professor and death penalty expert.

Berman said the Nebraska Legislature's vote to repeal had suggested the death 
penalty was losing support even in the American Heartland but a referendum 
would focus attention on Nebraska.

"Certainly it will make Nebraska a kind of ground zero in the death penalty 
debate," he said.

Opponents said that the death penalty is beyond repair in Nebraska because of 
repeated legal challenges and expense to the state.

"We believe the more Nebraskans learn about the failures of capital punishment, 
the more they will be inclined to get rid of it," said the Rev. Stephen 
Griffith, the new director of Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

The petitions were delivered Wednesday to the Nebraska secretary of state's 
office, which will forward them to counties to verify the signatures in a 
process that will take about 40 days.

Republican Attorney General Doug Peterson, who supports the death penalty, said 
in a statement that the signatures are "presumptively valid" until determined 
otherwise. Stenberg said no one will know the exact number of valid signatures 
for at least a month, but the state constitution makes clear that petitions go 
into effect on the day they're submitted.

Even if the law is suspended, Nebraska currently has no way to execute any of 
the 10 men on death row because its lacks 2 of the 3 required lethal injection 
drugs and has struggled to obtain them legally. The state paid $54,400 in May 
to order the drugs from a broker in India, but federal authorities have said 
they can't be legally imported.

Nebraska lawmakers voted by the narrowest possible margin, 30-19, to override 
Ricketts' veto. Ricketts assailed the Legislature as out of touch with the 
wishes of most residents. The repeal vote was helped by an unusual coalition of 
conservative state senators and more traditional death penalty opponents who 
had fought unsuccessfully for decades to eliminate the punishment. Some 
conservatives said they opposed it for religious and moral reasons, while 
others cast it as an inefficient government program that wastes tax money.

"What the Nebraska Legislature did is going to have an effect," said Robert 
Dunham, executive director of the Washington-based Death Penalty Information 
Center, whose group often criticizes how the death penalty is administered. 
"The message that conservative legislators can reach across the aisle with 
moderate and liberal legislators - that message is still there and still 
resonates."

Nebraska hasn't executed an inmate since 1997, and has never done so using the 
state's current 3-drug lethal injection protocol.

The state was the 19th to abolish capital punishment, as has the District of 
Columbia, while the death penalty is legal in 31 states and for some federal 
crimes. The number of executions in the United States has gradually declined in 
recent years and only a handful of states led by Texas regularly put inmates to 
death.

The announcement of the number of signatures caps an 82-day petition drive 
backed by Ricketts and his father, TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts. The 
governor had given $200,000 to Nebraskans for the Death Penalty as of the last 
filing deadline on July 31, while his father had donated $100,000. The group 
raised a total of more than $652,000 from 40 individual donors and 7 groups 
classified as businesses, political action committees and other entities.

The largest donation in July came from the conservative, Washington-based 
Judicial Crisis Network, which gave $200,000. Nebraskans for the Death Penalty 
relied on a combination of paid and volunteer petition circulators, and was 
aided by an Arizona-based strategist who specializes in ballot campaigns.

In a statement, Ricketts said the success of the petition drive marked an 
important step toward protecting public safety.

"I am confident the people of Nebraska will have the opportunity to vote on 
this issue next year, and judging by the support so far, I expect the death 
penalty to be retained," Ricketts said.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Questions Loom in Battle Over Status of Death Penalty

It was a tough and emotional fight last May but in the end, state lawmakers 
repealed the death penalty in Nebraska. On Wednesday, more than 166,000 
signatures were turned in by those behind the effort to "repeal the repeal" of 
the death penalty but nothing will be decided anytime soon.

Boxes filled with signatures gathered by the Nebraskan's for the Death Penalty 
were turned in at the capitol Wednesday.

Rob Edwards is with the group Nebraskans for the Death Penalty and he said, "We 
turned in 166,692 signatures, which is astounding."

But getting the repeal took decades and the group named Nebraska Conservatives 
Concerned About the Death Penalty called Wednesday a big setback.

Death Penalty opponent Matt Maly said, "It's certainly disappointing in a way. 
We were expecting that they probably would have enough signatures to get it on 
the ballot."

But how many signatures were needed? And just what do these signatures do?

The act of repealing a passed law before it goes into effect is unique in 
Nebraska. 5% of signatures from voters across the state were needed to go on 
the November 2016 ballot. But if 10 % are gathered, not only will it go on the 
ballot but it also stops the death penalty repeal from becoming law.

First the signatures have to be verified. Each box is sent to the county it 
came from and their county election officials verify each and every signature. 
That can take up to 40 days.

Both sides say if this goes through it means a long road ahead to November 
2016.

Maly said, "The more people are exposed to information, the more likely they 
are to oppose the death penalty, really, because the facts are overwhelmingly 
on our side. So we will be out teaching people, informing the voters. We are 
not giving up."

Edwards said, "We believe Nebraskans will have the chance to vote on this. We 
believe Nebraskans want to vote on this and, more importantly, we are going to 
stay LB 268 until Nebraskans get to vote on this."

The law is set to go into effect Sunday. So what happens during this 40 day 
period of uncertainty? There are 2 sides. The Secretary of State's office says, 
"The law repealing the death penalty in Nebraska goes into effect August 30."

But the Nebraska Attorney General released a statement Wednesday saying, 
"During this verification process the signatures submitted to the Secretary of 
State are presumptively valid until determined otherwise."

(source: WOWT news)

WYOMING:

Public defender warns governor of death penalty costs

The state of Wyoming is bracing to cover the cost of a new death penalty 
sentencing hearing for a convicted murderer even as a federal court considers 
whether the state has lost legal standing to seek to put him to death.

Wyoming Public Defender Diane Lozano recently alerted Gov. Matt Mead that the 
state could be liable for unspecified legal expenses to defend Dale Wayne 
Eaton.

Eaton, 70, was sentenced to death in state court in 2004 for the 1988 murder of 
18-year-old Lisa Marie Kimmell, of Billings, Montana.

U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson of Cheyenne last fall overturned Eaton's death 
penalty, finding he hadn't received an adequate defense. Johnson now is 
considering whether the state followed conditions he set on possibly seeking 
the death penalty against Eaton again.

(source: Associated Press)

CALIFORNIA:

Defense attorney blasts O.C. authorities in death penalty case

A defense attorney, attempting to shield murder defendant Daniel Wozniak from a 
possible death sentence, filed a legal motion Wednesday accusing county law 
enforcement of improperly using jailhouse informants, withholding evidence and 
other misconduct spanning 30 years.

"There has been an impermissible pro-prosecution thumb on the scale of justice 
in this county for decades," Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders wrote in a 
754-page motion, accompanied by thousands of exhibits. "These patterns of 
behavior have continued to the present day, and have been as institutionally 
ignored now as they were in the 1980s."

Sanders contends the actions of prosecutors and Orange County Sheriff's 
Department employees in past cases are grounds for taking the death penalty off 
the table for Wozniak, a 31-year-old community actor accused of killing 2 
people in 2010.

Prosecutor Matt Murphy, in a rebuttal also filed Wednesday, said Sanders' 
allegations were misguided and simply wrong.

"These are the same allegations Mr. Sanders made in February of 2014 and again 
in January of this year. He has added nothing new. These claims were false then 
and they are false now," Murphy wrote.

Wozniak's murder trial, set for Oct. 2, has been delayed for more than 5 years 
during the defense attorney's legal challenges.

Sanders has expressed outrage that a prolific jailhouse snitch talked with 
Wozniak in the county jail.

That same informant secured 130 hours of taped conversation with confessed mass 
murderer Scott Dekraai, another client of Sanders, at the county jail. Dekraai 
gunned down 8 people at a Seal Beach salon in 2011.

Murphy countered that the informant wasn't working for authorities when he 
talked to Wozniak and that he struck up the conversation on his own initiative.

Orange County Superior Court Judge John Conley has set a Sept. 25 hearing on 
the defense attorney's motion and other pre-trial matters.

(source: Orange County Register)

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

US Advocacy Group Expects 'Fair' Ruling in California Death Penalty 
Appeal----Witness to Innocence Executive Director Magdaleno Rose-Avila claims 
that California's 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will listen to all arguments in 
the recent ruling against the death penalty and will judge fairly.

California's 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will listen to all arguments in the 
recent ruling against the death penalty and will judge fairly, Witness to 
Innocence Executive Director Magdaleno Rose-Avila told Sputnik.

"I think the judges are going to be fair ...There is some preponderance of 
evidence that shows us that the most open and understanding of the constitution 
have been those most recently appointed by Clinton and Obama," Rose-Avila said 
on Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, The Los Angeles Times reported that 3 judges Susan Graber, 
Johnnie Rawlinson and Paul Watford will be hearing next week an appeal of US 
District Judge Cormac Carney ruling that California's death penalty law is 
unconstitutional.

Carney argued that California's death penalty system was plagued by delays and 
uncertainty violating the US constitution's ban on cruel and unusual 
punishment.

Rose-Avila noted that capital punishment is ineffective and has been exploited 
as a political tool.

"It's been a political tool that is used to help district attorneys and other 
politicians who say they are tough on crime," he said.

People who threaten lives of others should be incarcerated not killed, 
Rose-Avila stressed.

Witness to Innocence is an advocacy group helping exonerated death row 
survivors to make their voices heard in the debate over the death penalty.

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

Ineffective Death Penalty System in California Should Be Halted - NGO

California's death penalty system should be abolished as it is costly and 
dysfunctional, Equal Justice USA Co-Director Shari Silberstein told Sputnik.

"So many people on death row in California don't have an attorney, and the long 
backlog makes the process random ... It's time to end this charade once and for 
all, and we hope that the Ninth Circuit will recognize the wisdom of Judge 
Carney's ruling," Silberstein said on Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, The Los Angeles Times reported that three judges Susan 
Graber, Johnnie Rawlinson and Paul Watford will be hearing next week an appeal 
of US District Judge Cormac Carney ruling that California???s death penalty law 
is unconstitutional.

Silberstein explained the ruling confirms that the death penalty is 
"exorbitantly costly, unfairly applied, and serves no legitimate purpose."

"In California, a bipartisan commission called the California Commission on the 
Fair Administration of Justice (CCFAJ), headed by former Attorney General John 
Van de Kamp, concluded that the death penalty in California was highly 
dysfunctional," she added.

Capital punishment is currently allowed in 31 US states, and abolished in 19 
states.

Since 1976, 1413 people have been executed in the United States.

(source for both: sputniknews.com)