[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----NEB., ARIZ., ORE., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 30



NEBRASKA:

Death penalty battle turns to signature verification


County election officials will begin next week the task of verifying nearly 
167,000 signatures on death penalty referendum petitions.

And supporters and opponents of the death penalty will regroup and get ready 
for a long campaign, expected to culminate in a vote of the people on the issue 
in 14 months.

"We believe the campaign this summer gave us a great jump start in organizing 
an effective campaign in the upcoming months and into the general election in 
2016," said Danielle Conrad, who heads the pro-repeal Nebraskans for Public 
Safety and is a former state senator.

Nebraskans for the Death Penalty completed what appears to be a successful 
campaign last week, with more than 166,000 signatures, significantly surpassing 
the 10 % needed to stop the death penalty repeal from going into effect and 
allow Nebraskans to vote on the issue.

Campaign co-manager Chris Peterson said the group would continue to raise 
money, focus on educating the public and engage with more than 800 volunteers 
and donors in this 2nd phase of the campaign. That could include a statewide 
speaking tour by key supporters and leaders, use of Facebook and Twitter, and 
prominent speakers from outside Nebraska.

White papers on death penalty issues including cost, deterrence, justice, 
wrongful conviction and protection of law enforcement and public safety 
officers are also an option.

Then at the end of next summer, the group will launch an advertising campaign, 
he said.

In the next 5 to 6 weeks, the verification of signatures will be the prime 
task.

Lancaster County Election Commissioner Dave Shively expects to get signatures 
for verification by Tuesday or Wednesday. The office then has 40 days to 
compare signatures and information with its voter registration records. If 
circulators got about 10 % of 176,262 registered voters, that could be 17,600 
to 18,000 signatures to verify.

"Right now I'm not intending to bring in any additional staff," Shively said. 
"We don't really have other major activities going on right now so I'm 
anticipating that my regular staff would be able to handle that."

The staff has a lot of leeway on verifying those signatures, he said, even when 
they are hard to read or have missing or wrong information.

"It's our responsibility to prove that they're not registered, not that they 
are registered," he said.

Douglas County, which traditionally has the bulk of the work on most petition 
verifications -- because circulators go where it is easiest to find signatures 
-- will probably hire at least 10 workers at $11 an hour to work full time for 
about four weeks, said spokeswoman Valerie Stoj.

The county reported 321,645 registered voters on Thursday.

This time, she said, she heard circulators went more outside the Omaha area 
than usual, to counties where the political climate favored signing the 
petitions.

Gage County Election Commissioner Dawn Hill said that while she doesn't know 
how many signatures her workers will have to verify, she is planning to use the 
staff she has, pulling them off their other tasks to help out.

Gage County had 13,829 registered voters, which could mean around 1,400 
signatures to verify.

It's unknown whether signatures or petitions will be challenged in court by 
supporters of repealing the death penalty, Peterson said. But the petition 
group has a healthy enough margin even over the 10 percent, he said, that it 
would difficult to change the outcome of the referendum.

Conrad said that Nebraskans for Public Safety will monitor the validation 
process at the county level.

"Our campaign team is carefully evaluating all legal options that are available 
to ensure the process is fair," Conrad said.

It will also be aggressively raising funds "to compete with the deep pockets of 
our opponents and to ensure our positive message reaches Nebraska voters," she 
said.

The group plans to engage voters 1-on-1 through meetings, online, and possibly 
town hall style events.

"We look forward to continuing the conversation with Nebraska voters about why 
the death penalty compromises our fiscal and moral values and reminding them 
that we have in place a smart alternative that puts public safety first -- that 
is life in prison," she said.

The repeal bill (LB268) passed 3 rounds of debate and survived a veto from Gov. 
Pete Ricketts with a 30-19 vote. Half of those senators voting for the override 
motion were Republicans.

Those seeking repeal have been successful bringing Republicans, including 
conservative Republicans into their fold.

Bryan Baumgart, past chair of the Douglas County Republican Party, is one of 
those conservatives. He's been concerned about the risks of executing an 
innocent person based on false confessions, eye witness misidentifications or 
improper forensics.

"There's been plenty of people exonerated. There's nothing we can do to 
guarantee that no innocent person will ever be executed with our blessing. And 
I'm not OK being a part of that," Baumgart said.

He wasn't surprised that enough signatures were gathered in the backlash to the 
Legislature's repeal.

"It really is on us now," he said. "The other side did their part going out and 
getting the signatures."

The tough task, he said, is going to be making sure as many Nebraskans as 
possible have the same information state senators had when they made the 
decision to repeal the death penalty.

There's no doubt the issue is an emotional one. And if people don't take the 
time to explore the issue using reason they will decide the issue with a gut 
response, he said.

"But I think if Nebraskans are educated, if they receive the same information 
that our state senators received, including all those Republican state senators 
who voted in favor of replacing the death penalty, I think they'll come to the 
same conclusion," he said.

If the death penalty is restored, as it is assumed it will be until the 
election, the state still does not have the means to carry out an execution of 
any of the 10 men with death sentences.

Department of Correctional Services Director Scott Frakes is trying to import 2 
of the 3 drugs in the state's lethal injection protocol, but has not been able 
to get the sodium thiopental and pancuronium bromide from a broker in India 
into the country. The department has a supply of the third drug, potassium 
chloride.

Ricketts followed up his failed veto by donating at least $200,000, and his 
father, Joe Ricketts donating $100,000, to the petition campaign.

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

Reflecting on a career sitting beside the worst of the worst


Jim Mowbray's Perry Mason moment didn't come the day the Nebraska Supreme Court 
sided with him in 2008 and found that Nebraska's electric chair was cruel and 
unusual punishment.

It didn't come the day his office, the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy, 
got word about results of DNA testing and science started to quietly unravel 
the cases of s6 people wrongly convicted of killing a Beatrice woman.

The longtime defense attorney says the cruel-and-unusual ruling was his biggest 
accomplishment, but his Perry Mason moment came in a little-known case of a 
young man accused of killing another in cold blood in his car in a rural area 
near Kearney in 1999.

2 witnesses were pointing the finger at his guy and said he was the only other 
one there. At trial, Mowbray listened to one of them testify about how the 
shooting went down. Then he looked where the bullet casings were found, and the 
pieces started to fall into place.

He leaned over at the counsel table and told Jeff Pickens, who will succeed him 
as chief counsel at the commission, and said, "I got 'em."

In closing arguments, Mowbray laid out his theory: It couldn't have happened 
the way the witness said. The casings had fallen where her boyfriend was 
standing.

The jury came back in half an hour or so: Not guilty.

Mowbray will retire Monday. Winding down a career sitting next to defendants 
accused of some of the state's worst crimes, he reflected recently on his 
career, the death penalty and what it was like to find himself on the other 
side of the courtroom when his own brother was killed.

When you grew up Charles Starkweather was your garbage man?

Our house was on his route. I would see him on a regular basis. So I did know 
him. The Ward family, one of the families that was killed, lived around the 
block from us. He was always very nice to me. He put me up on his shoulders. 
But I vividly remember his flat top and his beady little eyes.

And then I remember the morning after Charlie was executed. My mom was really 
upset, and I asked her why, and she explained that Charlie had been executed 
the night before and how that troubled her. Maybe that's what got me into 
opposing the death penalty, aside from all other sorts of reasons. I knew it 
was something that really upset her and she didn't understand what the need 
was. Although, we all agreed what he did was terrible. But she didn't 
understand why the state should be responsible for killing someone.

How old were you?

8. After they found the Ward family, they locked the schools down, which back 
then was unheard of, and we couldn't leave until our parents picked us up. I 
remember my dad coming to school at Prescott. Walking outside, seeing all these 
cars parked along the street and all these fathers with shotguns and rifles. 
That's a vivid memory of the chaos that was going on and the fear. It was 
really surreal to see that.

What made you want to become a lawyer?

I didn't make it to my 17th birthday before I lost my driver's license on 
points. So I hired John McArthur, who had been Caril Fugate's lawyer, to 
represent me on my speeding tickets. And all he accomplished was putting off 
the inevitable and charging me quite a bit to do that. I kind of thought maybe 
I could do a better job representing someone. And I think that kind of sparked 
an interest.

My dad had gone to law school. He had no intention of being a lawyer, but he 
was in his second year, and he went into the FBI. ... He was involved in 
picking up Italians and Germans and Japanese and arresting them in San 
Francisco and Chicago, and they hadn't done anything; and that really bothered 
him. So we talked about things like that.

I just felt like you could make a difference as a lawyer by changing laws. 
Without that, it's hard to make changes. In the back of my mind, I think it was 
always something I wanted to do.

How did you come to criminal defense work? You started as a prosecutor, right?

My first job, I was hired by (now-Supreme Court Chief Justice) Mike Heavican, 
so I worked in the County Attorney's Office.

But as a prosecutor, I realized that it was actually not very hard work because 
... you have access to law enforcement, to experts, labs and all sorts of 
things. I saw the deck was really stacked in favor of the state. And this 
argument that the state has the burden of proof, that was not any big 
challenge. Plus, as a prosecutor, you also have the ability to amend or 
dismiss, where, on the defense side, you're powerless, and you literally are on 
the defense because you have such an uphill battle trying to defend someone.

I really felt like my talents would be better used defending people rather than 
prosecuting them. So that's when I left and went into private practice with 
Dorothy (Walker, whom he later married).

What has it been like having Dorothy at your side through your career?

I know some people talk about taking your work home, but in trial you're 
working 18-hour-plus days, and to have someone always available to bounce ideas 
off of, I think it strengthened our marriage more than it hurt it.

It was something we both enjoyed and had a passion for. We tried a lot of cases 
together. And when we did, we did very well.

>From there you started as chief counsel of the Nebraska Commission on Public 
Advocacy when it was just starting?

I'd done death penalty work, and I saw the need in private practice for an 
office that had the money on these really serious cases to defend people 
charged with serious crimes.

Because, when we were court appointed, it was always very difficult for us to 
get expert witnesses. We'd have to go to the court and make a motion ... and 
basically have to lay out part of the defense to the prosecution. If my client 
wasn't poor, I wouldn't have to do that. I'd just go out and hire an expert.

It was really tipped out of balance. The state didn't have to ask anybody for 
permission to use this expert or that expert. ... It left the people with the 
least amount of money with the least effective counsel, because our hands were 
tied.

In 1992, (then-Lancaster County Public Defender) Dennis Keefe got funding to 
hire a consulting group out of Massachusetts to study the status of criminal 
defense across the state of Nebraska. ... Nebraska was 1 of only 6 states where 
counties were responsible for paying for criminal defense. They felt like it 
would help if the state contributed and by doing that they could create an 
agency that would be statewide.

Nothing really happened until Richardson County was going broke between the 2 
cases of Michael Ryan and John Lotter. They were literally borrowing money on 
ambulances. This gave the monetary argument. Look, counties can't afford these 
cases. The state needs to step up to the plate. ... To our surprise, it passed.

I saw it as a great idea and an opportunity to finally, to me, level the 
playing field and have defense attorneys who could represent people charged 
with these terrible crimes effectively and have the time and the money to do 
the job that poor people deserved. Finally, the poor were going to be 
represented fairly. So I applied, and I got the job.

The need was certainly there, and we've proven it. What we realized, all of us, 
when we started working here, was when you can actually focus on one particular 
area ... you get very good at it.

And when life imprisonment or life literally hangs in the balance you need to 
do that. They deserve that.

It's not that lawyers out West or in rural areas aren't good lawyers. It's just 
we came in with the ability to have the time and the money to do it.

It's been a win-win situation, and I'm very proud of it.

There are still people who think lawyers got the Beatrice 6 off for the 1985 
killing of Helen Wilson. How frustrating is that?

Well, it is. Especially when you look at the individual who actually committed 
it (Bruce Allen Smith, who later died in an Oklahoma prison). They had evidence 
he had been in the area, he'd gotten drunk and said he was going to have sex 
with somebody. Another witness dropped him off a couple of blocks from her 
apartment. A convenience store clerk saw him early the next morning with blood 
on him. The police even talked to him and fortunately took some hair samples.

For people to think in any way that we got anybody (who was guilty) off is just 
simply factually impossible and scientifically impossible. I could see if we 
never found who did it people might wonder. But that's not the case here.

Could there be another Beatrice 6 today?

I think so. The one thing the DNA has shown us in the exonerations is how 
unreliable eyewitness identification is and that false confessions do happen. 
Yeah, we are convicting innocent people based on evidence we now know is not 
very reliable. Unfortunately, we don't have DNA in every case.

What do you think of the state of the death penalty in Nebraska right now?

I understand people's feelings about it, both pro and con. But in the long run 
we'll all be better off if we don't have it. The state shouldn't be responsible 
for killing people who killed people. It just doesn't make any sense. This idea 
that it's a tool for law enforcement, we've been able to show time and time 
again, it's just the opposite. It causes people to confess, to plead guilty who 
may not be guilty. It's just dead wrong. That's the last thing they should be 
threatening people with, the death penalty.

I get a visceral reaction from a victim wanting the worst thing to happen to 
the defendant that happened to their loved one. I totally understand that. I 
can empathize because my brother was murdered. So I get it.

But there was nothing I could do to bring him back. The criminal justice system 
wasn't going to help with my grieving. I was going to have to do that on my 
own.

Did it change how you approach cases in any way or your demeanor when you know 
the victim's family is in the courtroom?

Yeah, it took on a different meaning. I felt bad that I couldn't console them. 
I couldn't say, 'Hey, I know what it's like, I've walked in your shoes, it will 
get better but it never goes away.' Not a day goes by I don't think about my 
brother. But, by the way, this system isn't going to solve that.

I didn't feel any better after she (his brother's estranged wife) was convicted 
than before.

What do you say when people ask what they always ask defense attorneys: How can 
you represent someone who did something so bad?

What I tell people is it's not my job to decide whether they're guilty or not. 
That really is up to a judge or a jury. My job is to make sure their 
constitutional rights were protected and to make sure that they have a voice in 
the process. To think that we somehow condone their actions because we defend 
them, that's not true at all. But they have rights. We all have the same 
rights.

If you had it to do over, would you do anything different?

No, no. Overall, I'm very happy. I feel like I made a difference. At least I 
hope I did.

(source for both: Journal Star)

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

Serious issue, sober debate ---- Let's have a debate that is constructive, 
consequential and civil.

The Nebraska Constitution is clear.

"The 1st power reserved by the people is the initiative whereby laws may be 
enacted and constitutional amendments adopted by the people independently of 
the Legislature," it says.

"The 2nd power reserved is the referendum which may be invoked, by petition, 
against any act or part of an act of the Legislature ..."

Last week, Nebraskans for the Death Penalty exercised the people's 
constitutional power.

The group submitted 166,692 signatures seeking a statewide vote on reversing 
the Legislature's decision to abolish capital punishment.

Assuming enough valid signatures were filed to put the question on the November 
2016 ballot, and it appears there were, what next?

First, Nebraskans should recognize that this petition drive and a statewide 
vote are legitimate instruments for making public policy.

Often called the "2nd house" to our 1-chamber Legislature, Nebraska's 
initiative and referendum process actually has been around a quarter-century 
longer, established first in 1912. An election???s outcome reflects the will of 
the citizens.

2nd, capital punishment is a life-and-death matter, perhaps the most 
significant power government wields over a citizen. Many state senators 
struggled with their decisions. Nebraskans should - and we hope will - conduct 
this debate in a manner befitting the gravity of this question.

To begin, let's recognize that there are people of sincerity and goodwill on 
both sides. Let's have a debate worth listening to, not a shouting match.

Death penalty supporters are not a bloodthirsty mob, and its opponents are not 
soft-on-crime bleeding hearts. Neither side should impugn the character or 
motives of the other.

There is no doubt this issue sparks deep emotions. Several state senators 
favoring repeal received threats. One senator used a photo of a beheaded woman 
to declare his support for the death penalty.

Let's not go any farther down that path. Let's not bombard Nebraskans with 
commercials full of inflammatory images and ominous music that prey on 
sentiment.

Rather, let's have a debate that is constructive, consequential and civil.

Let it be informative. Let it be factual. Let it be thorough. Let it focus on 
the many sober and difficult questions that capital punishment raises.

It is a long list, but for starters let's hear both sides talk about whether 
some crimes are so horrible that they should carry the ultimate punishment. 
There are principled arguments to be made each way.

Then let's talk about whether life in prison without possibility of parole is 
an appropriate replacement for execution in such cases.

After that, let's discuss more key points, including whether capital punishment 
serves as a deterrent to other criminals; how families of murder victims feel 
about the punishment; the chances of Nebraska's criminal justice system putting 
an innocent person to death; the costs of seeking and carrying out a death 
sentence with its lengthy legal appeals; whether defendants have adequate 
access to effective legal counsel; is the death penalty utilized fairly when 93 
county attorneys make individual decisions on whether to seek it; and how 
Nebraska might carry out executions after being unable to obtain the necessary 
drugs and not having put an inmate to death since 1997.

Secretary of State John Gale's office says it will need about 40 days to verify 
if there are enough valid signatures to place the question before voters. 
Still, it seems more than likely this debate is coming.

So let's recognize that there are divergent points of view, legitimately held, 
and that reasonable people will disagree.

Let's have a campaign that seeks to inform, not inflame.

Let's have a discussion worthy of this significant power "reserved by the 
people."

(source: Editorial, World-Herald)






ARIZONA:

Rector defense challenges legality of death penalty


The attorneys for a Bullhead City murder suspect filed 2 motions late Friday, 
seeking to block the death penalty for their client.

Justin James Rector's attorneys, Gerald Gavin and Ron Gilleo, argued that 
execution by lethal injection is a cruel and unusual punishment in violation of 
the U.S. Constitution.

Rector, 27, is charged with 1st-degree murder, kidnapping, child abuse and 
abandonment of a dead body in the kidnapping and murder of 8-year-old Isabella 
Grogan-Cannella in September 2014.

Gavin argues that the death penalty discriminates against poor, young, male 
defendants. It also discriminates against poor, male defendants whose victims 
were Caucasian. He also argues that the death penalty has been imposed 
arbitrary and irrationally in Arizona, also in violation of the U.S. 
Constitution.

In his 2nd motion, Gavin is asking prosecutors to disclose the juvenile records 
of witnesses the prosecutor is expected to call at Rector's 2016 trial. The 
juvenile records may show possible biases, prejudices and ulterior motives 
against his client.

Rector is charged with kidnapping and murdering Grogan-Cannella on Sept. 2, 
2014, and leaving her body in a shallow grave near her Lakeside Drive home.

Grogan-Cannella's mother, Tania Grogan, and stepfather, Ralph Folster, left 
Bella and her 10-year-old sister at the house with Rector and Folster's mother 
as they went to a department store around midnight that night.

Rector's next hearing is set for Sept. 30. Rector's murder trial is set to 
begin Oct. 17, 2016. McPhillips is seeking the death penalty against Rector.

(source: Mohave Daily News)






OREGON:

Governor's Campaign Fails to Save Man from Gallows


An Oregon governor, who called capital punishment "a relic of the barbarous 
mediaeval [sic] ages of man," nevertheless refused to halt the hanging of a 
Grants Pass man convicted of murder.

In July 1911, Mike Morgan signed a confession saying he accidently killed John 
York during a drunken brawl at a camp on the south bank of the Rogue River in 
Grants Pass. Searchers found York's body in the river near the camp, and 
authorities caught up a few days later in Glendale with Morgan and York's 
horses and wagon.

A trial jury found Morgan guilty and sentenced him to die on Jan. 5, 1912.

The hanging was postponed while Gov. Oswald West campaigned in favor of a 
measure to abolish the death penalty. When the measure failed by 60 %, Morgan's 
attorney pleaded with the governor to stop his client's hanging, but was 
surprised when West said a reprieve would be a setback to his campaign.

Morgan went to the gallows on Dec. 13, 1912. His was among a spate of hangings 
Gov. West used to demonstrate the barbarity of capital punishment. West finally 
convinced voters to abolish it in 1914, only to be overturned in 1920.

[sources: Long, William R. "Death Penalty," The Oregon Encyclopedia. Ed. 
Marianne Keddington-Lang and Amy Platt. Portland State University/Oregon 
Historical Society, 2008. Web. 30 June 2015. 
http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/; "Mike Morgan and 3 Pay Penalty." Rogue 
River Courier, Weekly Edition 20 Dec. 1912 [Grants Pass Oregon] : 1+. Web. 1 
July 2015.]

(source: Jefferson Public Radio)






USA:

Time to Kill the Death Penalty


In February 2015, the governor of Pennsylvania issued a moratorium on 
executions. In May, Nebraska became the 19th state, and the seventh state since 
2007, to abolish the death penalty. And weeks ago, the Connecticut Supreme 
Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional, saying " ... this state's death 
penalty no longer comports with contemporary standards of decency and no longer 
serves any legitimate penological purpose."

Nevertheless, states have executed 19 prisoners so far this year - 15 of them 
killed by the states of Texas and Missouri alone. Texas, Missouri and Florida 
accounted for 28 of the 35 people executed in 2014. In contrast, 23 states and 
the federal government have not executed anyone for at least the past 10 years.

This is a tragic little corner of America's "culture wars," where mostly 
Southerners insist that their moral beliefs require them to execute thy 
neighbor. Little do they understand that they're on the wrong side of history.

There's been quite a turnaround from the late 1980s and early 1990s, when 
progressives were afraid to speak out against the death penalty. At that time 
polls indicated that about 80 percent of Americans favored capital punishment 
while only 16 percent opposed it. The polls don't look so bad today, but at 
least on the surface Americans still favor the death penalty by a margin of 2 
to 1.

And yet, progressives should now feel comfortable on this issue, especially in 
a primary election. Most Democrats do not favor capital punishment and support 
by independents is around 60 % and falling fast. It is intransigence by the 
Republican base that keeps public opinion looking worse than it is.

There are 2 arguments that move Americans to our side: (1) it doesn't work, and 
(2) it's killing innocent people.

According to the Gallup Poll, Americans have had a strong change of heart when 
asked "Do you feel that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to the commitment 
of murder, that it lowers the murder rate, or not?"

Year YES, does NO, does not

2011 32 64

2006 34 64

2004 35 62

1991 51 41

1986 61 32

1985 62 31

Americans now agree with 88 % of the country's top criminologists who, as noted 
in a study in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, do not believe that 
the death penalty is a deterrent.

The same Gallup Poll asks "How often do you think that a person has been 
executed under the death penalty who was, in fact, innocent of the crime he or 
she was charged with - do you think this has happened in the past 5 years, or 
not?" Over the past 10 years, about 60 % have said that yes, an innocent person 
has been executed within the past 5 years while about 30 % say that has not 
happened.

Again, most Americans have their facts straight. At last count, since 1973, 155 
prisoners on death row have been exonerated. Although it is impossible to know 
how many innocent people have been executed, the Death Penalty Information 
Center offers a list of 10 whose innocence seems probable.

Some of us painfully remember the years following the "Willie Horton" attack on 
presidential nominee Michael Dukakis, when fairly progressive political 
consultants would insist that their progressive clients could not oppose the 
death penalty. It would guarantee their defeat, consultants said. Many 
progressives agonizingly followed that advice.

Those days are over. We can follow our consciences while simultaneously arguing 
from a strong political position: that we should instead spend society's time 
and money on policies that actually reduce crime and make law-abiding Americans 
safer.

(source: Op-Ed, Bernie Horn; Campaign For America's Future----Truth-Out)