[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, GA., LA., OHIO, MO.

[Rick Halperin]

July 10



TEXAS----impending execution

Scheduled execution of Nicaraguan national draws criticism


With the death penalty at its lowest level of U.S. support in more than 40 
years, it's not surprising that the scheduled execution of a foreign national 
would draw objections.

On Wednesday a group gathered at Houston's Nicaraguan Consulate, 8989 
Westheimer, to protest the death by lethal injection of Bernardo A. Tercero, 
scheduled for Aug. 26.

A native of Nicaragua, Tercero was sentenced to death in October 2000 in 
connection with the March 1997 fatal shooting of Robert Berger, 38, a Reagan 
High School English teacher.

Berger was killed during a struggle at a southwest Houston dry cleaners as his 
3-year-old daughter stood nearby. Tercero said the shooting was accidental.

Gloria Rubac, a longtime death penalty opponent who attended the rally 
Wednesday, said the event's purpose was to encourage Nicaraguan officials to 
object to the planned execution.

Among the rally participants' objections to the death sentence, according to a 
news release, was Tercero's claim that he was only 17 at the time of the fatal 
shooting and thus not eligible for the death penalty. The U.S. Supreme Court 
ruled the execution of juveniles unconstitutional in 2005.

Tercero's birth date, however, was in dispute, and the trial judge did not 
allow presentation of a birth certificate that would have established his age 
at 17 during the crime. In December 2013, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals 
also denied Tercero's appeal on the basis of his age.

In the news release, Tercero's supporters said authorities denied him the right 
to speak with Nicaraguan consular officials at the time of his arrest, but that 
issue was not addressed in the appeal.

(source: Houston Chronicle)

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

Ron Paul says death penalty trial fueled Texas county's tax hike


More than a decade ago, 3 men were prosecuted by an East Texas county for the 
racist 1998 dragging death of James Byrd Jr. 1 drew a life sentence, 2 were 
sentenced to death.

Now comes Ron Paul of Texas, the former Republican U.S. House member and 
presidential candidate, hammering the fiscal impact of that case. Paul, whose 
senator-son, Rand, seeks the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, wrote in a June 
2015 opinion column: "It is hard to find a more wasteful and inefficient 
government program than the death penalty." By way of example, he offered: 
"Jasper County in Texas raised property taxes by 7 % in order to pay for 1 
death penalty case!"

A reader asked us to check on whether such a case had that tax impact.

News stories mention tax hikes

We didn't hear back from Paul about how he reached his conclusion. But searches 
starting from the Nexis news database led us to a couple news stories 
suggesting the county bore the costs of 3 Byrd-related prosecutions and legal 
appeals by raising its property tax rate.

In March 1999, correspondent John Burnett of National Public Radio reported the 
county, which had then finished one Byrd-related trial, "has had to raise 
property taxes 8 % to pay for the 3 prosecutions, which are expected to surpass 
half a million dollars" in costs, Burnett said. His report included comments 
from Johnetta Nash, then the Jasper County auditor, saying the county had put 
off priorities including computer upgrades and a jail addition.

A 2002 Wall Street Journal news story presented a percentage tax increase like 
the one Paul declared. The story said the county's costs of prosecuting Byrd's 
murder had exceeded $1 million with more expenses expected, straining its $10 
million annual budget and "forcing a 6.7% increase in property taxes over 2 
years to pay for the trial." Generally, the Journal story said, death penalty 
cases are expensive because sentencing someone to death requires 2 proceedings; 
the 1st determines the accused person's guilt, the 2nd whether the convicted 
individual deserves the death penalty. "A death sentence," the story said, "is 
typically followed by years of appeals, and sometimes the entire case is 
retried."

Jasper County official provides costs document

Next, we queried officials in Jasper County, including Renee Weaver, the 
current county auditor, who emailed us an undated document she said she found 
in her files. The 1-page document, titled "Capital Murder Costs - Jasper 
County," noted the county had 6 capital murder trials from 1998 to 2000 without 
more specifics. So we couldn't tell exactly which trials were covered by the 
figures.

>From 1998 through 2000, according to the document, the county spent $873,669 on 
capital murder costs across 20 itemized categories including salaries, 
court-appointed attorneys, investigation expenses, courtroom security and 
telephone charges. The document shows $118,863 in additional costs in 2000 and 
nearly $124,300 in costs accrued from 2001 through May 2003. Subtracting 
$298,916 in grants provided by outside agencies to help cover costs leaves the 
declared unreimbursed county spending over 5 years at more than $817,000.

Uncertain impact on tax rate?

Unfortunately for our purposes, the document presented no information on 
whether changes in the county's tax rate were influenced by the Byrd-related 
trial costs. Hoping for illumination on that front, we reached out to current 
and former county officials.

Joe Folk, who was the county's top elected official as Jasper County judge from 
1995 through 2006, said he didn't recall any tax hike driven by the county's 
prosecutorial and appellate costs, though it's possible. "It cost us a pretty 
good sum," Folk said. "We probably had to raise the rates some. But it wasn't a 
great amount."

Folk guided us to Nash, the former official who spoke to NPR. She told us she 
wasn't sure about any specific hike due to the trials and urged us to consult 
David Luther, who has long been the chief appraiser of the Jasper County 
Appraisal District.

To our inquiry, Luther provided a chart showing the county's tax rate changes 
in those years and, separately, the degree to which each adopted rate exceeded 
the rate needed to bring in the revenue the county raised from taxes the year 
before.

Taxes did go up. A few months after Byrd's death, according to the chart, the 
county increased its general tax rate nearly 12 % from the year before--from 
31.72 cents per $100 valuation to 35.405 cents per $100 valuation. 
Significantly, Luther elaborated, that rate was about 7.25 % higher than the 
rate of 33.012 cents per $100 valuation that would have generated the revenue 
the county gathered the year before--with the county's budgeted costs for the 
Byrd matter, he said, accounting for more than 80 % of this difference.

Luther said he knows how one of the Byrd cases played into the tax rate that 
1st year thanks to his January 1999 letter to a Jasper County prosecutor about 
how much the judge overseeing that Byrd-related trial was going to have to pay 
in additional county property taxes on his home due to the county's trial 
expenses. At issue, he recalled, was a motion to have the judge recused from 
the case because of potential bias caused by the tax increase on his homestead.

Luther's letter said the county budgeted about $292,000 for the costs of the 
trial during 1999 which, he wrote, translates to about 2 cents per $100 
valuation of the tax rate. For an average local homeowner, county property 
taxes for the year attributable to those budgeted costs, Luther wrote, broke 
out to $5.10.

"So," Luther told us by email, "you could say that taxes were increased due to 
the trial costs by 6.05%." He acknowledged by phone that this calculation 
reflected just the first part of the county???s spending on prosecutions and 
appeals, which extended over several years.

Our ruling

Paul said Jasper County "raised property taxes by 7 % in order to pay for 1 
death penalty case."

The chief appraiser's research and letter demonstrates there was nearly a 7 % 
1st-year increase in taxes attributed to the costs of a death penalty trial.

We rate Paul's claim True.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TRUE - The statement is accurate and there's nothing significant missing.

(source: politifact.com)






GEORGIA:

Jurors watch Jamie Hood confess to shooting officers


During Thursday's court proceedings, juror heard accused cop killer Jamie 
Hood's confession to authorities moments after he surrendered on live TV.

The hour-and-a-half videotaped interview of Hood with 2 Georgia Bureau of 
Investigation agents was shown to jurors after they watched footage from 
11Alive's coverage of Hood's surrender.

"I can't say nothing good about your Howard," Hood said in the interview.. "I 
can't. I know you're compadres."

In the interview, Hood didn't apologize for shooting and injuring Officer Tony 
Howard, but says he did not mean to shoot and kill the 2nd officer he 
encountered.

"Boy, I wish I could take that away but I can't," Hood said. "Bad damn mistake 
for that boy. Whatever his name is."

Elmer "Buddy" Christian died after being shot in his patrol car.

"The adrenaline going," Hood said. "I know Buddy fixin' to shoot me. I can't 
let you do that, Buddy. It was all kill or be killed."

Later, the agents ask Hood if he wants to write a letter to Christian's family. 
Hood says yes, and the agent later reads it back to him:

"Dear Christian family, my name is Jamie Hood. I am the man who shot Buddy. I 
would like to apologize for my actions because he did not deserve that. I never 
knew Buddy or had any problems with him. I just seen him at the wrong time and 
in the wrong situation. I know you and your loved ones don't like me right now 
and I do understand, but I want you to know I regret that moment because no 
innocent person deserves being hurt. I just met Buddy at the wrong time in the 
wrong situation."

Hood is defending himself in his death penalty trial. It is believed 
prosecutors are nearing the end of their presentations.

(source: WXIA news)






LOUISIANA:

Prosecutor behind 1/3 of Louisiana's death sentences wants to 'kill more 
people'


Since 2011, 1 man has been responsible for 1/3 of the death sentences in 
Louisiana - Dale Cox, according to The New York Times.

Cox is the acting district attorney in Caddo Parrish, the US county that has 
sentenced more people to death per capita than anywhere in the US between 2010 
and 2014, according to The Times.

Earlier this year, Cox told a reporter for the Shreveport Times it's not 
enough.

"I think we need to kill more people. ... I think the death penalty should be 
used more often," Cox said.

Since then, he's willingly accepted interviews to clarify his statement, and he 
says he meant what he said.

Cox recently told The New York Times:

"Retribution is a valid societal interest. What kind of society would say that 
it's O.K. to kill babies and eat them, and in fact we can have parties where we 
kill them and eat them, and you're not going to forfeit your life for that? If 
you've gotten to that point, you're no longer a society."

In a more recent interview with KSLA News, Cox implied the Times article 
misrepresented him.

"Well, I don't think I'm a spokesman for the death penalty," which the Times 
characterized him as. "I'm just 1 prosecutor who's an advocate for it," Cox 
said.

As for those shocking statistics, Cox "didn't know."

"I don't really keep up with statistics like that, so I'm just taking their 
numbers at face value," he admitted.

Cox's comments came as a response to an op-ed in the same newspaper from A.M. 
"Marty" Stroud, a former prosecutor who spoke out against the death penalty. 
>From that editorial:

"The clear reality is that the death penalty is an anathema to any society that 
purports to call itself civilized. It is an abomination that continues to scar 
the fibers of this society and it will continue to do so until this barbaric 
penalty is outlawed. Until then, we will live in a land that condones state 
assisted revenge and that is not justice in any form or fashion."

In 1984, Stroud helped secure a murder conviction and death sentence for Glenn 
Ford, a man exonerated 30 years later after new evidence emerged in his case.

In his op-ed, Stroud apologized and called himself "arrogant, judgmental, [and] 
narcissistic."

As Robert J. Smith, a law professor at the University of North Carolina, told 
The New York Times, "When you start to look underneath the counties and ask, 
'Who is actually prosecuting these cases?' you realize in most of the counties, 
it's 1 or a limited number of prosecutors."

"What you've ended up with is a personality-driven death penalty," he added.

Cox started his career opposed to the death penalty. In fact, he left his 
position in a district attorney's office after 6 years because he felt 
uncomfortable pursuing capital cases and that only God could decide to take a 
man's life, according to The New Yorker.

By his return to office full-time in 2011, however, his mentality had 
drastically shifted.

"The nature of the work is so serious that there'd be something wrong if it 
didn't change you," he told The Times.

(source: businessinsider.com)






OHIO:

Murderer could avoid death penalty with ruling


The U.S. 6th Circuit Court in Cincinnati has ruled that 1 of 2 Warren-based 
courts must reassess its conclusions that Warren murderer Andre Williams isn't 
intellectually disabled enough to escape the death penalty.

The Ohio Attorney General's Office, which is handling the matter, hasn't 
decided whether to appeal, it told The Vindicator today.

If the attorney general's office doesn't appeal, the 6th Circuit's ruling would 
require a lower federal court in Cleveland to issue a further ruling to advise 
either the Warren-based 11th District Court of Appeals or Trumbull County 
Common Pleas Court to reassess its rulings on Williams' intellectual abilities.

A spokesperson for the attorney general's office said it's unclear which of the 
2 courts would be ordered to re-assess its ruling.

(source: vindy.com)






MISSOURI:

Former lawmakers, others sue Missouri over lethal injection policies used in 
executions


A group of Missouri taxpayers and former lawmakers on Thursday filed a lawsuit 
against the state Department of Corrections over lethal injection policies used 
for executions.

The lawsuit, headed by former Democratic legislator Joan Bray, alleges the 
state uses an illegal prescription to obtain the execution drug pentobarbital 
from a compounding pharmacy, violating state and federal law.

A spokeswoman for the state Attorney General's Office, which is representing 
the Department of Corrections, declined to comment on pending litigation.

The attorney for the group that filed the lawsuit, Justin Gelfand, said the 
lawsuit is not challenging the death penalty, but illegal execution practices.

"I'm shocked by the hypocrisy of a state government that reasonably expects 
Missourians to obey its laws, but then uses our taxes to illegally obtain drugs 
to execute people," Bray said in a statement. "This lawsuit is intended to stop 
our government officials from violating the law, even if we live in a state 
with capital punishment."

Former Democratic Rep. Jeanette Mott Oxford, a Catholic nun and a member of the 
Missouri NAACP, joined Bray in the lawsuit.

Missouri obtains its execution drug from an unnamed compounding pharmacy, and 
prison officials refuse to disclose details about how or if it is tested.

The lawsuit says receiving the drug from the pharmacy is illegal because state 
and federal law prohibits the use of compounded drugs commercially available in 
the marketplace and copies of drugs that are FDA-approved. Pentobarbital is 
FDA-approved.

The lawsuit also alleges the state uses a physician who is contractually 
obligated to fill prescriptions for the drug without conducting a medical exam, 
which the plaintiffs also say violates state and federal law.

Inmates facing the death penalty have repeatedly challenged the state's use of 
pentobarbital with little success.

Attorneys for Walter Timothy Storey tried unsuccessfully to halt his execution 
over concerns about Missouri's secretive process for obtaining and using the 
lethal injection drug. He was executed in February.

Gelfand said he hopes a Cole County Circuit judge will temporarily halt what he 
described as illegal executions. He said a hearing is scheduled for Friday, 
just days before a Tuesday execution scheduled for David Zink, who was 
convicted of abducting and killing a southwest Missouri woman in 2001.

(source: Associated Press)