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

[Rick Halperin]

July 10



NEBRASKA:

George Soros-backed death penalty foes spend big in bid to block Nebraska vote


Opponents of the death penalty rejoiced when the Nebraska Legislature voted in 
May to abolish capital punishment, hailing a breakthrough win in a certifiably 
red state.

Now they are determined not to let Nebraska voters set back their efforts.

A petition drive aimed at giving voters the final say on executions is running 
up against national opposition, led by a $400,000 donation from the Proteus 
Action League in Amherst, Massachusetts, a liberal nonprofit with ties to 
progressive billionaire George Soros.

That's real money in Nebraska's relatively inexpensive media markets. The 
result is a deluge of television and radio ads urging Nebraskans to "decline to 
sign," paid for by Nebraskans for Public Safety, a political committee backed 
by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Chris Peterson, a spokesman for Nebraskans for the Death Penalty, which is 
running the petition campaign to restore the death penalty option, likened the 
Proteus effort to "voter suppression."

Nebraskans for the Death Penalty co-founder Bob Evnen accused the ACLU of 
trying to "sabotage the right to vote on this very important issue."

"To have a liberal billionaire like George Soros be tied to our opposition is 
quite telling," said Mr. Peterson, a Lincoln political strategist. "I don't 
think Nebraskans are going to care for that kind of effort to prevent them from 
being able to vote on an issue of this importance."

Danielle Conrad, executive director of the ACLU Nebraska and a spokeswoman for 
Nebraskans for Public Safety, said her group was "honored to have this 
significant investment in our state" and that nobody should be surprised by the 
national involvement.

"There is absolutely no doubt that national funders are interested in what is 
happening in Nebraska," Ms. Conrad said.

Nebraska became the 1st conservative-leaning state since North Dakota in 1973 
to jettison capital punishment, a move that "has significant impact for 
Nebraska, but it also happens while our nation is watching and this issue plays 
out in many of our sister states across this great country," she said.

"We're going to continue to fundraise aggressively on the state and national 
level to ensure we have the resources we need to keep Nebraska's broken death 
penalty where it belongs, and that's in the past," Ms. Conrad said.

The scramble to squelch the petition drive underscores Nebraska's newfound 
prominence in the death penalty debate. The state's officially nonpartisan but 
Republican-dominated unicameral Legislature drew national attention by voting 
in favor of ending executions, then by overriding the veto of Gov. Pete 
Ricketts, a Republican, by 1 vote on May 27.

In a May 28 editorial, The New York Times declared that if capital punishment 
can be abolished "in the deep-red heart of America, it can happen anywhere."

Politico published an article with the headline "How America's Death Penalty 
Ends."

The problem: Many Nebraskans still support the death penalty and are none too 
pleased by the state Legislature's surprise about-face. A poll released May 29 
conducted by Voter Consumer Research for the Nebraska Republican Party found 64 
% of likely state voters in favor of keeping capital punishment and 28 % 
opposed.

"There's no question a strong majority of Nebraskans support keeping the death 
penalty and the legislature's actions don't reflect that sentiment," Mr. 
Peterson said. "We have gotten a really good response."

The campaign's biggest challenge is the clock. Organizers have until Aug. 27, 
or 90 days after the state Legislature adjourns, to gather the necessary 57,000 
valid signatures with 5 % each in 38 of 93 counties.

Volunteers and paid circulators in neon-yellow T-shirts fanned out throughout 
the state at county fairs and 4th of July parades. Posts on the organization's 
Facebook page alert voters several times per day to the locations of roving 
signature-gatherers.

That 57,000 figure represents 5 % of the vote in the previous statewide 
election. If the group collects twice that number, 10 %, the newly approved law 
ending the death penalty will be repealed immediately.

Fighting back

Supporters of the death penalty haven't raised as much as the opposition, but 
they are not without resources. The group reported donations totaling $259,744, 
most of that from the governor, formerly the head of TD Ameritrade, which gave 
$100,000, and his father, John, who also contributed $100,000.

The campaign to keep the death penalty also has benefited from the powerful 
testimony of volunteers such as Teri Roberts, whose daughter Andrea Kruger, 33, 
was 1 of 4 people fatally shot at random in August 2013 by ex-con Nikko 
Jenkins, who now is awaiting a death penalty hearing.

Ms. Roberts is scheduled to gather signatures in front of Valley City Hall next 
weekend, even though she had both hands and feet amputated in January as a 
result of a rare infection.

Those trying to keep the initiative off the ballot have enlisted the aid of 
several conservative legislators who voted to abolish capital punishment, 
including state Sen. Colby Coash, who appears in television ads urging voters 
not to sign the petitions.

"Who pays the millions of dollars in legal fees for those appeals? We do. 
Nebraska taxpayers" Mr. Coash says. "I'm not signing anything."

Conservative legislators who voted with liberals cited a combination of 
arguments, including the cost and length of appeals, the desire to maintain a 
consistently pro-life position, and a lack of trust in government.

Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said 
another factor in the Nebraska debate is that only 1/6 of death sentences are 
ultimately carried out. The rest are overturned on appeal. Sometimes the 
prisoner dies before the appeals process is finished.

"Because the most frequent outcome is that the death penalty is overturned, 
that's actually another reason why the conservatives say it's a wasteful 
program," Mr. Dunham said. "All the costs that went into that are for naught, 
because it was overturned. It doesn't do what it was supposed to do."

10 inmates are on Nebraska's death row, but the state has not held an execution 
since 1997. Like other states, Nebraska has had trouble obtaining 
lethal-injection drugs after its supply of sodium thiopental expired in 
December 2013, although Mr. Ricketts announced shortly before the vote in May 
that the state had purchased the necessary drugs from a supplier in India.

The ACLU of Nebraska released a poll by Prism Surveys showing that 58.5 % 
support life in prison for murder convictions and 30 % favor the death penalty. 
Even so, it's clear that those who oppose the death penalty prefer not to take 
their chances at the ballot box.

State Sen. Beau McCoy, who co-chairs Nebraskans for the Death Penalty, said on 
Nebraska public television that even opponents of capital punishment are 
signing the petitions.

"I've talked to a number of them as well who, even though they don't support 
the death penalty, believe Nebraskans should be afforded the opportunity to 
vote on this issue," Mr. McCoy said.

The McCook Gazette called on voters in an editorial last month to resolve the 
issue once and for all by placing it on the ballot.

"Is the death penalty a real deterrent? Is the death penalty an appropriate 
means of administering justice? Should Nebraska abandon the death penalty just 
because it has difficulty carrying it out?" the editorial asked. "They're all 
profound questions and it's appropriate that voters have a say in providing the 
answers."

(source: Washington Times)






UTAH:

Judge says no new trial for Utah death-row inmate Douglas Lovell----Courts: He 
killed 39-year-old Joyce Yost in 1985 to keep her from testifying against him 
in a rape case.


An Ogden judge has refused to grant a new trial for Douglas Anderson Lovell, 
the man recently sentenced to death for the 2nd time in a 1985 murder case.

Second District Judge Michael DiReda ruled Thursday that Lovell's attorneys 
were mostly rehashing issues that he had already ruled on before the March 
trial - including allegations that DiReda erred by not allowing Lovell to enter 
a conditional guilty plea, had prohibited Lovell from reading letters at trial 
that he had written to the "young men" of the Church of Jesus Christ of 
Latter-day Saints and allowed questionable witness testimony.

DiReda ruled that no errors had been made, and denied the motion for a new 
trial.

Lovell's attorneys also claimed church lawyers tried to keep out testimony from 
5 ecclesiastical leaders who had interacted with the death row inmate during 
the last three decades while he has been at the Utah State Prison.

Defense attorney Sean Young claimed in court papers that the church's attorneys 
sought to limit the testimony to only facts about their involvement with Lovell 
at the prison, and did not want leaders to solicit any opinions or give any 
personal insight. This was harmful to Lovell's case, Young claims.

In DiReda's ruling, he did not specifically address these allegations, ruling 
only that Young's claim - filed in a separate motion weeks after the original 
motion for a new trial was submitted - was not filed in a timely fashion.

The three church leaders who testified in March all recalled that Lovell was 
interested in the church, and seemed remorseful for murdering Joyce Yost.

"He never made light," former bishop Gary Webster testified. "He never made 
fun. He was always concerned about the crime, the impact."

After two weeks of testimony in March in the sentencing phase for Lovell, 12 
jurors deliberated for nearly 11 hours over 2 days before deciding the 
57-year-old man should be executed for killing 39-year-old Yost in 1985 to keep 
her from testifying against him in a rape case.

Following the verdict, DiReda ordered Lovell to die by lethal injection, but 
immediately stayed the execution pursuant to an automatic review of the case by 
the Utah Supreme Court.

Lovell had already been sentenced to death once for Yost's murder, but the case 
came back to the district court on appeal in 2011.

Events leading to Yost's murder began in April 1985, when Lovell followed Yost 
home from a Clearfield restaurant, kidnapped her from her apartment parking lot 
and sexually assaulted her in the parking lot and at his home.

After she reported the crime to authorities, Lovell began to plot the woman's 
death to keep her from testifying at his upcoming trial, according to testimony 
at Lovell's murder trial. He tried twice to hire men to kill the woman - which 
failed both times - and then decided to do it himself Aug. 10, 1985.

He kidnapped the woman again from her South Ogden apartment and took her to the 
mountains east of Ogden, where he strangled her and left her body under 
handfuls of dirt and leaves.

Yost - whose body has never been found - was considered a missing person for 
six years until Lovell's ex-wife, Rhonda Buttars, confessed to police what she 
knew of Yost's death. Buttars agreed to wear a police recording device and 
captured Lovell confessing to the crime in 1991. Aggravated murder charges were 
filed against him the following year.

Despite Lovell's efforts to prevent Yost from testifying against him in the 
rape case, he was convicted by a jury of aggravated kidnapping and aggravated 
sexual assault in December 1985, with the help of a transcript from Yost's 
preliminary hearing testimony. Lovell has since been serving a 15-years-to-life 
term at the Utah State Prison.

Lovell's was the 1st death penalty case to go to trial in Utah since 2008, when 
Floyd Eugene Maestas, now 59, was sentenced to die for stomping 72-year-old 
Donna Lou Bott to death during a 2004 break-in and robbery at her Salt Lake 
City home.

The next Utah death penalty trial is scheduled to begin Sept. 28 for Brandon 
Perry Smith, who is accused of killing Jerrica Christensen in a St. George 
apartment in 2010 to prevent her from testifying about the fatal shooting of 
another woman moments earlier.

(source: Salt Lake Tribune)






CALIFORNIA:

California Supreme Court upholds death penalty for double-murderer


A California Supreme Court opinion issued Thursday, July 9, upheld the death 
penalty for a Riverside man who killed two people in 1994 and 1995.

Lumord "Lamar" Johnson, 50, was sentenced to death in 2002 for 2 unrelated 
murders in Riverside's Casa Blanca neighborhood and in Mead Valley. After a 
13-year appeal process, the California Supreme Court affirmed Johnson's death 
penalty, but vacated 2 judgements in the case.

Johnson killed Camerina Lopez, 34, in Casa Blanca in June 1994 with a shotgun 
blast intended for Lopez's boyfriend. 17 months later, he murdered Martin 
Campos, 33, in a drug deal that turned into a robbery. Lopez's death was 
charged as 2nd-degree murder and Campos' death was charged as 1st-degree 
murder.

A jury in May 2000 convicted Johnson of the 2 murders; a 2001 jury agreed that 
Johnson should be executed.

The state Supreme Court vacated the death penalty for Lopez's murder, according 
to the opinion filed Thursday. The decision was due to a clerical error, 
Riverside County District Attorney's Office spokesman John Hall said via email.

"The (death penalty) that was vacated was on a count that was a 2nd-degree 
murder conviction," Hall said. "(The death penalty) can only happen in a 
1st-degree murder conviction with at least 1 special circumstance being found 
true."

In the Campos murder, both a kidnapping-murder circumstance and a 
robbery-murder circumstance were found to be true. Yet the in court???s 
Thursday opinion, the kidnapping-murder circumstance was vacated.

Since the robbery-murder circumstance for the 1st-degree murder was upheld in 
the opinion, the death penalty remained Johnson's punishment.

Johnson is one of 751 people on California' death row. California has had a de 
facto moratorium on issuing the death penalty since 2006. But in June, the U.S. 
Supreme Court upheld the use of a controversial drug in lethal injections. 
Supporters believe that decision may be the catalyst to resume executions in 
California as early as next year.

(source: Press-Enterprise)

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

Death penalty wrangling over drugs a waste of time


With the Supreme Court's 5 to 4 decision that the controversial drug midazolam 
is legal for executions, the responsibility to administer the death penalty 
falls back squarely on states, including California, that still embrace it.

But whether this particular drug is cruel or ethical to use -- if you believe 
deliberately killing someone who is not endangering others ever is ethical -- 
the smartest, cheapest and fairest thing to do is abolish the death penalty. It 
would remove a medieval practice from civilized society, bring closure to loved 
ones who now may see killers die of old age before they're executed -- and save 
millions of dollars a year that could be spent instead on solving and 
preventing crime. That is, protecting people as opposed to exacting revenge.

In California, abolishing the death penalty will take a vote of the people. 
It's time for political leaders to call it what it is: retribution. It does not 
deter crime. This country alone in the industrialized world still practices it, 
in the company of places like Iran and North Korea.

Since voters passed Proposition 7 in 1978 to restore capital punishment, 
California has wasted $4 billion to execute 13 prisoners. Do the math. A state 
report in 2008 found it costs an extra $90,000 a year per prisoner on death row 
than it would cost to put offenders in prison and throw away the key. 
Meanwhile, hundreds of homicides statewide go unsolved due to lack of funding.

Then there's the little problem of executing innocent people, which almost 
certainly has happened here. California leads the nation in exonerations of 
convicted prisoners -- 214 and counting after an average of 11 years in prison. 
40 % of them had been sentenced to more than 20 years, and many had served time 
on death row.

California has not executed anyone since a 2006 court ruling against its 
previous 3-drug cocktail. But in June, the state settled a court case brought 
by crime victims' families, and Brown committed to picking a new execution 
method within 120 days.

Meanwhile, a federal court last July ruled that California's implementation of 
the death penalty is unconstitutional because of its long delays. Attorney 
general Kamala Harris has vowed to fight the ruling, but it adds another 
wrinkle: Reforms to reliably prevent wrongful execution would likely add more 
delays -- and definitely higher costs.

Let's give it up. Stop wrangling over the best way to kill people. Sentence to 
life without parole.

In 2012, California voters came within 4 % points of repealing the death 
penalty with Prop 34. The ACLU may try again in 2016. That would be after 4 
years with a still-broken system and with several other states, shaken by 
exonerations of death row inmates, calling moratoriums or ending the death 
penalty. Perhaps California's time finally will come.

(source: Editorial, San Jose Mercury News)




WASHINGTON:

Supreme Court rejects serial killer Yates' petition to overturn death sentence


The Washington Supreme Court has again rejected an effort by serial killer 
Robert Yates to overturn his conviction and death sentence.

Yates contends he received ineffective counsel during his 2002 trial in which 
he received the death penalty. His conviction and sentence were affirmed by the 
high court in 2007.

State law requires that personal restraint petitions must be filed within 1 
year of the judgment and sentence becoming final.

But Yates waited 7 years to file his petition, so the Supreme Court on Thursday 
unanimously rejected it as untimely.

In a plea deal, Yates pleaded guilty to murdering a total of 13 women in 
Spokane, Walla Walla and Skagit counties. He was later convicted of murdering 2 
women in Pierce County and sentenced to death for those crimes.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Death penalty opponent to speak to Democrats


A death penalty opponent will be the featured speaker at the Tri-City 
Democrats' July 10 meeting.

Cly Evans, a hearings officer with the state Department of Corrections, is a 
tireless advocate for the repeal of capital punishment, according to a news 
release. Evans is also president of the Inland Northwest Death Penalty 
Abolition Group and a member of the steering committee for the Peace and 
Justice Action League of Spokane.

The meeting is at 2505 W. Duportail St. in Richland with doors opening at 5:45 
p.m. and a potluck meal at 6 p.m. The public is invited to attend the 
presentation, which starts at 7 p.m

(source: The News Tribune)






USA:

How the Supreme Court dodged the real issue of lethal injection


The Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote, upheld Oklahoma's use of the drug midazolam 
in its lethal injection procedure. The legal ramifications of Glossip v. Gross 
are modest, but the Court's majority opinion had little to do with lethal 
injection and a lot to do with the death penalty more generally.

Here's what was at issue: Like many states, Oklahoma uses a 3-drug lethal 
injection procedure. The 1st drug is supposed to anesthetize inmates so that 
they don't feel any pain from what comes next. The 2nd drug paralyzes inmates, 
so observers can't tell whether the inmates are feeling any pain. The 3rd drug 
stops inmates' hearts.

Everyone agrees that the 3rd drug is excruciatingly painful as it courses its 
way through an inmate's veins. At oral argument, some Justices likened it to 
being burned alive. The constitutionality of the procedure, therefore, hinges 
on the state's ability to anesthetize the inmate prior to the delivery of the 
2nd and 3rd drugs.

Most states' 1st drug is a barbiturate anesthetic, like sodium thiopental or 
pentobarbital. But drug companies are increasingly reluctant to supply states 
with those. Consequently, Oklahoma and 3 other states have used midazolam as 
the 1st drug in executions.

Midazolam, however, is not a barbiturate, but a benzodiazepine. Like other 
drugs in this class, midazolam can cause unconsciousness and unresponsiveness 
to minor stimuli, but the consensus in the medical literature is that it does 
not reliably anesthetize people against serious pain. The Glossip plaintiffs 
therefore argued that the state's procedure will likely result in cruel and 
unusual punishment.

The majority opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, rejected that and in so 
doing ignored arguments that Oklahoma's procedure is seriously flawed.

First, the majority faulted the plaintiff for failing to offer an alternative 
method of execution. But, as the Court concedes, the plaintiff had suggested 
both pentobarbital and sodium thiopental, but the lower court had deemed those 
drugs "unavailable." However, Oklahoma's neighbor Texas uses pentobarbital and 
has executed nine people this year alone. Moreover, Oklahoma itself has several 
different active execution protocols, including a new one substituting nitrogen 
gas for lethal injection. The state, in other words, had other potential 
methods of execution, but the Court still didn't want to confront midazolam's 
risks.

Second, the Court deferred to the trial court's factual findings, because they 
were not "clearly erroneous." It is common for appellate courts to defer to 
trial court findings of facts specific to the case before it. Appellate courts, 
for instance, usually won't disrupt a trial court's findings that a party 
signed a contract on a particular date or deliberately set fire to his barn. 
But midazolam's anesthetic properties are facts of a different sort, because 
they transcend the particular legal dispute and could recur in other cases with 
different parties and issues.

The trial court's findings, therefore, are less appropriate for such reflexive 
deference. Nevertheless, the Court hid behind the trial court's questionable 
findings and refused to engage with evidence of midazolam's dangers. By 
contrast, in her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor carefully examined the 
scientific literature, which concluded that midazolam "cannot be used alone ... 
to maintain adequate anesthesia."

Whatever one's stance on capital punishment may be, the Court's failure to 
engage with the problems of lethal injection is troubling.

The Court worried that lethal injection litigation frustrates states' efforts 
to carry out executions. At oral argument, Justice Alito went so far as to 
condemn such litigation as "guerilla warfare" against the death penalty.

In a sense, he is correct. Some capital inmates bring Eighth Amendment 
challenges to try to delay their executions. But even if the Court is correct 
that these cases seek to buy the condemned more time, the Eighth Amendment 
claims still have merit. Indeed, states' problems with lethal injection are 
well documented, and several recent botched executions highlight lethal 
injection's dangers. The Court's impatience with capital litigation generally, 
then, has blinded it to some lethal injection procedures' very real risks.

The Court did not purport to address the constitutionality of other states' 
procedures. And while its decision ostensibly opens the door for other states 
to adopt midazolam, it is hardly clear that that drug will remain available for 
executions. Pharmaceutical companies have tried to prevent states from using 
other drugs in executions, so it is quite possible that the same will happen 
with midazolam. Nevertheless, the Court's reluctance to engage carefully with 
Oklahoma's procedure indicates its willingness to turn a blind eye to Eighth 
Amendment values so that states can resume executions.

In a separate opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer, joined by Justice Ruth Bader 
Ginsburg, asked whether the death penalty itself violates the Constitution. 
Reasonable people can certainly disagree about the moral propriety of capital 
punishment, but, at least for the time being, the majority is correct that 
capital punishment is constitutional. But just because capital punishment is 
constitutional in the abstract does not excuse the Court's abdication of its 
responsibility to review states' methods of execution.

The opinions of Glossip v. Gross ultimately address two issues: a momentous one 
(whether capital punishment is ever constitutional) and a narrow one (whether 
Oklahoma's use of midazolam is constitutional). The Court's error was to 
conflate the 2.

(source: Eric Berger is associate professor of law at University of Nebraska 
College of Law; CNN)

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

The Road to Indecency: the Supreme Court and the Death Penalty


We all of course, would like to think that we are 'moving down the road toward 
human decency' . . .Within the confines of this judicial proceeding, however, 
we have no way of knowing in which direction that road lies.----William 
Rehnquist, Rummel v. Estelle, (1980)

As stories keep emerging about errant United States operated drones that wreak 
havoc on individuals towards whom the drones and their operators bore no 
animus, it is reassuring to hear the apologies that always follow such events 
thus demonstrating our humanity. Another reminder of our humanity is our 
concern that the death penalty be administered in a way that would be expected 
of a civilized country. Proof of this is found in the number of court cases 
that address the question of whether states are executing the death penalty's 
beneficiaries as humanely as possible. The most recent example of this concern 
comes to us courtesy of the state of Oklahoma in the case of Glossip v. Gross.

Glossip v. Gross was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 29, 2015. In 
that case, Justice Alito, writing for the majority concluded that the method 
Oklahoma proposed to use to execute 3 convicted murderers was not in violation 
of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against the state administering cruel and 
unusual punishment.

In its original incarnation when it arrived at the Supreme Court, Glossip vs. 
Gross was known as Warner vs. Gross. Mr. Warner was 1 of 4 prisoners who asked 
the U.S. Supreme Court to put their executions on hold while the Court 
considered their claims that the proposed method of execution Oklahoma intended 
to use violated the constitutional ban on inflicting cruel and unusual 
punishment. (Their concern arose from Clayton Lockett's execution in 2014 in 
which the Oklahoma executioners used a 3-drug protocol similar to, but less 
potent than the one Oklahoma executioners proposed to use on them. The Lockett 
execution proved to be an unpleasant experience for Mr. Lockett. Instead of 
dying peacefully as he was expected to do, he writhed in apparent pain for 45 
minutes before dying of a heart attack.)

Under Supreme Court rules, an execution may be postponed while an appeal is 
pending, only if 5 Justices support the request. On January 15, 2015, four 
Justices voted to stop Mr. Warner's execution and he was executed a few hours 
later. In order for the Court to grant an appeal, however, only 4 Justices must 
support the request. On January 23, 2015 4 Justices voted to hear Mr. Warner's 
appeal and the case of Warner v. Gross was added to the Court's docket. Someone 
at the Court noticed that it was odd for the U.S. Supreme Court to have on its 
docket a case in which the named petitioner seeking to avoid the death penalty 
had already been executed. Accordingly, the name of the case was changed to 
substitute Mr. Glossip's name for Mr. Warner's name so the Court would not look 
ridiculous.

The United States is one of the world's top 5 executioners. However, it is 
unique in that it tries to do it humanely. In the case involving Mr. Warner's 
successor appellants, Justice Alito, writing for the majority, explained why 
the appellants were destined to lose their appeal and, therefore, a preliminary 
injunction would not be granted. He first observed that the lower court was not 
in error when it found that the Oklahoma's use of a much larger does of 
midazolam than had been given Mr. Lockett did not entail a substantial risk of 
severe pain. He also observed that the prisoners "failed to identify a known 
and available alternative method of execution that entails a lesser risk of 
pain, a requirement of all Eighth Amendment method-of-execution claims." In 
short, the Court would have been more amenable to the request for a preliminary 
injunction had the prisoners suggested alternate ways they would like to be 
executed.

Justice Alito also described how executions had progressed over the years from 
hanging, the firing squad and electrocution to the present, gentler way of 
disposing of the unwanted. Justice Alito was joined in his opinion by, inter 
alia, Justice Scalia. Justice Scalia whose sense of self importance always eggs 
him on to be heard, wrote a concurring opinion making fun of Justice Breyer's 
dissent in which Justice Breyer suggested that the death penalty should be 
judicially abolished. As always, Justice Scalia uses colorful language in order 
to show that he is a man of keen wit as well as an intellect superior to that 
of most, if not all, of his colleagues.

He cleverly but mysteriously begins his dissent by saying: "Welcome to 
groundhog day." He then explains that it is impossible to judicially get rid of 
the death penalty because repeatedly the Constitution refers to the possibility 
of someone being executed for criminal conduct and, therefore, executing people 
in appropriate circumstances is contemplated by the Constitution. He describes 
Justice Breyer's position as "devoid of any meaningful legal argument," and 
says "it is full of internal contradictions and (it must be said) 
gobbledy-gook." Those are just a few examples of the vitriol with which Justice 
Scalia infuses his opinion. He concludes by saying that by wanting to get rid 
of the death penalty Justice Breyer "does not just reject the death penalty, he 
rejects the enlightenment." A reasonable person would ask which of the 2 
justices rejects being part of an enlightened community.

(source: Christopher Brauchli is an attorney in Boulder, 
Colorado----counterpunch.org)

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

Colo. theater shooter James Holmes will not testify in death penalty trial


The man who allegedly opened fire during a 2012 midnight showing of a 'Batman' 
film at an Aurora, Colo. movie theater will not testify in his death penalty 
trial.

James Eagan Holmes, 27, told Arapahoe County District Chief Judge Carlos A. 
Samour Jr. Thursday that before making the decision not to testify, he 
discussed it with his attorneys.

Had Holmes chosen to testify, prosecutors would have been able to cross examine 
him. Samour determined that Holmes' decision not to testify was made 
"voluntarily and intelligently."

Shortly before 5 p.m. local time, Samour addressed Holmes inside the 
Centennial, Colo. courtroom.

Holmes responded to the judge's questions with direct "Yes" and "No" answers, 
and swiveled slightly in his chair.

Defense attorneys plan to rest their case Friday. They have sought to prove 
Holmes was legally insane when he opened fire on a crowded movie theater at a 
midnight showing of 'The Dark Knight Rises' on July 20, 2012, killing 12 people 
and injuring 70 others.

Both the prosecution and defense teams have decided to begin their closing 
arguments on July 14.

(source: Fox news)

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

Death Penalty Motive: Revenge


To the Editor:

Re "The Man Who Says Louisiana Should 'Kill More'" (front page, July 8):

Dale Cox, the acting district attorney of Caddo Parish, is right about 1 thing: 
Capital punishment is all about revenge.

It's too bad that other proponents continue to hide behind false claims of 
deterrence. It's about time they also admitted that their main motive is 
revenge.

ROGER JOHNSON

San Clemente, Calif.

(source: Letter to the Editor, New York Times)