[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OKLA., NEB., ARIZ, . CALIF., WASH.

[Rick Halperin]

July 30



OKLAHOMA:

Richard Glossip Challenging Death Penalty To Stave Off Execution


An Oklahoma death row inmate is once again asking the Supreme Court to stop his 
execution. Richard Glossip is scheduled to die by lethal injection 7 weeks from 
today.

Glossip was involved in the recent Supreme Court case that upheld Oklahoma's 
lethal injection method. He's petitioning the high court again, this time 
challenging the death penalty in general.

In 1997, Barry Van Treese was beaten to death at an Oklahoma City hotel. 
Glossip didn't kill Van Treese, but he has been convicted and sentenced to 
death for hiring the man who did: Justin Sneed.

"If this is allowed to continue they are going to kill an innocent man," said 
Glossip.

Glossip is the next inmate scheduled to be executed in Oklahoma. Last month, 
the Supreme Court ruled Oklahoma's lethal injection method was constitutional. 
But in his dissent, Justice Breyer said it was time for the court to consider 
the constitutionality of the death penalty.

So Glossip's attorney's obliged. In the petition they are challenging the death 
penalty on the grounds that innocent people could be executed.

Attorneys say Glossip's case has "exceptional circumstances" that an Oklahoma 
Appeals Court observed "No Forensic evidence linked (Glossip) to murder and no 
compelling evidence corroborated Sneed's testimony." And it quoted a federal 
judge who said "the evidence of [Mr. Glossip's] guilt was not overwhelming."

"I'm hoping they say, 'Look, we have claims of innocence here. We have to check 
this out before we move ahead,'" said Glossip.

Glossip says there are other innocent people awaiting execution across the 
nation. He hopes the Supreme Court takes up his case not just for him, but for 
them as well.

"There's been people who have been executed who are innocent and that's just 
something we got to stop."

There is no timeline on when the Supreme Court can make a decision on if they 
will take up Glossip's case. Glossip's execution is scheduled for September 16.

(source: news9.com)






NEBRASKA:

Retired minister to lead Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty


A retired Methodist minister will be the next executive director of Nebraskans 
for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

The Rev. Stephen Griffith was hired to lead the organization founded in 1981 as 
a death penalty repeal organization. The group played a major role in the 
Nebraska Legislature's repeal of the death penalty earlier this year.

Griffith recently retired after serving 13 years at St. Paul United Methodist 
Church in downtown Lincoln. During his career in the ministry, Griffith also 
served in Omaha, Lexington and other Nebraska communities.

He replaces Stacy Anderson, who led the group for 4 years before recently 
taking a position with a repeal organization in Denver.

(source: Omaha World-Herald)






ARIZONA:

Jury considers death penalty in Phoenix officer murder


Jurors began hearing arguments in the sentencing phase of the trial for the man 
convicted of killing a Phoenix police officer Wednesday. The jury will decide 
if Danny Martinez will get the death penalty.

Martinez earlier this year was found guilty of murdering Phoenix Officer Travis 
Murphy in 2010. Tuesday, the jury decided enough aggravating factors exist to 
make him eligible for the death penalty.

A sentence isn't expected to come down until at least September. Due to various 
scheduling conflicts, the jury will hear arguments for about a week in August 
and a week In September. The sentence will be either the death penalty or 
natural life in prison.

Vikki Liles, Martinez's defense attorney, gave her opening statement to the 
jurors Wednesday.

She reminded jurors that although they rejected her arguments in the earlier 
phases of trial, they still have a moral obligation to remain neutral in the 
last phase.

Jurors will now hear about potentially mitigating factors, or factors that 
could convince them to reduce his sentence to natural life in prison.

Among those, said Liles, are Martinez's upbringing in a troubled family, his 
substance abuse from a young age and his good behavior in prison thus far. 
Liles said a prison expert, a psychologist, a sociologist and a substance abuse 
expert will testify to try to explain why Martinez was capable of 1st-degree 
murder.

Members from both sides of Martinez's family will attempt to shed light on his 
childhood and a rocky family situation.

County prosecutor Vince Imbordino chose to not make his opening statement 
Wednesday. He was expected to address the jury when the trial resumes Monday.

Martinez shot Murphy, 29, on May 26, 2010 when police responded to a suspicious 
person call near Indian School Road and 19th Avenue.

Martinez shot at Murphy from a dark alcove, causing multiple gunshot wounds 
that led to the officer's death 2 hours later. Tactical teams found Martinez 
naked in a nearby shed.

(source: Arizona Republic)






CALIFORNIA:

Justice for Mongols motorcycle gangster? Death penalty possible if guilty of 
Pomona cop shotgun murder


A reputed Mongols motorcycle gang member accused in the shooting death of a 
Pomona SWAT officer was ordered Wednesday to stand trial on a capital murder 
charge.

David Martinez, 37, is also facing a special circumstance allegation of murder 
of a police officer, making him eligible for the death penalty if he is 
convicted, should the District Attorney's Office pursue capital punishment.

At a preliminary hearing that began Wednesday and concluded late Wednesday 
morning, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge M. L. Villar said she was convinced 
there was sufficient evidence to proceed to trial on the murder charge with 
related gang and gun allegations.

Martinez is accused of firing a shotgun at 45-year-old Officer Shaun Diamond as 
the lawman was helping to serve a warrant last Oct. 28 at the suspect's home in 
San Gabriel.

Diamond was helping to open the outer door of the home as part of a 
multi-agency operation targeting the Mongols gang when an interior door was 
opened and a single shotgun blast rang out, striking him in the neck. He died 
the next day.

A Montebello police detective with 14 years on the force testified that 
Martinez, when brought out of the house at 138 N. San Marino Ave., told him "I 
shot a cop. I shot a cop. I was scared. I was scared. I shot a cop."

Defense attorney Edward Esquela suggested during his cross-examination of a 
gang expert with the Montebello Police Department that Martinez was trying to 
defend his family and believed the SWAT officers who pounded on his door and 
entered the home were gang members.

Esquela did not present an affirmative defense but offered a "hypothetical" in 
asking the gang expert about whether a particular crime would be considered for 
the benefit of a gang, apparently hoping to see that allegation dropped.

His hypothetical shooter was asleep in a back bedroom when he wakes to pounding 
on a door and sees who he thinks is his father being shot.

"He believes in his mind and in his heart that he is protecting his family," 
Esquela said.

A Pomona police officer who was in the house when Diamond was shot testified 
that Martinez said, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I thought you were the Mongols."

Deputy District Attorney Andrew Kim pointed out that Martinez's parents both 
testified that they heard the police warnings and that the mother could clearly 
identify the men on her porch as police officers.

Esquela also suggested that what Martinez's parents identified as an explosion, 
and the Pomona officer later clarified that he believed to be a shot, may not 
have come from inside the house.

There is "not 1 scintilla of evidence before this court that that explosion 
came from a shotgun ... fired by Mr. David Martinez," the defense attorney told 
the court.

Kim countered that the coroner identified Diamond's wound as coming from a 
shotgun, adding that there was "no evidence that a firearm or any explosive 
device was used" to breach the door.

"The fact that the defendant admitted shooting a police officer and was found 
holding a shotgun" should be sufficient evidence, Kim said.

Prosecutors have not yet decided whether to seek the death penalty against 
Martinez, who has been held without bail since his arrest and is due back in 
court Aug. 13 for arraignment.

Sheriff's officials said Martinez has a criminal history that includes assault 
with a deadly weapon and domestic violence.

A motorcycle, motorcycle jackets and T-shirts adorned with gang insignia were 
found in a back bedroom of the house, along with several other gang- related 
items, including a gang "constitution."

An expert testified that the jacket included patches worn only by Mongols 
members and included patches as rewards from the gang, including one reading, 
"respect few, fear none."

"In shooting a police officer, that gang member's reputation is going to 
skyrocket," Detective Craig Adams testified.

Diamond had 16 years of experience in law enforcement. He worked with the Los 
Angeles Police Department from 1995-2002, then with the Montebello Police 
Department from 2002-03. The married father of 2 joined the Pomona Police 
Department in 2006 and its SWAT team 2 years later.

(source: mynewsla.com)

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

Fresno court reviews 35-year-old death penalty case


35 years ago, Donald Griffin was given the death penalty for raping and 
murdering his 12-year-old stepdaughter, Janice Kelly Wilson, whose mutilated 
body was found alongside a rural road north of Kerman near the San Joaquin 
River.

On Wednesday, Griffin's lawyers were in Fresno County Superior Court, asking a 
judge to spare his life because he is intellectually disabled.

The hearing in Judge Wayne Ellison's courtroom is the 1st of its kind for 
Fresno County, the product of a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling called Atkins v. 
Virginia that says executing mentally disabled individuals violates the Eighth 
Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

In their ruling, the justices said it would be up to judges in each state to 
define who is intellectually disabled.

Griffin, who is on death row in San Quentin State Prison, didn't attend 
Tuesday's hearing. Sacramento attorney Mary McCombs, a supervising deputy in 
the state Public Defender's Office, and San Francisco attorney Michael 
Laurence, executive director of the Habeas Corpus Resource Center, represented 
him.

They contend Griffin has been intellectually disabled since childhood.

Prosecutors Robert Mangano of the Fresno County District Attorney's Office and 
George Hendrickson of the Attorney General's Office, however, contend that 
while Griffin may be borderline mentally disabled, he still knew what he was 
doing when he raped and killed his stepdaughter, who was known as Kelly, in 
December 1979.

The hearing is expected to take three weeks because both sides plan to call 
experts - and possibly Griffin's relatives - to the witness stand to determine 
whether the inmate, now 66, is intellectually disabled.

The stakes are high for the prosecution because if Ellison finds Griffin 
mentally disabled, Griffin won't be executed. Instead, he will spend the rest 
of his life in prison, a goal that McCombs said she has been fighting for 
years.

During a break Wednesday, McCombs said she asked prosecutors several times to 
let Griffin spend the rest of his life in prison, but the offers were rejected.

"The District Attorney's Office has a propensity to waste taxpayers' money 
because, no matter what happens here, Griffin will never be executed," McCombs 
said. That's because he has not exhausted all of his state and federal appeals, 
she said.

Despite what McCombs says, prosecutors are sticking to their plan to keep 
Griffin on death row, said Assistant District Attorney Steve Wright.

"We are proceeding on this case because the citizens of Fresno County who sat 
on the jury and listened to the evidence decided that the death penalty is the 
appropriate and just punishment," Wright said.

"There is no price tag on justice for innocent victims," he said.

Kelly's mutilated body was found by a motorist Dec. 13, 1979. The girl had been 
raped, sodomized, stabbed in the neck, strangled and cut open with a hunting 
knife, prosecutors said.

Griffin was 30 and had no prior criminal record when he was first tried, 
convicted and sentenced to death for Kelly's murder in 1980. Though he admitted 
the murder, he denied sexually assaulting the girl.

Since then his case has been tangled in a lengthy legal fight.

In 1988, the California Supreme Court upheld the conviction, but overturned the 
death sentence, ruling that the jury in the 1980 trial was wrongly told that if 
they sentenced Griffin to life in prison without possibility of parole, the 
governor could modify that sentence so Griffin eventually could be paroled.

In his 2nd trial in 1992, a new jury gave Griffin the death penalty again. And 
12 years later, the California Supreme Court upheld Griffin's death sentence.

A 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling called Atkins v. Virginia generally says 
executing intellectually disabled individuals violates America's Eighth 
Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

But Griffin's case is now back in a Fresno courtroom because in 2008 the 
state's high court said he presented enough evidence to qualify for a hearing 
under the Atkins ruling.

Court records say Griffin suffered physical abuse as a child under his father's 
harsh discipline. In addition, he was subjected to "severe and violent sexual 
abuse" within his extended family, the documents say.

On Wednesday, McCombs said there is ample evidence to prove Griffin has been 
intellectually disabled since childhood. Her witnesses include J. Gregory 
Olley, a professor at the University of North Carolina and expert in the field 
of forensic psychology as it relates to intellectual disability and the death 
penalty; and Daniel Reschly, a professor of education and psychology in Peabody 
College at Vanderbilt University and expert on special education.

Olley testified Wednesday that Griffin was the product of an impoverished home. 
His parents were cotton pickers. Griffin could not read while growing up in the 
Tranquility area and barely does it at 1st-grade level today, Olley said.

"He was a loner and withdrawn. He was disheveled in his appearance," Olley 
testified.

Because of his speech impediment, he was reluctant to go to school. "Kids would 
call him dummy and retard," the psychologist told the judge. Though he was 
friendly, he could not find friends because he was not a good 
conversationalist, Olley said.

For the penalty phase of his 1st criminal trial, Griffin was tested when he was 
his 30s.

Olley testified that the testing revealed that Griffin was better at solving 
problems that he could see or touch. But he could not solve abstract problems 
or problems dealing with words, Olley testified.

On cross-examination, Mangano suggested that Griffin was smart enough to plan 
Kelly's murder. But Olley said that wasn't the case; Griffin had the victim's 
blood on his shoes, clothing and truck. Authorities also apprehended Griffin 
quickly, Olley testified.

Griffin's parents are dead, but a key piece of evidence came from his mother, 
Lola, who testified in the 1980 trial. Olley testified that Griffin's mother 
described him "as a slow student" who was separated from other students and put 
in a special class for intellectually disabled students.

"But did she ever say her son was mentally retarded or diagnosed as mentally 
retarded?" Mangano asked.

No, Olley replied. But back then, "slow" meant mental retardation, he said. 
"People used 'slow' to avoid the stigmatization of mental retardation," Olley 
testified.

(source: The Fresno Bee)






WASHINGTON:

Is the death penalty dead?


Some believe prosecutor Dan Satterberg's announcement Wednesday will have far 
reaching implications.

"Today I am announcing my decision to with withdraw the notice of intent to 
seek the death penalty in the case of the State vs. Michele Anderson.

"These sorts of the decisions reverberate all over the state," said criminal 
defense attorney Todd Maybrown.

Maybrown believes Wednesday's announcement about Anderson, along with the 
jury's decision to spare Joseph McEnroe's life for the Carnation killings, and 
another jury who last week sentenced cop killer Christopher Monfort to life in 
prison, point to a turning of a tide.

"There have been many points along the way here when it seemed clear that the 
time has come that we as a community say we don't need the death penalty," 
Maybrown said. "We get no benefit from the death penalty, and resources are so 
scarce that we have to be more thoughtful."

"I pretty much reject the 'It's too expensive argument,'" said Snohomish County 
Prosecutor Mark Roe. "The reason I reject it is because the same people who are 
making (the argument) are the same people who are pursuing a strategy to make 
it expensive."

Roe is reluctant to generalize about the death penalty because every case is 
different. Out of more than 30 aggravated murder cases, he was in favor of 
seeking the death penalty on only 3 of them.

"I think what it really shows is prosecutors and jurors in the state of 
Washington are really careful. And thoughtful about when they seek the death 
penalty and jurors, and when they vote to carry it out," Roe said.

But some are worried the Carnation case will impact their own.

"70 % of me wants him to get the death penalty," said Falana Young-Wyatt. She 
struggles between wanting justice for her son and her Christian faith.

Young-Wyatt is waiting for her son's accused killer to come to trial. Dwone 
Anderson-Young and his friend, Ahmed Said, were gunned down a year ago in 
Seattle. The defendant, Ali Muhammad Brown, has been charged with aggravated 
murder for the 2 killings and the murders of 2 others. Prosecutors haven't 
decided whether to pursue the death penalty.

"Is life in prison enough punishment? He's going to be walking around breathing 
getting 3 meals a day. He's still alive. And my son isn't alive," said 
Young-Wyatt.

Mixed feelings about the death penalty aside, this mom admits she will be 
disappointed if her son's killer doesn't face the worst possible sentence the 
state has to offer.

(source: KING news)