[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, USA

[Rick Halperin]

June 29



OHIO:

Summit County death penalty cases continue Monday in Akron



2 high-profile death penalty cases are expected move through court on Monday 
about the same time.

Shawn Ford, 20, is set to be sentenced by Summit County Common Pleas Judge Tom 
Parker for killing a prominent New Franklin Township couple in 2013.

Defense attorneys will also begin presenting evidence to try and spare Deshanon 
Haywood, 23, from the death penalty. Haywood was convicted June 19 in the fatal 
shooting of 4 people.

Haywood's attorneys will begin the penalty phase of his case about 9 a.m. The 
same jury that found Haywood guilty will decide whether to recommend death or 
prison to Summit County Common Pleas Judge Paul Gallagher.

Haywood was 1 of 2 people convicted in the April murders of Ronald Roberts, 24, 
Kem Delaney, 23, Maria Nash, 19, and Kiana Welch, 19 at a Kimlyn Circle 
apartment complex.

Derrick Brantley, 24, was also convicted in the slayings and was sentenced to 
life in prison without parole eligibility.

Ford was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend's parents, Jeffrey and Margaret 
Schobert. The jury recommended Oct. 31 that he be sentenced to death.

Defense attorneys argued that Ford's IQ was low enough to spare him from the 
death penalty. But Parker held a 2-day hearing and found Ford was mentally fit 
for execution.

Ford's co-defendant in the case, Jamal Vaughn, is scheduled for sentencing 
Tuesday.

(source: cleveland.com)








USA:

Supreme Court refuses to ban controversial method of execution



The Supreme Court refused Monday to limit states' use of a controversial 
execution method that opponents have likened to being burned alive.

The court's conservative majority said lethal injection remains the most humane 
method of execution. During oral arguments in April, they had blamed opponents 
for exacerbating a shortage of drugs that has forced some states to experiment 
with less reliable alternatives.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the decision for the court. All 4 liberal justices 
dissented.

To prohibit the use of midazolam, a sedative that has left some death row 
prisoners apparently able to feel pain from the next 2 drugs in a 3-drug 
cocktail, would have unfairly tied the states' hands, the justices ruled.

The case, heard on the court's last day of oral arguments, was filed by 3 death 
row inmates challenging Oklahoma's method of lethal injection. A fourth inmate 
was put to death while the case was pending when the high court refused to halt 
his execution.

Midazolam was used in 3 2014 executions in Oklahoma, Arizona and Ohio in which 
prisoners struggled, groaned or writhed in apparent pain during the 
administration of drugs used to paralyze them and stop their hearts. In 12 
other executions, the drug cocktail did not cause obvious mishaps.

The problems with lethal injections are the result of states' inability to find 
pharmacies willing to provide the drugs that can render prisoners incapable of 
feeling pain. Pharmacies in Europe routinely refuse to help because of broad 
opposition to capital punishment; the European Union imposed an export ban in 
2011. As a result, many states have turned to state-regulated compounding 
pharmacies in a process that has been shrouded in secrecy.

Last month, both the American Pharmacists Association and the International 
Academy of Compounding Pharmacists discouraged their members from participating 
in the process. The U.S. group called it "fundamentally contrary to the role of 
pharmacists as providers of health care."

The difficulties involved in lethal injections are forcing states with capital 
punishment laws to rejuvenate backup methods once viewed as beyond the pale. 
Tennessee would allow electrocution, Utah death by firing squad. Now Oklahoma 
lawmakers are moving toward legalizing the use of nitrogen gas.

7 states have abolished the death penalty since 2004, most recently Nebraska, 
where state legislators overrode Gov. Pete Ricketts' veto. Several other states 
have imposed moratoria on lethal injections because of problems, ranging from 
botched executions in Oklahoma and Ohio to a "cloudy" drug concoction in 
Georgia.

In Oklahoma, death-row inmates Richard Glossip, John Grant and Benjamin Cole -- 
whose executions had been scheduled for January, February and March -- brought 
the latest lawsuit. Glossip was convicted of paying another man to kill the 
owner of the Oklahoma City budget motel where he worked as manager. He has long 
declared his innocence.

The drug protocol in question is different from the one the high court upheld 
in a 2008 case from Kentucky. The court's 4 liberal justices claimed midazolam 
should be outlawed because it does not always prevent prisoners from feeling so 
much pain as to constitute cruel and unusual punishment, which the Constitution 
prohibits. Justice Elena Kagan likened it to "the feeling of being burned 
alive."

During oral arguments, some of the high court's conservatives charged that a 
"guerrilla war" by death penalty "abolitionists" contributed to the myriad 
problems states face in obtaining drugs from manufacturers and pharmacies.

(source: USA Today)

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

The other big US Supreme Court decision we should be celebrating is one no 
one's talking about



There was so much excitement last week over the US Supreme Court's rulings in 
favor of same-sex marriage and Barack Obama's health-care reforms that few 
people noticed another ruling that could be at least as far-reaching. It's a 
1st - and admittedly still tentative - step in dismantling many aspects of 
racial and gender discrimination that, long after they were made illegal, 
remain structurally entrenched in America.

Even as explicit discrimination becomes less and less common in the US, 
implicit discrimination remains widespread. It exists in the form of laws or 
policies that are seemingly color- or gender-blind, but in practice 
discriminate - often unintentionally - against women or minorities. In the past 
couple of decades, social-justice campaigners have sought to bring such cases 
under a "disparate-impact" theory, which uses statistics to show a pattern of 
discrimination, rather than imposing on the plaintiff the burden of proving 
intent to discriminate. Yet courts, especially criminal courts, have often 
insisted on proof of intent, a hurdle that has often proved too high for 
plaintiffs to clear.

In criminal law, for example, there was the infamous case of McCleskey v. Kemp. 
Evidence, in the form of a comprehensive research study, showed a "racially 
disproportionate impact" of the Georgia death penalty on black defendants. Yet 
the Supreme Court ruled this insufficient to overturn the death penalty without 
showing a "racially discriminatory purpose."

Similarly, in civil law, the court ruled in Washington v. Davis that laws that 
have a racially discriminatory effect, but which the plaintiff cannot 
demonstrate were enacted with the intent to discriminate, are not 
unconstitutional. That ruling has protected from challenge some laws and 
policies which many see as unjust.

The ruling on June 25, however, could change this legal landscape. The Supreme 
Court agreed in a 5-4 decision that the Texas housing department had violated 
the Fair Housing Act, and engaged in racial discrimination, by putting too much 
subsidized housing in predominantly black urban neighborhoods, and too little 
in white suburban neighborhoods. The disparate impact was that this discouraged 
black people from moving to white areas, and perpetuated segregation.

Unfortunately, the court tempered its own ruling by limiting disparate-impact 
claims to cases where a law or policy raises "artificial, arbitrary, and 
unnecessary barriers." That gives lower courts a lot of leeway in 
interpretation. And it said that purely statistical evidence of disparate 
impact isn't enough; plaintiffs must also prove that a law or policy caused 
that impact, which will often be hard. Nonetheless, this ruling potentially 
sets a precedent for using disparate-impact theory to combat discrimination in 
many areas besides housing.

One such area is racial and gender discrimination in employment. Although 
disparate-impact theory can already be used in such cases, it's heavily 
constrained. In Griggs v. Duke Power, the Supreme Court ruled that, under Title 
VII of the Civil Rights Act, if employment tests disparately impact racial 
minority groups, such tests are discriminatory unless they can be shown to be 
"reasonably related" to the job for which the test is required. However, even 
though this disparate-impact theory of action was later codified into Title 
VII, some justices, like Antonin Scalia, have argued that as a litigation 
strategy, it's unconstitutional. Also, Griggs has also been narrowly construed, 
so that people who have experienced racial or gender discrimination in the 
workplace have often still faced a heavy burden in proving discriminatory 
intent. As a result, employment discrimination cases are among the hardest to 
win. Yesterday's ruling may help make it easier to use a disparate-impact 
framework in such cases.

A 2nd area is the use of a person's genetic data to discriminate in employment 
and for insurance purposes. The Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act 
(GINA), passed in 2009, makes such discrimination illegal. But it doesn't 
explicitly allow cases to be brought under a disparate-impact framework. 
Friday's ruling could finally allow for that, enabling employees to sue 
employers for discrimination on the basis of established statistics or patterns 
of excluding people with genetic traits for disease.

A 3rd important area concerns formerly incarcerated women. There is evidence 
that so-called "collateral consequences of conviction" - such as rules that 
deny ex-prisoners food stamps or access to certain kinds of jobs after their 
release - have a disparate impact on women, a form of modern-day "scarlet 
letter." Yesterday's ruling could open the way for women affected by these 
collateral consequences to launch disparate-impact claims.

There is also a form of discrimination that is only just becoming recognized, 
but is likely to become much more important as technology progresses. As 
companies and government agencies collect and analyze more and more data on 
people - from their online shopping habits, social-media activity, and so on - 
the way the data are used (for instance, in setting prices for products) can 
end up inadvertently discriminating against the poor, women or ethnic 
minorities. Here, proving intent to discriminate is impossible; the 
discriminatory effects are typically the result of applying machine-learning 
algorithms. Legal scholars such as Solon Barocas of New York University have 
shown how a disparate-impact framework could be used to show data 
discrimination in such cases.

There are other areas such as voting, education, or drug laws, where the 
disparate-impact framework might now be used to tackle racial and gender 
disparities. And though the Supreme Court's ruling constrained the use of 
disparate-impact theory, the government could expand it by codifying it into 
law, as it did with Title VII. Though it will be a long and hard legal and 
political battle, this new ruling holds much promise for tackling the 
inequalities that, decades after overt discrimination against women and 
minorities was abolished, still remain entrenched in America.

(source: qz.com)