[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----UTAH, NEV., ARIZ., CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

March 27



UTAH:

Utah comes under "fire" for reinstating death penalty by firing squad as backup



Utah is now the only state to allow firing squads for executions when the 
primary method of lethal-injection drugs aren't available. The state currently 
does not have any lethal injection drugs on hand.

Governor Gary Herbert signed HB 11 into law on March 23, 2015.

"Those who voiced opposition to this bill are primarily arguing against capital 
punishment in general and that decision has already been made in our state," 
said Marty Carpenter, spokesman for Gov. Herbert.

Prior to this, the firing squad was an option, but was only allowed for inmates 
who chose this method before it was eliminated in 2004.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other opponents of the death penalty say 
that measure is a step backwards in time.

Members of Utahns for Alternative Death Penalty gathered over 6,000 signatures 
on a petition against the bill urging the Governor to veto it.

Despite a close vote in the House, The Utah legislature passed HB 11, the 
"Firing squad" bill, by a nearly 2/3 majority.

Opponents call the bill, 'state-sponsored murder' and want future legislatures 
to reconsider execution all together.

In the past 40 years, Utah is the only state to carry out such a death sentence 
with 3 executions by firing squad since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the 
death penalty in 1976.

In total, 34 states use capital punishment. All those states use lethal 
injection as the primary method of execution. 8 states have electrocution as a 
secondary method for execution, 4 use the gas chamber, 3 use hanging and 2 use 
the firing squad.

Oklahoma offers firing squad only if lethal injection and electrocution are 
found unconstitutional.

(source: KCSG news)

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

American prelates criticize death penalty



Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City criticized Utah's reinstatement of death 
penalty by the firing squad.

"No human law can trump God's law," he said. "Taking a human life is wrong, a 
slap in the face of hope, and a blasphemous attempt to assume divine attributes 
that we humble human beings do not have."

Bishop Wester's remarks followed recent statements by Archbishop Jose Gomez of 
Los Angeles and the bishops of Nebraska calling for the repeal of the death 
penalty.

"Catholic teaching allows the use of the death penalty under certain clear and 
specific conditions," said the state's bishops. "We do not believe that those 
conditions exist in Nebraska at this time. For this reason, the Catholic 
bishops of Nebraska, guided by prudence and the teaching of the Church, support 
legislative efforts to repeal the death penalty and reform our criminal justice 
system."

(source: catholicculture.org)








NEVADA:

Nowsch defense prepares for death penalty hearing



For the 1st time, both suspects charged in the murder of Tammy Meyers appeared 
in court on Thursday.

When the accused accomplice of Erich Nowsch tried to say something, the judge 
told him to be quiet. At this point, nobody knows what Derrick Andrews was 
trying to say to the courtroom, and what he told police after he was arrested 
has also not been revealed.

The defense team for Nowsch, the accused trigger man, says that's problematic 
for their case.

Andrews and Nowsch are both accused of the same crimes, murder and attempted 
murder, in the shooting death of local mother Tammy Meyers.

District Attorney Steve Wolfson has made it clear the state isn't ruling out 
the death penalty at least for Nowsch. His defense is preparing for a hearing 
before the committee next week.

Right now they're in hot water because they say the state hasn't released all 
the evidence in the case, including anything his alleged co-conspirator told 
police about that night.

"When you ask how he's going to influence the impact of this case it's really 
impossible to tell, and the state has made it impossible by withholding 
evidence with regard to Mr. Andrews," Defense Attorney Conrad Claus told Action 
News.

Claus also said the state hasn't provided all of Nowsch's interview with 
police. The defense team is working to figure out if Nowsch said anything prior 
to being read his rights. "It looks like there's a gap in our audio tape at the 
jail," he said.

Andrews tried to speak to the courtroom Thursday but the judge intervened, 
saying he needed to protect his rights.

District Attorney Steve Wolfson said he's not ready to comment on whether he 
will seek the death penalty for Andrews.

(source: KTNV news)

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

Court schedules death penalty hearing for Nowsch



A hearing on the death penalty for 1 of the suspects in the shooting death of a 
Las Vegas mother in February has been scheduled for April 1.

Erich Nowsch pleaded not guilty to the charges this morning at the Regional 
Justice Center. His trial date had earlier been scheduled for May 26.

Derrick Andrews, who police say was the driver for Nowsch on the night of Feb. 
12 that led to the shooting of Tammy Meyers, 44, also appeared in court. A 
public defender was assigned to him. At one point, Andrews stood up and asked, 
"Can I say something, your honor!" The judge replied that he can at the next 
court hearing.

Conrad Claus, one of Nowsch's attorneys, requested several items from Metro 
connected to the case, including crime pictures and radio traffic logs. He said 
in court that he has concerns since the death penalty committee meeting soon. 
He says he needs to see what police have on case.

Prosecutors allege that Nowsch fired the fatal shots from a vehicle with 
Andrews at the wheel in what police initially suspected was a road rage 
incident.

Days later, investigators revealed that Meyers enlisted her adult son and his 
gun to confront a driver who threatened her and her daughter after a driving 
lesson in a school parking lot.

Andrews and Nowsch each face murder, attempted murder, weapon and conspiracy 
charges.

(source: mynews3.com)








ARIZONA:

Debra Milke: Why freedom feels so elusive to death row exonerees----Released 
after spending 22 years on Arizona's death row, Debra Milke called her 
exoneration 'bittersweet.' Legal experts say the plight of exonerees such as 
Milke has played into how juries view the ultimate sanction.

Until this week, Debra Milke, who spent 22 years on Arizona's death row, 
remained a ward of the state. After a Maricopa County judge on Monday dismissed 
all charges related to the 1989 murder of her son, Christopher, a deputy 
removed an ankle monitor.

At that moment, Ms. Milke became a member of an exclusive club no one would 
voluntarily attend - one of the few who were walked by the US justice system to 
the threshold of state-sponsored death only to be fully released after courts 
found their conviction wrongful.

The Milke case, which comes amid a string of death-row exonerations from North 
Carolina to Louisiana, has put renewed focus on what is for many one of the 
most troubling parts of the death penalty regime in the US: The living, walking 
proof that there are flaws in the system. Just weeks before Milke's ankle 
monitor was removed, a Louisiana death row inmate, Glenn Ford, walked away from 
prison a free man.

Such stories of injustice have given Americans new insights into what 
University of North Carolina political scientist Frank Baumgartner, a death 
penalty critic, has called a "system built on false promises for everyone."

Moreover, the difficulty exonerees face in getting compensated or even finding 
a job and an apartment - in short, to get their life back - has contributed to 
a gnawing concern among many Americans regarding less the ethics of the death 
penalty, but the justice system's ability to fully correct life-and-death 
mistakes.

"The fact that there's innocent people in prison or death row has transformed 
people's understanding of the death penalty," says Mr. Baumgartner, author of 
"The Decline of the Death Penalty and the Discovery of Innocence." "Your 
opinion about the death penalty in the abstract is one thing, but meeting 
exonerees changes the death penalty from an abstract principle to a very 
practical issue of: Can the government do it right every single time?"

Among the public, there appears to be a growing awareness of the imperfectness 
of the legal system. March's 2 death-row exonerations come after a record 125 
Americans were absolved in 2014 of the crimes for which they had been 
convicted.

To be sure, prosecutors - as well as many ordinary citizens - take a skeptical 
view of many of the now 151 death-row inmates who have been cleared of charges 
since the 1970s.

"In many cases, the view is, 'We know who did it, it was him, and he got away 
with it" - that's what an exoneree has to live with in their hometown," says 
Ray Krone, who in 2002 became the 100th death row inmate exonerated in the US 
since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

Mr. Krone, who was released after DNA evidence conclusively showed another man 
committed the murder for which he was convicted, says that he had it 
"relatively easy" upon his release, given the deep support of his family and 
his Pennsylvania hometown.

But even Krone, who was known in the press as the "Snaggletooth Killer," 
struggled with his freedom. He was detained trying to cross into Canada after 
his name was flagged in an FBI database as a convicted murderer. Fortunately, 
he says, he had a magazine with a cover story about his release that proved 
enough to allow Canadian authorities release him. His legal battles for 
remuneration also took a toll, he says. "I wouldn't trade 10 years for $2 
million, but, remember, they didn't give that money to me. I had to fight to 
take it from them."

Once released, many exonerees have to deal with moving back to small towns 
where neighbors and police harbor skepticism. Then there is the difficulty of 
escaping the memories of being wrongfully imprisoned just yards from the death 
chamber.

"Psychological research of the wrongfully convicted shows that their years of 
imprisonment are profoundly scarring," according to a 2009 report by the 
Innocence Project, which uses DNA testing to seek the release of innocent 
inmates. "Many suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, institutionalization 
and depression, and some were victimized themselves in prison. Physically, they 
have aged ahead of their peers, and often their health has suffered from years 
of sub-standard prison health care."

Going forward, many of those who are exonerated based on wrongful convictions 
also enter a sort of fugue state.

For example, Henry McCollum, who spent 31 years on death row in North Carolina 
before being released last September, referred to his post-prison bedroom as a 
"cell" in an interview in March with The New York Times. Mr. McCollum and his 
half-brother Leon Brown were exonerated, based on DNA evidence, of the 1983 
murder of a child.

Since their release last September, writes the Times, "both men have clung to a 
minimal existence, absent substantive remuneration, counseling or public aid in 
transitioning back to society." The 2 men were each given $45 upon their 
release and lived on charity. They recently received a bank loan that allowed 
them to move into an apartment.

In various studies, including the recent book "Life After Death Row," exonerees 
say trauma and anger from false imprisonment compounded by lack of guidance and 
help after release often leads to a sense of unresolved displacement and 
isolation.

"We all have different types of pigeonholes we put people in - whether it's 
religion, sexual orientation, there's always some kind of label," says Mr. 
Krone. "But for an exoneree, there's no mark on a job application, there are no 
benefits, there's no tax write-offs, in large part because the justice system 
can't admit it made a mistake."

That certainly appears true in the case of McCollum and Brown.

As North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory mulls whether to give the men a pardon, and 
thus compensation worth $1.5 million, the prosecutor who put them on death row 
hasn't changed his opinion. "There is no doubt in my mind that they're not 
entitled to a pardon, and there is no doubt in my mind that they're not 
entitled to compensation by the taxpayers," Joe Freeman Britt, who prosecuted 
the pair, told the Times.

Support for the death penalty has hovered at around 63 % of the American public 
since 2000, according to Gallup.

4 % of death row inmates may be innocent, according to work published by 
University of Michigan law professor Samuel Gross. Questions remain whether the 
US has ever executed an innocent person in the post-1976 era, but the Death 
Penalty Information Center has a list of 10 people who were "executed but 
possibly innocent."

Conversely, many prosecutors object to the assumption that exonerees are 
automatically innocent.

In Milke's case, for example, the failure of prosecutors to acknowledge shoddy 
detective work in the trial was cited by the judge as the reason for her 
release. It's always been known that Christopher Milke was killed by 2 men 
currently on death row, but the question of whether his mother was a 
conspirator won't soon go away, even though the lead detective has been 
discredited. Prosecutors have offered no apologies, and Milke is suing for 
remuneration.

Indeed, even cases steeped in scientific surety, such as DNA proof that someone 
else committed the crime, are often questioned by governors, who in many states 
have to pardon a former inmate before they can receive compensation.

25 states have specific compensation statutes for exonerees, but many require 
the defendant prove their innocence. That's a high bar for many former death 
row convicts, especially those convicted largely on circumstantial evidence.

Earlier this month in Louisiana, a court exonerated Mr. Ford, who had been 
convicted in 1983 for killing an elderly woman, after determining that there 
had been unconstitutional suppression of evidence and lingering concerns about 
the inexperience of his defense counsel. Now dealing with serious health 
problems, Ford has met opposition from the state attorney general in his 
attempts to obtain compensation for his wrongful conviction and lost freedom. 
"My sons, when I left, was babies ... now they grown men with babies," Ford 
said earlier this month as he left the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.

Yet Ford, for one, found an unlikely ally: the prosecutor who helped convict 
him in 1983. In a column published Friday in the Shreveport Times, A.M. Stroud 
III questions whether a justice system run by fallible humans can fairly 
adjudicate death. The case was also shadowed by race, as Ford, a black man, was 
convicted by an all-white jury. He was released after a confidential informant 
provided evidence that another man committed the murder for which Ford was 
convicted.

"Glenn Ford deserves every penny owed to him under the compensation statute," 
Mr. Stroud writes. "This case is another example of the arbitrariness of the 
death penalty. I now realize, all too painfully, that as a young 33-year-old 
prosecutor, I was not capable of making a decision that could have led to the 
killing of another human being."

Such admissions of prosecutorial doubt are rare, and are often met with 
official incredulity. "We do not understand Mr. Stroud's opposition to our 
request that the Louisiana judiciary review the record in this case and make a 
factual determination in this matter," spokesman Steven Hartman said in an 
e-mail.

At issue, according to the attorney general's office, is Ford's failure to 
prove that he did not illegally posses items stolen in a robbery that ended in 
the murder.

Jacksonville, Fla., prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda, who has headed several 
death penalty prosecutions, told the Monitor last year that exonerations are 
part of the system's safety valve, but shouldn't be seen as an argument for 
abolition. Mr. de la Rionda pointed to 1 serial killer against whom Florida did 
not seek the death penalty. The man eventually killed 2 more people in prison.

But the question of innocence, as embodied by death row inmates set free, 
continues to agitate the death penalty debate. For one, capital convictions in 
2014 marked a 40-year low, suggesting to some experts that juries and 
prosecutors are responding at least in part to concerns about the potential for 
wrongful convictions. Moreover, death penalty exonerees have testified in front 
of lawmakers and governors in all 6 of the US states, including Illinois and 
Maryland, that have abolished the death penalty in recent years.

Even if Milke wins her lawsuit and receives compensation for her 2-decade 
imprisonment, her ability to reengage with society likely hinges on perhaps a 
death row exoneree's greatest challenge: acceptance of all that's been lost.

"I live with an abiding sense of loss and a chunk of my heart is gone, but 
Christopher's spirit is with me always, which is a comfort to the remaining 
pieces of my heart," Milke said in a statement after her release.

(source: Yahoo news)








CALIFORNIA----death row inmate dies

Court upholds death sentences, but Mother Nature had the last word



2 Southern California juries decided that Teofilo Medina Jr. should be executed 
for committing 4 murders in a 1-month crime spree in 1984, and a federal 
appeals court agreed Thursday. But this time, Mother Nature had the last word.

Medina, a death row inmate since 1987, had been moved to hospice care at a 
Vacaville prison in January after surgery for cancer that had spread to his 
brain, his lawyers said. He died there Sunday at age 70.

He was the 2nd condemned inmate to die of natural causes in the last week, and 
the 67th overall since California reinstated the death penalty in 1977, prison 
officials said. The state has executed 13 prisoners since 1992. Because of 
Medina's death, defense lawyer Robert Amidon said attorneys will probably ask 
the federal courts to vacate their rulings affirming his 2 death sentences, 
which would still remain on the books in state courts.

His name is also on a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding California's 
procedures for determining mental competency in death penalty trials. The court 
ruled 7-2 that it was constitutional for a state to require a defendant to 
prove he or she was incompetent to stand trial and assist the defense lawyer, 
rather than putting the burden of proof on the prosecution.

Medina was released from an Arizona prison in August 1984 and began his killing 
rampage soon afterward. Between Oct. 13 and Nov. 7 of that year, according to 
the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, he held up a drive-in dairy and 2 gas 
stations in Orange County and a service station in Riverside County and killed 
someone in each of the robberies. He was arrested Nov. 7 after another robbery 
attempt in which he shot at 2 people but missed, the court said.

Medina was also a victim of childhood abuse. He was whipped by his father and 
mother and by nuns at a Catholic school, the court said. He suffered other 
injuries at birth and during childhood, and while in prison in California and 
Arizona was diagnosed at least 11 times with paranoid schizophrenia and other 
mental disorders. But the jury in Orange County found him competent to stand 
trial and also found that he was sane when he committed the murders.

Defense lawyers argued that Medina's trial attorneys had represented him 
incompetently by failing to discover and present information about his 
childhood abuse and failing to raise an insanity defense in the Riverside 
County trial. But the appeals court said Thursday that Medina's attorneys had 
presented considerable evidence about his mental condition to both juries, 
which nevertheless found him responsible for his crimes. The 3-0 ruling, 
written by Judge Kim Wardlaw, also noted that Medina had a record of kidnapping 
and rape before the murders and had attacked some inmates in prison.

The court said it had written and submitted the ruling on Friday, with the 
usual lead time for publication, and learned only this week that Medina had 
died in prison. Although the ruling remains on the books for now, Amidon, 
Medina's lead defense counsel, said he would probably ask the judges to clear 
Medina's federal court record, the normal procedure after the death of a 
defendant whose case is still on appeal.

Amidon said Medina's case also exemplifies the situation described by U.S. 
District Judge Cormac Carney of Santa Ana, who declared California's death 
penalty law unconstitutional last July. Carney said the state is at least 
partly responsible for appeal periods that last 20 years or longer and have 
turned the law into an arbitrary procedure in which the punishment is no longer 
connected to the crime. His ruling applies only to a single case but could have 
statewide effect if upheld by the Ninth Circuit.

(source: sfgate.com)