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

[Rick Halperin]

May 11




NEBRASKA:

Senators saw tide turning against capital punishment in Nebraska



The death penalty has rarely needed a defense in Nebraska.

Except for a national moratorium on executions ordered by the U.S. Supreme 
Court in the mid-1970s, the state has always had a law allowing capital 
punishment. Over the past 35 years, none of the nearly annual attempts at 
repeal has amounted to a real threat.

But the political dynamics on capital punishment in Nebraska have shifted. For 
the first time in decades, death-penalty supporters find themselves on the 
defensive.

Last month, by a solid 30-13 majority, Nebraska state senators voted to advance 
a bill that would replace lethal injection with life in prison. For an issue 
that once divided reliably along partisan lines, capital punishment this time 
got 17 Republican votes.

Now partisans on each side of the issue are preparing for a tough second round 
of debate, which could begin this week.

The most prominent death penalty defender to emerge since the surprising vote 
has been Gov. Pete Ricketts, who has said he would veto the legislation. The 30 
votes the bill received in the first round match the number that would be 
needed to override a veto.

Although Ricketts may still be early in his 1st term, the Republican governor 
hasn't observed from the sidelines since the vote. Rather, he has called 
senators and made sure they understand he wants Nebraska to remain 1 of 32 
states with capital punishment.

"We'll continue to talk to them about this and other issues," Ricketts said, 
"helping them understand my position on it so they have the full picture when 
they make those final votes."

During his 7 years in the Legislature, Republican Sen. Colby Coash of Lincoln 
has become an increasingly vocal critic of capital punishment. He has worked 
especially hard this session to rally support for the repeal bill, which is 
sponsored by Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha.

"Conservatives talk about running government efficiently," Coash said. "How do 
you have a program on the books that hasn't been implemented in 20 years and 
call that efficient?"

In an interview on the subject last week, Ricketts targeted arguments that have 
helped sway some conservatives to the side of repeal.

The governor said the death penalty is not significantly more expensive than 
life in prison in Nebraska, despite what studies have shown in other states. He 
said it costs about $50,000 a year to house an inmate, regardless of the 
sentence.

"When you're talking about some of the most heinous criminals, like Raymond 
Mata, I don't know why they should have the luxury of $50,000 a year on the 
taxpayers," Ricketts said, referring to a death row inmate who killed and 
dismembered a 3-year-old boy and fed some of the remains to a dog.

During floor debate, several senators said they've come to oppose capital 
punishment because of their religious objections. The governor, who is 
Catholic, said he has concluded it's morally consistent to be against abortion 
and in favor of capital punishment.

"We need to recognize there's a difference between innocent life and people who 
committed these heinous crimes," he said.

Another argument that conservatives sometimes offer is that Nebraska so rarely 
carries out an execution, it???s not worth keeping anymore. Nebraska last 
executed an inmate in 1997 and has used the death penalty only three times 
since 1959.

Currently the state lacks the ability to carry out a lethal injection because 
some of the necessary drugs have expired. But Attorney General Doug Peterson 
said Friday that lethal injection remains a constitutionally valid means of 
execution, and his office has been actively working "to see that those who were 
lawfully convicted and sentenced to death have their sentences carried out."

Peterson and Ricketts both declined to say how close they are to obtaining a 
fresh supply of drugs or seeking changes to the lethal injection protocol. But 
the attorney general said 3 death row inmates - Carey Dean Moore, Michael Ryan 
and John Lotter - have exhausted their appeals.

Trying to engage the public to apply pressure in the debate is a tactic of 
death-penalty supporters in the Legislature. Rather than filibuster the bill 
during 1st-round debate, they calculated that allowing senators to show where 
they stood on the issue might prompt a wave of constituent feedback.

Sen. Bill Kintner of Papillion, who has filed an amendment to Legislative Bill 
268 that would replace lethal injection with the firing squad, said a 
filibuster is likely in the second round. If, after 4 hours of debate, repeal 
supporters can't gather at least 33 votes to cut off debate, a filibuster would 
block the legislation for the year.

Sen. Beau McCoy, another death-penalty supporter, also has filed amendments 
that would assist in staging a filibuster.

Last week Coash said support for the bill is holding firm and he predicted 
there would be sufficient votes to overcome a filibuster.

All of the behind-the-scenes work is perhaps the clearest indicator of the 
viability of the latest repeal effort.

Lincoln attorney Alan Peterson, who has represented Moore for nearly 3 decades 
and also lobbies on behalf of the ACLU of Nebraska, predicted a close vote when 
the bill comes up again.

"We have an excellent chance," Peterson said. "I'm - what's the term the 
football coaches use? - 'guardedly optimistic.' But I'm sure not going to 
predict victory."

(source: Norfolk Daily News)








ARIZONA:

Judge denies motion challenging Arizona's death penalty law



A judge has rejected a challenge to Arizona's death penalty law, setting the 
stage for a likely appeal.

Judge Joseph Kraemer of Maricopa County Superior Court on Friday denied a 
motion filed on behalf of 29 murder defendants.

The defendants' lawyers contend that the death penalty law is 
unconstitutionally arbitrary because a death sentence could be sought in nearly 
all cases.

At issue are the law's 14 possible circumstances when the death penalty could 
apply.

Defense lawyers say prosecutors have too much leeway in picking cases to seek 
the death penalty.

A prosecutor argued that not all homicide cases are charged as 1st-degree 
murder.

The Arizona Republic (http://goo.gl/97796s) reports that Kraemer said he's 
troubled by the current law but said it has been upheld by the Arizona Supreme 
Court..

(source: Associated Press)








CALIFORNIA:

An Irish American judge in California could lead to the end of the US death 
penalty



A couple of weeks ago Boston commemorated the second anniversary of the 
terrorist bombing of the Boston Marathon. The wounds of those who died and 
suffered serious injuries that day -- not to mention the psychic wounds 
suffered by the city at this beloved annual event -- are still fresh.

By the time of the second anniversary, the 2 brothers arrested for the crime 
had already been found guilty of various heinous crimes. The only question that 
remained was whether or not Dzhokhar Tsarnaev would face the death penalty for 
planning and carrying out the attack.

A lot of attention was paid when the family of a Boston Marathon victim came 
out and said Tsarnaev should not face the ultimate punishment. That made for an 
interesting story with elements of leniency, forgiveness, even redemption.

But many Americans -- and certainly large numbers of Irish Catholics, whose 
church opposes the death penalty, and of which there are plenty in the greater 
Boston area -- believe criminals such as Tsarnaev should face death.

Capital punishment remains a wrenching topic in American culture. What is less 
well-known is that a federal judge whose parents were born in Ireland has 
played a profound role in the direction of the debate over the death penalty in 
the U.S.

Federal District Judge Cormac J. Carney plies his judicial trade 3,000 miles 
from Boston, in California. Less than a year ago, in a closely watched case, 
Carney issued a harsh ruling related to how the death penalty was used in 
California, which has more than 700 inmates currently serving on death row.

"The dysfunctional administration of California's death penalty system has 
resulted, and will continue to result, in an inordinate and unpredictable 
period of delay preceding (the prison inmates') actual execution," Carney 
wrote.

"Indeed, for most, systemic delay has made their execution so unlikely that the 
death sentence carefully and deliberately imposed by the jury has been quietly 
transformed into one no rational jury or legislature could ever impose: life in 
prison, with the remote possibility of death. As for the random few for whom 
execution does become a reality, they will have languished for so long on death 
row that their execution will serve no retributive or deterrent purpose and 
will be arbitrary."

State prosecutors are appealing Carney's ruling, which found the state's 
application unconstitutional. But for many, such rulings might ultimately lead 
to a nationwide abolition of the death penalty, which many other countries have 
already adopted.

Who is this troublemaking judge, Cormac Carney?

As a 2010 profile in the magazine The Federal Lawyer noted, "The son of doctors 
who had emigrated from Ireland in the 1950s, Judge Carney was born in Detroit. 
His parents eventually moved him and his 3 siblings to Long Beach, California 
where Judge Carney was raised."

Lest Carney be dismissed as a mushy-headed, soft-on-crime coddler of violent 
felons, he was actually appointed by Republican George W. Bush.

"After serving on the state bench for barely a year, Judge Carney was tapped 
for the federal bench by President George W. Bush, who nominated the judge in 
early 2003. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved his nomination unanimously, 
and the Senate confirmed the appointment on April 7, 2003. Only 43 years old at 
the time, Judge Carney was one of the youngest judges ever selected to sit as a 
district judge," according to The Federal Lawyer.

It must be said that Carney's forceful critique of California's death penalty 
may simply lead to changes in how capital punishment is enforced. Still, the 
question of the death penalty is a pressing one for Irish Catholics.

Back in March, Pope Francis issued his own latest forceful denunciation of the 
death penalty.

"Today the death penalty is inadmissible, no matter how serious the crime 
committed," Francis wrote to the president of the International Commission 
Against the Death Penalty. The Pope added that capital punishment "contradicts 
God's plan for man and society" and "does not render justice to the victims, 
but rather fosters vengeance."

Even after the Boston Marathon case, it could be Cormac Carney's opinion that 
shapes the future of the death penalty in the U.S.

(source: irishcentral.com)








WASHINGTON:

Through the 'gallows gates'



2 men were ordered hanged at the Spokane County Courthouse following 
convictions of 1st-degree murder. A 3rd, Charles Brooks, was hanged in Spokane 
County in 1892 before the construction of the courthouse and the iron gates 
that are planned to be restored there.

Brooks was found guilty of murdering his wife, Christine Dohlman, a much 
younger immigrant from Sweden. Brooks reportedly shot Dohlman to death on 
Havermale Island, now part of Riverfront Park. Brooks was hanged on the Spokane 
County Courthouse grounds Sept. 6, 1892, in front of 1,000 spectators, 
according to newspaper accounts. The hanging preceded completion of the current 
county courthouse by three years.

Another man, H.D. Smith, was sentenced to hang for the 1892 murder of John 
Wyant, a Spangle farmer, but he killed himself to avoid capture after 
attempting escape in July 1895.

The men who walked through the gates to their deaths:

Gin Pong was convicted of murdering an associate named Lee Tung, reportedly 
over an insult about handwriting, at a downtown tavern frequented by Chinese 
immigrants in 1896. The murder weapons were a pair of hatchets, 1 wielded in 
each hand by an enraged Pong, according to newspaper accounts of the time. Pong 
was known around the jail for a "peculiar laugh," according to newspaper 
accounts, and ate a hearty breakfast of 3 pork chops, 3 fried eggs, slices of 
bread, three baked potatoes and 2 cups of coffee before his execution on April 
30, 1897.

George Webster was the last man to hang at the Spokane County Courthouse before 
the governor ordered all executions take place at the Washington State 
Penitentiary in Walla Walla. Webster was convicted of murder in the shooting 
death of Lize Aspland in May 1897. Webster, a farmhand, arrived at Andrew 
Aspland's farm northwest of Cheney late in the evening. He drank, then 
reportedly shot Aspland's wife through a window during a dispute. A petition 
with more than 100 signatures from local attorneys, businessmen and others 
wasn't enough to sway Gov. John R. Rogers for clemency, and Webster was hanged 
March 30, 1900.

Hanging remains 1 of 2 ways a prisoner may be executed in Washington; the other 
is lethal injection. Gov. Jay Inslee announced a moratorium on the death 
penalty in Washington in February 2014.

(sources: Spokane Historical Society; Spokane Law Enforcement Museum; "Life 
Behind the Badge: The Spokane Police Department's Founding Years, 1881-1903" by 
Suzanne and Tony Bamonte; and archives of The Spokesman-Review and Spokane 
Daily Chronicle)








USA:

Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev 'Genuinely Sorry,' Anti-Death Penalty 
Nun Says



Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was "genuinely sorry for what he did," 
famed anti-death penalty advocated and nun Sister Helen Prejean told a Boston 
court today.

Prejean said she spoke to Tsarnaev in recent days and, after the 2 had 
"established trust," Tsarnaev told her that "no one deserves to suffer like 
they [the bombing victims] did."

"His face registered it. He kind of lowered his eyes," Prejean said. "[His 
voice] had pain in it. I had every reason to think that he was taking it in and 
he was genuinely sorry for what he did."

Prejean's description of a remorseful Tsarnaev is at odds with the cold-blooded 
killer as prosecutors have painted him in court. Tsarnaev has not appeared to 
show any emotion during either phase of his trial, except when he appeared to 
tear up at his relatives' testimony last week, and has never publicly 
apologized for his role in the attack.

Last month Tsarnaev was convicted on all 30 counts against him related to the 
April 2013 bombing that killed 3 people - including an 8-year-old boy - and 
injured some 260 others. Now the same jury that convicted him will decide 
whether he gets the death penalty.

Federal prosecutors had attempted to block Prejean's testimony, according to 
court documents file last week, but were unsuccessful. Susan Sarandon played 
Sister Helen in a 1995 movie starring Sean Penn about her relationship with a 
convicted rapist and killer. In real life, Prejean became a spiritual advisor 
to that death row inmate, Elmo Patrick Sonnier, and was there when he was 
executed in an electric chair nicknamed "Gruesome Gertie."

Following Prejean???s testimony, the defense rested today and prosecutors began 
their rebuttal. Closing arguments in the death penalty phase are expected later 
this week.

(source: ABC news)

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

Dozens of UN Delegations Urge Washington to Outlaw Death Penalty



The recommendations were made before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva as 
part of the Universal Periodic Review, a probe into UN member states' human 
rights record that takes place every 4 years.

Countries across the world, including Germany, France, Russia, Bolivia and 
Azerbaijan, criticized the United States for continued use of the death 
penalty.

Several UN members also expressed concern over harsh conditions for those on 
death row.

Sweden, which conducted its last execution in 1910 and later outlawed the 
practice, called on Washington to impose "a national moratorium on the death 
penalty aiming at complete abolition."

Michael Thomas Slager checks Scott's pulse in North Charleston, S.C. Slager was 
charged with murder on Tuesday, April 7, hours after law enforcement officials 
viewed the dramatic video that appears to show him shooting a fleeing Scott 
several times in the back

It also noted that people with mental illness should be exempted from 
execution.

Despite being in violation with the US constitution, executions of persons with 
a history of mental illness continue taking place in the country.

Capital punishment in general, and especially the practice of convicting 
persons with serious mental health concerns, have drawn much criticism from 
both local and international human rights groups.

Though several states have moved away from capital punishment over the last 
years, the death penalty remains legal in 32 states. Last year, 7 of these 
carried out executions. Thousands of people remain on death row in the United 
States.

(source: sputniknews.com)

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

Why is the US Supreme Court reviewing the lethal injection?



The United States' Supreme Court has recently heard oral arguments in a death 
penalty case called Glossip v Gross, concerning the use of lethal injections 
when putting prisoners to death.

Whichever way the Court rules, its decision will have significant ramifications 
for the way in which capital punishment is carried out.

What is the issue in Glossip v Gross?

The Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution forbids "cruel and unusual 
punishments", and ever since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, states 
have tried to use methods of execution that are as humane as possible.

For many years, states have relied on lethal injections because these are 
considered to cause less pain and suffering than other methods, such as 
hanging, electrocution and gassing.

In this case, though, three inmates in Oklahoma have argued that the current 
combination of drugs that are used in lethal injections in Oklahoma poses a 
risk of severe pain and suffering, contrary to the Eighth Amendment.

Why haven't death row inmates argued this point before?

They have. In 2008, in Baze v Rees, the Court upheld the lawfulness of 
Kentucky's lethal injection procedure, which was substantially similar to the 
procedures used in other death penalty states.

Why is this issue being heard again?

Much has changed since 2008. At that time, states across the US used a 
combination of 3 drugs to put inmates to death.

The 1st was sodium thiopental, which acted as an anaesthetic. Once the inmate 
had lost consciousness, they would be injected with pancuronium bromide, which 
would paralyse the prisoner. The 3rd drug to be administered was typically 
potassium chloride, which would stop the prisoner's heart and kill them.

Since 2010, though, states have found it increasingly difficult to acquire the 
drugs needed for lethal injections, particularly the 1st drug, sodium 
thiopental.

Pharmaceutical companies have stopped supplying drugs, on the basis that they 
do not want to be complicit in the taking of life.

State authorities have therefore acquired the drugs needed through 
back-channels and dubious avenues - in some cases, the drugs were sourced from 
the back offices of a driving school based in a west London suburb.

In Oklahoma, and in 3 other states (Florida, Ohio and Arizona), a 3-drug 
cocktail is still used, but instead of sodium thiopental, a drug called 
midazolam is used. It's been argued that midazolam is ineffective as an 
anaesthetic, and that people therefore feel the pain that is caused by the 
other 2 drugs.

What evidence has been presented to the Court?

4 of the Justices on the US Supreme Court have expressed dismay with the lack 
of scientific evidence that has been offered by the state to defend its 
protocol.

On the other hand, the prisoners have raised the spectre of "botched" 
executions to provide evidence that the current protocol creates a risk of 
severe pain and suffering.

In 2014, 3 prisoners who were put to death with a cocktail involving midazolam 
appeared to regain consciousness before the lethal injection process was 
completed, and witnesses reported that the men involved were gasping for air, 
and writhing about in pain.

Executed prisoner Clayton LockettClayton Lockett is reported to have tried to 
sit up and speak after being given a lethal cocktail of drugs in April 2014 
They have also pointed out that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has 
refused to classify midazolam as an anaesthetic because they are not convinced 
that it works as intended.

What will happen if the Court concludes that current protocols are ok?

In the short term, it will mean that executions in the 4 states concerned will 
proceed as normal.

In the long term, though, and depending on the reasoning of the Court, it might 
mean that states across America are given carte blanche to experiment with 
various combinations of drugs, and the courts won't interfere with their 
processes.

What will happen if the Court rules that this method is unacceptable?

Although death penalty abolitionists will hope that this will be another nail 
in the coffin of capital punishment, experience suggests otherwise.

States that have struggled to acquire the drugs needed for lethal injection 
have not given up on capital punishment, and have instead reintroduced other 
means of killing people.

In April, Oklahoma passed a law that would allow the use of nitrogen gas to 
kill inmates, in the event that lethal injections are no longer possible. In 
March, Utah introduced a law that permits the use of firing squads in the event 
that lethal injections are no longer possible.

Is there any way of predicting the Court's decision?

At oral arguments, some of the Justices used language that indicated which way 
they were leaning.

Justice Sotomayor repeatedly referred to the idea that, without proper 
anaesthetic, death by lethal injection was equivalent to "burning someone 
alive". She seems to be of the view that such a method of execution is 
barbaric.

Justice Alito, on the other hand, suggested that the blame for faulty lethal 
injections lay at the door of death penalty abolitionists, since it was the 
anti-death penalty movement that persuaded pharmaceutical companies to stop 
trading in drugs.

According to Alito, abolitionists have waged "a guerrilla war against the death 
penalty, which consists of efforts to make it impossible for the states to 
obtain drugs that could be used to carry out capital punishment with little, if 
any, pain".

It's probably safe to predict that the 4 liberal Justices will vote against the 
current lethal injection protocol, and the 4 conservative Justices will vote to 
uphold the current procedure.

The outcome will likely depend on how Justice Kennedy will vote. Kennedy is 
usually classified as a conservative, but occasionally votes with the liberal 
bloc. We'll find out in June.

Are there any other features of this case that we should know about?

When the Court agreed to hear this case, there were actually 4 prisoners 
involved. However, 1 of these inmates - Charles Warner - was executed shortly 
after the Court agreed to hear the case because of a procedural oddity.

Procedurally, the Court will only hear a case if 4 of the 9 Justices agree to 
hear it. However, the votes of 5 Justices are needed in order to stop an 
execution.

Although 4 Justices agreed to hear the case, this was not enough to stop Warner 
being put to death. It's arguable that Warner should have had his execution 
postponed while the Justices considered the issue.

(source: Dr Bharat Malkani researches and teaches in the fields of human rights 
and criminal justice, with a particular focus on the death penalty. He is the 
co-ordinator of Birmingham Law School's Pro Bono Group at the University of 
Birmingham----BBC news)