[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., GA., FLA., OHIO, KY., OKLA., NEB., UTAH, ORE., WASH., USA

[Rick Halperin]

May 14



PENNSYLVANIA:

Jurors to mull death penalty, life term in murder case



Jurors are expected to begin deliberations Thursday on whether a western 
Pennsylvania man convicted of killing his estranged girlfriend should be 
sentenced to death or to life in prison without possibility of parole.

Jurors in Washington County took just 75 minutes Monday to convict 26-year-old 
Jordan Clemons of Pittsburgh of first-degree murder in the January 2012 slaying 
of 21-year-old Karissa Kunco in Mount Pleasant Township.

Jurors heard testimony during the penalty phase that Clemons grew up in an 
abusive environment, and his lawyer also cited drug abuse, prior brain injuries 
and an older brother's death as mitigating factors.

Prosecutors cited a protection from abuse order obtained by the victim as well 
as the defendant's previous criminal history.

(source: Associated Press)








GEORGIA:

Former Chief Justice Of Georgia: Abolish The Death Penalty



A former chief justice from Georgia decried capital punishment Tuesday, dubbing 
it "morally indefensible" and void of business sense.

Norman Fletcher served on Georgia's Supreme Court from 1989-2005, and nearly 25 
executions occurred in Georgia during his 15-year tenure. In that time, he 
voted to uphold numerous death sentences. But after receiving the Southern 
Center for Human Rights' Gideon's Promise Award for establishing Georgia's 
public defender program, Fletcher slammed the death penalty for being an 
unethical practice.

"Capital punishment must be permanently halted, without exception," said 
Fletcher, who served as chief justice for 5 years. "With wisdom gained over the 
past 10 years, I am now convinced there is absolutely no justification for 
continuing to impose the sentence of death in this country." Arguing that many 
innocent people have been killed, Fletcher mentioned the racial disparities in 
who receives death sentences, as well as economic and political factors that 
determine if and when capital punishment is used.

Since a national moratorium on capital punishment ended in 1976, the number of 
death row inmates has skyrocketed. As of January 1, there were 3,019 prisoners 
waiting to die.

But Fletcher is far from the only one slamming death penalty for moral reasons. 
For instance, foreign manufacturers have stopped selling drugs used for lethal 
injections in the U.S., on the grounds that execution is unethical. Medical 
professionals and pharmacists are now prohibited from participating in 
executions, further impeding access to lethal injection drugs. And last 
February, Pennsylvania's governor suspended all executions, stating the "system 
is riddled with flaws, making it error prone, expensive, and anything but 
infallible." 18 states ban capital punishment altogether, while several others 
have imposed moratoria.

As a result of national and international backlash, states are increasingly 
reliant on unregulated compounding pharmacies that sell non-FDA approved 
products. The shortage of lethal injection drugs is also pushing states to 
adopt alternative execution methods. Utah re-authorized the use of firing 
squads, and Oklahoma, which is embroiled in the lethal injection debate due to 
a botched execution, recently reinstated the use of the gas chamber.

(source: Think Progress)








FLORIDA----new death sentence

Death sentence given in retired wildlife officer's murder



A Florida circuit court sentenced a 24-year-old Geneva man to death Tuesday for 
his role in the beating death of a retired Florida wildlife enforcement 
officer.

According to a statement from the state attorney's office out of Panama City, 
Florida, Circuit Court Judge Christopher Patterson sentenced Zachary Wood, of 
Geneva, to death following the recommendation of a Washington County jury. A 
jury convicted Wood of felony 1st-degree murder in late February in the death 
of James "Coon" Shores. The jury also found Wood guilty of burglary of a 
structure while armed with a gun and robbery with a gun.

The statement said Assistant State Attorneys Larry Basford and Shalla Jefcoat 
proved to jurors that Wood and co-defendant Dillon Rafsky beat down, bound then 
executed the 66-year-old Shores after he found them on his property the evening 
of April 19, 2014.

Wood and Rafsky had been driving around dirt roads in Alabama and Florida for 
more than a day before getting the stolen Jeep Cherokee they were driving stuck 
in the mud on Shores' family property.

The statement also said Shores saw the vehicle and the 2 men and told them to 
leave telling them he would call the sheriff's office moments before he was 
attacked. The statement said Shores was beaten senselessly with the handle of a 
garden hoe, bound at the hands and feet and left face down in the grass.

"They then poured a gasoline additive on his back and attempted to light him on 
fire," the statement said. "When that failed, one of the men took a 20-gauge 
shotgun from Shores' vehicle and shot him in the head."

Shores was discovered later that night by his brother and a Washington County 
deputy who'd gone to Shore's house after his vehicle was found at the scene of 
a shooting with an Alabama state trooper. Wood had been arrested there after he 
and Rafsky were involved in an exchange of gunfire with the trooper. Both Wood 
and Rafsky were arrested in the area a short time later.

Following Wood's conviction, jurors heard evidence as to aggravating and 
mitigating circumstances of the crime that would lead them to recommend to the 
judge a sentence of either life in prison or death. They recommended 12-0 that 
Wood be put to death.

Patterson sentenced Wood to death for the murder charge and 100 years on both 
the robbery and burglary charges, to run concurrently with the murder penalty. 
(source: Dothan Eagle)








OHIO:

Ohio proposal would prohibit criminals with serious mental illness from being 
executed



An Ohio proposal would ban the execution of killers who had a serious mental 
illness at the time they committed the offense.

The measure introduced Wednesday was among the recommendations from a state 
task force that spent over 2 years studying Ohio's capital punishment law.

Republican Sen. Bill Seitz of Cincinnati and Democratic Sen. Sandra Williams of 
Cleveland sponsored the bill. They say it wouldn't allow defendants to escape 
punishment. The senators say defendants still may be found guilty and 
imprisoned under their proposal.

The measure would prohibit the execution of those who had mental illnesses such 
as schizophrenia or bi-polar disorder and were consequently significantly 
impaired in their ability to fully understand the crimes committed. Voluntary 
use of drugs or alcohol wouldn't constitute a serious mental illness.

(source: Associated Press)



KENTUCKY:

Fayette County commonwealth's attorney appeals judge's decision to exclude 
death penalty



Fayette County Commonwealth's Attorney Ray Larson has appealed a judge's 
decision to exclude the death penalty in a murder case scheduled for a June 1 
trial.

Last week, Fayette Circuit Judge Pamela Goodwine granted a defense motion to 
remove the death penalty from the jury's sentencing options in the upcoming 
trial of Trustin B. Jones and Robert Guernsey.

Jones, 21, and Guernsey, 34, had faced the possibility of execution if 
convicted in the 2013 shooting death of Derek Pelphrey, 23, a student at 
Bluegrass Community and Technical College.

Larson has asked Goodwine to reconsider her decision to take execution off the 
table. He also filed another motion that asks Goodwine for a stay or a 
temporary suspension of a trial in the Jones and Guernsey case until a higher 
court rules on the appeal. A hearing on that motion is scheduled for 1 p.m. 
Friday before Goodwine.

"If she says she's not going to postpone the proceedings until the appellate 
court decides whether she can do what she did, then we would go to the Court of 
Appeals," Larson said Wednesday. "The attorney general would handle that part, 
and they would transfer it directly to the Kentucky Supreme Court for a writ of 
prohibition to keep her from having the trial until we get a ruling."

Kim Green, as assistant public advocate for Jones, could not be reached 
immediately for comment about the motion to stay.

In her order to exclude execution, Goodwine wrote that she had presided over 
more death-penalty cases than any other judge in Kentucky.

But Goodwine wrote, "The death penalty is the ultimate punishment and should be 
reserved and sought in cases involving only the most egregious set of facts one 
could possibly imagine."

(source: kentucky.com)








OKLAHOMA:

Did Oklahoma attorney general's office mislead Supreme Court on execution 
issue?



Allegations of possible wrongdoing surface against the Oklahoma attorney 
general's office.

According to nationally published reports, Scott Pruitt's office may have lied 
to the United States Supreme Court.

The controversy stems from the ongoing debate over the availability of certain 
drugs used for executions.

Pruitt has argued the state was forced to use the controversial drug midazolam 
because another execution drug called pentobarbital was no longer available.

To support that argument, the AG's office filed a brief with the Supreme Court, 
which included a heavily redacted letter from a pharmacy in Texas.

That pharmacy had manufactured pentobarbital for the state of Texas.

Pruitt's office allegedly misrepresented that the letter had been sent to 
Oklahoma.

An unredacted version of the letter shows that is not true.

The letter was clearly sent to officials with the Texas Department of Criminal 
Justice and not to Oklahoma as the AG's office claimed.

We contacted Woodlands Compounding Pharmacy in Texas and asked to talk to the 
letters author Jasper Lovoi.

His attorney said without a doubt, they never sent the letter to Oklahoma.

"I'm not gonna say that the AG is misrepresenting anything, but my client sent 
no letters to any agency in the state of Oklahoma," said attorney Jeremy Finch.

In response, a spokesman for the Pruitt's office wrote, "As the Supreme Court 
is already aware, there was an inadvertent citation error in the state's brief. 
The citation error was noted in a brief to the court, and it was not an issue 
at oral argument. The district court's opinion contains the correct citation."

"Furthermore, as referenced by some justices during oral argument, it is 
well-known that the availability of drugs to carry out the death penalty have 
been made unavailable as the result of guerrilla tactics by anti-death penalty 
advocates."

"This should not be tolerated," said attorney Garvin Isaacs. "This is 
incomprehensible."

Attorney Garvin Isaacs says whatever the cause of the misleading paperwork, 
allegations of wrongdoing against the attorney general undermine public 
confidence in the legal system, and if proved intentional would violate the 
AG's oath of office.

"Nobody is above the law. Lawyers have a duty to be honest," said Isaacs.

The attorney for Richard Glossip, the next inmate set to be executed by the 
state, also sent an email stating he does not believe this was a simple 
citation error.

(source: KFOR news)








NEBRASKA:

Religious leaders, law enforcement weigh in on the death penalty



State senators are moving closer to repealing the death penalty in Nebraska.

A vote before the full Legislature could happen this week, and Wednesday, 
religious leaders and top law enforcement weighed in on the issue.

"It's a very human feeling, but even the death of the offender can not bring 
forgiveness, it's not automatic," said

Religious leaders took a stand, urging senators to pass LB 268, which would 
repeal the death penalty.

"I think we have lots of evidence to show that the death penalty isn't 
effective in preventing crime or restoring justice to families or communities 
affected by violence," Archbishop George Lucas said.

Douglas County Sheriff Tim Dunning said he won't stand by anything else.

"There are some acts that are so heinous they can't be forgiven," Dunning said. 
"And for that the death penalty has to occur for those folks."

Dunning doesn't think that a life sentence in prison promises punishment.

"We'll be a few years down the line and maybe we should feel sorry for these 
people, let's drop the lifetime sentences," Dunning said.

Dunning adds that the state judiciary system is the worst he's ever seen, 
saying it promotes a cycle of criminals like Nikko Jenkins.

"Everyone's conservative when they're running for election, but when they get 
down on the floor it's show and tell," Dunning said.

Lucas said the leaders support strong and clear justice, but don't think death 
does society any good.

"We would like to think that we can stop in taking another life and still 
accomplish the ends of justice," Lucas said.

The bill is scheduled to be considered again on Friday in the Legislature. The 
bill faces 2 more votes and threat of a veto by Gov. Pete Ricketts.

(source: KETV news)








UTAH:

Utah death row inmate asks U.S. Supreme Court to hear appeal of '86 murder case



"In doing so, the court eliminated [the defense attorneys'] obligation to make 
informed decisions, and to consult with one's client before deciding on a trial 
strategy," attorney Theodore Weckel wrote in his petition. "This is a 
particularly dangerous precedent, given that the case involves a death penalty 
case."

The petition also asks the high court to consider whether the Utah court's 
85-page opinion conflicts with the body of federal appeals court decisions 
which lay out the constitutional duties of defense attorneys to investigate 
claims of innocence and pursue a mental health defense when evidence of mental 
illness exists. Utah plans to file a response to the petition and has 30 days 
to do so. On Wednesday, however, Assistant Utah Attorney General Thomas 
Brunker, who handles death penalty cases, said he had not yet seen the petition 
and could not comment on its claims.

(source: bayoubuzz.com)








OREGON:

Actor to speak at anti-death penalty event



Oregonians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty will hold its annual social, 
dinner and program at 5 p.m. Friday June 12, at the Keizer Civic Center.

This year???s keynote speaker will be Mike Farrell, a political and social 
activist best known for his portrayal of Army Capt. B.J. Hunnicutt in the 
TV-series "M*A*S*H" and Dr. Jim Hansen in the weekly NBC series "Providence."

Farrell is president of Death Penalty Focus, a group seeking alternatives to 
the death penalty in California.

OADP calls Oregon's death penalty a "fatally flawed public policy" that fails 
to deter crime, violence and murder and is expensive.

Catholic teaching holds that modern means of incarceration make executions 
unnecessary. Also, on the program for the evening will be Danielle Fulfs, 
Outreach Coordinator for the Washington Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

To register or for more information, go to www.oadp.org or call (503) 990-7060.

(source: Catholic Sentinel)








WASHINGTON:

Man Convicted in Family Massacre Spared Death Penalty----Joseph McEnroe 
Sentenced to Life In Prison



A Seattle jury on Wednesday spared the life of a man convicted of killing 6 
members of his girlfriend's family, but sentenced Joseph McEnroe to spend the 
rest of his days in prison without the possibility of parole.

McEnroe was convicted in March on 6 counts of aggravated 1st-degree murder the 
killings of his girlfriend's parents, her brother and sister-in-law, and that 
couple's 3- and 5-year-old children in Carnation, Washington, in 2007.

Prosecutors pushed for the death penalty, but defense attorneys argued McEnroe 
was mentally ill. The jury could not come to a unanimous decision to sentence 
him to death, and he was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday, NBC station 
KING5 reported.

McEnroe's former girlfriend, Michele Anderson is also charged in the killings 
and is awaiting trial. Prosecutors say she has admitted her involvement in the 
murders in the town 20 miles east of Seattle, which they said were the result 
of her family's having slighted her.

According to court documents, McEnroe and Anderson were both armed when they 
went to the home of Anderson's parents, Judy and Wayne Anderson, on Christmas 
Eve. McEnroe fatally shot them both.

Michele Anderson allegedly shot her brother, Scott Anderson, and his wife, 
Erica Anderson, several times, wounding them. McEnroe then fatally shot them 
both as well as their 2 children, 5-year-old Olivia and 3-year-old Nathan, 
according to court documents.

McEnroe's lawyers argued that McEnroe was under the control of Anderson.

Pam Mantle, Erica Anderson's mother, told reporters after the verdict that the 
pain of losing her family is still fresh.

"I still go through it daily," she told reporters after the sentence was read 
Wednesday. "It hasn't changed in 7 1/2 years, for me.

"He has no respect for anybody. He had no respect for the 2 people that were 
the kindest to him, which were Wayne and Judy, who took him in, and he shot 
them and threw them in the back yard," Mantle said. "I have nothing to say 
about him."

(source: NBC news)








USA:

America's Deadliest Prosecutors----The last stubborn, bloodthirsty devotees of 
the death penalty.



"I think we need to kill more people," Dale Cox, a prosecutor in Caddo Parish, 
Louisiana, said recently. He was responding to questions about the release of 
Glenn Ford, a man with Stage 4 lung cancer who spent nearly 3 decades on death 
row for a crime he did not commit. Cox acknowledged that the execution of an 
innocent person would be a "horrible injustice." Still, he maintained of the 
death penalty: "We need it more now than ever."

Cox means what he says. He has personally secured half of the death sentences 
in Louisiana since 2010. Cox recently secured a death sentence against a father 
convicted of killing his infant son, despite the medical examiner's uncertainty 
that the death was a homicide. Rather than exercising caution in the face of 
doubt, Cox told the jury that, when it comes to a person who harms a child, 
Jesus demands his disciples kill the abuser by placing a millstone around his 
neck and throwing him into the sea.

The nation suffered more than 10,000 homicides last year, yet only 72 people 
received death sentences - the lowest number in the modern era of capital 
punishment. The numbers have been steadily declining for the better part of a 
decade. Most states are abandoning the practice in droves. Even in states that 
continue its use, capital prosecutions are being pursued in only a few isolated 
counties.

What distinguishes these counties from neighbors that have mostly abolished the 
death penalty, in fact if not in law? Perhaps the biggest factor is the 
presence of a handful of disproportionately deadly prosecutors who represent 
the last, desperate gasps of a deeply flawed punishment regime. Most of their 
colleagues are wisely turning away from a practice that has revealed itself to 
be ineffective at deterring crime, obscenely expensive, inequitably 
administered, and not infrequently imposed upon the innocent. But America???s 
deadliest prosecutors continue to pursue death sentences with abandon, 
mitigating circumstances and flaws in the system be damned.

Cox is one of them. Jeannette Gallagher of Maricopa County, Arizona, is 
another. She and two colleagues are responsible for more than one-third of the 
capital cases - 20 of 59 - that the Arizona Supreme Court reviewed statewide 
between 2007 and 2013. Gallagher recently sent a 19-year-old with depression to 
death row even though he had tried to commit suicide the day before the murder, 
sought treatment, and was turned away. She also obtained a death sentence 
against a 21-year-old man with a low IQ who was sexually abused as a child, 
addicted to drugs and alcohol from a young age, and suffered from 
post-traumatic stress disorder. She then sent a U.S. military veteran with 
paranoid schizophrenia to death row. Her response to these harrowing mitigating 
circumstances has not been to exercise restraint, but rather to accuse each of 
these defendants of simply faking his symptoms. The Arizona Supreme Court has 
found misconduct in three of her cases, labeling her behavior as 
"inappropriate," "very troubling," and "entirely unprofessional."

She sent a U.S. military veteran with paranoid schizophrenia to death row.

Gallagher's colleague in the district attorney's office, Juan Martinez, has a 
comparable record. He once likened a Jewish defense lawyer to "Adolf Hitler" 
and his "Big Lie," a tactic the Arizona Supreme Court deemed "reprehensible." 
One judge noted of Martinez: "You're at war, almost nuclear war, the minute you 
come up against him." The recent trial of Jodi Arias, a woman who claimed that 
she killed her boyfriend in self-defense, was a rare case in which Martinez 
failed to secure a death sentence. When defense counsel Jennifer Willmott 
asserted that the victim had been suicidal, he responded: "If Ms. Willmott and 
I were married, I certainly would say, I fucking want to kill myself." The 
Arizona Supreme Court has found his behavior, like Gallagher's, to constitute 
prosecutorial misconduct.

Meanwhile, in Duval County, Florida, Bernie de la Rionda has personally 
obtained 10 death sentences since 2008. (He failed to secure the conviction of 
George Zimmerman, however, for chasing down and shooting teenager Trayvon 
Martin.) The Florida Supreme Court reversed three of those cases; one for law 
enforcement misconduct and 2 after concluding that death was too severe a 
punishment. That court also reversed an earlier death sentence because de la 
Rionda repeatedly harped about the defendant's sexual preferences and views on 
homosexuality, despite the trial court's warning that the evidence was 
irrelevant.

Excessive charging in Duval County reaches all the way up to elected State 
Attorney Angela Corey. About one-quarter of Florida's death sentences come from 
Duval County even though it holds only 5 percent of the state's population. 
Stephen Harper, a law professor and former defense attorney, told the Florida 
Times-Union that Duval County has more death sentences than the much more 
populous Miami-Dade County due to "the simple fact ... that Angela Corey 
prosecutes cases that [Miami-Dade State Attorney] Katherine Rundle wouldn't 
touch." "Rundle's prosecutors were reluctant to put anyone on death row who had 
been repeatedly abused as a child," the Times-Union reported. "Corey hasn't 
shown the same restraint."

Amicus: Making the Case

A conversation with one of the lawyers who argued last month's big gay-rights 
case at the Supreme Court.

Corey drew national attention when she transferred Cristian Fernandez, then a 
13-year-old boy, from the juvenile system to adult court, where he faced up to 
a life sentence for the murder of his 2-year-old half brother. She did so 
despite his young age and the persistent sexual and physical abuse that 
Cristian endured as a child. Corey is also the prosecutor who sent Marissa 
Alexander, a woman with no criminal record, to jail for 20 years after she 
fired a warning shot at her horribly abusive husband that hit neither him nor 
anyone else.

Not surprisingly, death sentences drop precipitously after these prosecutors 
leave office. Bob Macy sent 54 people to Oklahoma's death row before retiring 
in 2001. Over the past 5 years, Oklahoma County has had only 1 death sentence. 
Lynne Abraham secured 45 death sentences as the Philadelphia district attorney. 
Since she retired in 2010, the new district attorney has obtained only 3 death 
sentences. Joe Freeman Britt, dubbed the deadliest prosecutor in America, 
secured 42 death sentences during his tenure in Robeson County, North Carolina. 
Last year DNA evidence led North Carolina officials to release 2 intellectually 
disabled half brothers, Henry Lee McCollum and Leon Brown, each of whom served 
30 years - with McCollum under a sentence of death - for a rape and murder they 
did not commit. Britt is the prosecutor who sent McCollum, a man with the 
mental age of a 9-year-old, to death row. Britt retired in the 1990s, and the 
county has imposed only 2 death sentences in the past decade.

These drops underscore the degree to which prosecutors such as Dale Cox, 
Jeannette Gallagher, Juan Martinez, and Bernie de la Rionda are out of step 
with the times. 20 years ago, when support for capital punishment was at an 
all-time high, these prosecutors often touted their death sentences proudly, 
like medals of honor to display to a receptive public. Today the electorate is 
in a decidedly different mood. The curtain has been pulled back not just on our 
nation's deeply flawed application of the death penalty, but on broad swaths of 
the justice system. These prosecutors increasingly look irresponsible and 
reckless, wasteful of precious public resources, and decidedly lacking the 
humility or judgment required of public officials entrusted with life-and-death 
decisions. We can only hope that, unwittingly, their inability to temper their 
own bloodthirsty impulses will further illuminate the ugly truth about capital 
punishment, and hasten its demise once and for all.

(source: Robert J. Smith is an assistant professor of law at the University of 
North Carolina at Chapel Hill----Slate.com)