[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., KAN., USA

[Rick Halperin]

May 14



PENNSYLVANIA:

Lynne Abraham blasted in Slate article about death penalty



According to a Slate piece about the lingering death penalty in America, select 
states and counties still practice the controversial crime-management strategy 
because of "the presence of a handful of disproportionately deadly prosecutors 
who represent the last, desperate gasps of a deeply flawed punishment regime." 
Among these particularly deadly prosecutors is Philadelphia Democratic mayoral 
candidate Lynne Abraham.

Identified in a so-called "trinity of death," also including Florida's Bernie 
de la Rionda and Bob Macy of Oklahoma, Abraham is cited as having secured 45 
death sentences during her tenure as the Philadelphia district attorney. In 
contrast, the city's current district attorney, Seth Williams, has secured 3 
since Abraham's retirement in 2010.

Abraham served as Philadelphia's district attorney from 1991 until 2010, a 
nearly 19-year tenure. If Abraham secured the same number of death sentences 
each year, that would equal about 2.4 death sentences per year.

This is not the 1st time Abraham has been named as a deadly prosecutor. A 1995 
New York Times piece, written a little over 4 years after she took office, 
called Abraham "The Deadliest D.A." She told the paper, "When it comes to the 
death penalty, I am passionate. I truly believe it is manifestly correct."

On this roundup of what Slate refers to as "bloodthirsty devotees" of the death 
penalty, the website cites a New York Times piece from 2014 naming District 
Attorney Joe Freeman Britt of Robeson County, North Carolina, America's 
"Deadliest D.A." with 42 death sentences during his tenure.

(source: philly.com)








KANSAS:

Judge allows admitted Jewish community shooter to represent himself



A Missouri man who has admitted to killing 3 people at 2 Jewish sites in 
Overland Park last year was allowed on Thursday to fire his attorneys and will 
defend himself in his death penalty case.

However, Johnson County District Court Judge Kelly Ryan ruled during a motions 
hearing Thursday that defense attorneys for Frazier Glenn Cross may help him 
with procedural aspects of the case, such as filing motions. Ryan said he had 
reservations about allowing Cross to represent himself in a death-penalty case.

"I have no lawyer. I want to represent myself," Cross told the judge, adding 
that his defense attorneys "work for my enemy."

"The United States government is my enemy," Cross said.

Ryan said what Cross wanted to do "was not a good idea," and there is a 
"heightened need" for Cross to have legal representation. Defense attorneys 
will sit with Cross and can give him advance, but will not be allowed to make 
any arguments on his behalf.

"The death penalty doesn't bother me," Cross said. "Hell, 6 months from now 
I'll probably climb up on the gurney and stick the needle in myself."

Prosecutors informed the judge that if Cross, who is also known as Glenn 
Miller, wants to fire his lawyers the court should honor his request. Ryan said 
the August trial date will not be postponed, but did agree to provide Cross 
with access to a typewriter so he can file motions. Citing pretrial publicity, 
Cross intends to ask for a change of venue, which the judge will consider 
during a June 10 hearing.

Cross is charged with capital murder in the April 13, 2014 shooting deaths of 
69-year-old William Lewis Corporon, 14-year-old Reat Griffin Underwood and 
53-year-old Terri LaManno in Overland Park.

Cross told The Associated Press last month he plans to plead guilty to capital 
murder. The Aurora man says his chronic emphysema is getting worse and he 
doesn't think he has the strength to make it through a lengthy trial.

This is Cross' 2nd set of attorneys. The 1st set and he had clashed over his 
defense and beliefs.

(source: KCTV news)








USA:

Jesus' death convicts capital punishment, Baylor prof says in new 
book----Baptists remain divided over the use of the death penalty as the 
ultimate punishment for crime.



On Good Friday, Christians around the world remember the day a government 
punished a convicted criminal with the death penalty. For many Christians - 
including some Baptists - Jesus' death inspires them to oppose the death 
penalty for others.

Among them is Mark Osler, who as a law professor at Baylor University, wrote 
Jesus on Death Row: The Trial of Jesus and American Capital Punishment.

A former federal prosecutor who won a case in the U.S. Supreme Court, he used 
his book to draw parallels between Jesus' conviction and the U.S. justice 
system. Osler played the prosecutor in a theatrical version of the book 
performed in 11 states.

Osler, who now teaches at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, describes 
in his forthcoming book, Memoirs of Christ's Prosecutor, how he connected 
opposition to the death penalty to his faith while taking communion at Seventh 
and James Baptist Church in Waco, Texas. Earlier, he had read a newspaper 
account of an execution.

"[The bread] in my hand represented the last meal of a man who knew he was 
about to be executed," he explains in the book's introduction.

"There is something deeply ironic about the enthusiasm many Christians have for 
the death penalty," he writes in the book. "The central narrative of 
Christianity, after all, is about an unjust execution, and Christians proudly 
wear the execution device as a symbol of their faith."

Osler grounded his opposition to the death penalty in biblical narratives - for 
instance, in John 8, "where Jesus stops a legal execution not by questioning 
the charge or the punishment, but the moral authority of the executioners," he 
noted by email.

He also pointed to biblical narratives in the Sermon on Mount in which Jesus 
gave "a direct rejection of the 'eye for an eye' argument."

"Finally, when Jesus teaches that if we visit those in prison, we visit him, he 
is expressly equating himself to those we wish to execute," Osler added. 
"Doesn't that mitigate against killing?"

On the Tuesday of Holy Week this year, nearly 400 Christian leaders, 
theologians and pastors issued a public statement calling for the abolition of 
capital punishment in the United States.

"Torture and execution is always a profound evil, made even more abhorrent when 
sanctioned by the government in the name of justice when other means of 
protecting society are available," the authors wrote.

"All who reverence the sanctity of human life, created in the image of God, 
must never remain silent when firing squads, lethal injections, electric chairs 
and other instruments of death are viewed as morally acceptable."

'What did Jesus preach?'

Nearly 2 dozen Baptists signed the Holy Week statement, including author Tony 
Campolo; Jonathan Davis at Urbanna Baptist Church in Urbanna, Va.; David Gushee 
at Mercer University; James Lamkin at Northside Drive Baptist Church in 
Atlanta, Ga.; Suzii Paynter, executive coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist 
Fellowship; Julie Pennington-Russell at First Baptist Church of Decatur, Ga.; 
Stephen Stacks at Greenwood Forest Baptist Church in Cary, N.C.; Raphael 
Warnock at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Ga.; and author Jonathan 
Wilson-Hartgrove at St. Johns Baptist Church in Durham, N.C.

The pastor of the church Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal attends, William Coates at 
First Baptist Church of Gainesville, Ga., added his name to the statement. 
Coates and other Baptists earlier this year urged Deal to stay the execution of 
Kelly Gissendaner, who completed a prison-based seminary program created by the 
McAfee School of Theology at Mercer University and other seminaries.

Winter weather prevented Gissendaner's February execution and concerns about 
lethal injection drugs stopped her rescheduled March execution. A new date has 
not yet been set.

Justin Thornburgh, pastor of Emerson Avenue Baptist Church in Indianapolis also 
signed the Holy Week statement. Thornburgh said he focuses his comments on 
Jesus when talking with Christians who believe the Bible authorizes the death 
penalty.

"What did Jesus preach? What is the essence of the gospel?" he asked. "My 
reading of it is that the essence of the gospel is redemption. Christ was 
killed by capital punishment, and what we have is that God triumphed over that 
with the resurrection.

Statistical breakdown

"I believe the message of Christ is a message of redemption and reconciliation 
as opposed to revenge," he stated. "The ethos of Christ is love, and Christ saw 
everyone as worthy of redemption."

American Baptist Churches USA has officially condemned capital punishment on 
several occasions, passing resolutions calling for the abolition of the death 
penalty in 1958, 1966, 1980, 1982, 1992 and 2000.

The resolutions highlight "the sacredness of life," "the fallibility of human 
agencies and legal justice," financial and racial inequality, and "the hope and 
possibility of all to come under the redeeming and transforming action of God."

The resolutions also urge American Baptists to advocate for legal changes and 
to work to stop executions.

Polling by the Public Religion Research Institute in September 2014 found that 
white evangelical Protestants remain the most likely religious demographic to 
support the the death penalty over life in prison for murderers. Favoring the 
death penalty by a 59 to 34 % margin, they outpace overall American opinion 
that supports life in prison by a 48 to 44 % margin.

White Catholics favor life in prison by a 50 to 45 percent margin, while Black 
Protestants favor life in prison by a 68 to 25 % margin.

'Moral insanity' of death penalty opposition

A 2000 resolution passed by the Southern Baptist Convention supported capital 
punishment, and top Southern Baptist leaders have reiterated that position. 
Last year, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Al Mohler wrote a 
CNN.com piece supporting capital punishment. He attacked the "moral insanity" 
of death penalty critics who "have successfully diverted attention from a 
murderer's heinous crimes and instead put the death penalty on trial."

"I believe that Christians should hope, pray and strive for a society in which 
the death penalty, rightly and rarely applied, would make moral sense," he 
added.

Although Mohler cited some Scripture in his column, author and anti-death 
penalty activist Shane Claiborne noted in a blog post that Mohler never 
mentioned Jesus.

"If it weren't for Jesus, I might be pro-death too," Claiborne wrote.

(source: Baptist News)