[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., GA., FLA., KY., TENN.

[Rick Halperin]

May 22



TEXAS:

Execution Drugs to be State Secret Under Legislation Headed to Governor



Manufacturers of execution drugs will be shielded from public scrutiny, helping 
to keep Texas' capital punishment machine in working order, under a bill headed 
to the governor's office. On Tuesday, Senate Bill 1697 cleared its final hurdle 
with a favorable vote in the House. If signed into law by the governor, as 
expected, the bill will keep information about anyone who participates in 
executions or supplies execution drugs confidential.

"This bill is about trying to protect innocent people who are just doing their 
job," said Rep. John Smithee (R-Amarillo), the bill's House sponsor, on 
Tuesday.

That rationale was voiced numerous times by supporters as the bill moved 
through both chambers, but there's little evidence that Texas Department of 
Criminal Justice (TDCJ) personnel or suppliers of execution drugs are at risk.

The names of those involved in carrying out executions have never been revealed 
by TDCJ. The real issue is whether citizens should be able to access 
information about lethal-injection drugs. Until last year, the identify of 
lethal-injection drug suppliers could be acquired through a public information 
request. In May 2014, then-Attorney General Greg Abbott ruled that TDCJ could 
keep the information secret. The ruling came after the Department of Public 
Safety sent Abbott a "threat assessment" report that claimed "publicly linking" 
a supplier or manufacturer of execution drugs would present "a substantial 
threat of physical harm" and "should be avoided to the greatest extent 
possible."

That decision was a shift from 3 previous rulings in which the attorney 
general???s office had found that TDCJ failed to prove that disclosing the 
information would create a substantial threat of physical harm.

The May 2014 ruling came as Texas' supply of execution drugs was rapidly 
dwindling. In 2012, the state turned from a 4-drug cocktail to a single 
injection of pentobarbital. According to a Texas Tribune timeline, by August 
2013 TDCJ had only 4 vials of the drug remaining, prompting the state to turn 
to compounding pharmacies, lightly regulated facilities that typically mix 
drugs for individual patients. In October 2013, the Woodlands Compounding 
Pharmacy requested that TDCJ return pentobarbital it had sold to the agency 
after the company began receiving unwanted media attention. In a letter to 
TDCJ, Jasper Lovoi, the owner of Woodlands, said he had been made to believe 
that his company's role in supplying the drugs would be kept private.

"I find myself in the middle of a firestorm that I was not advised of and did 
not bargain for," Lovoi said in the letter.

During the House debate on SB 1697 Tuesday, Smithee said that manufacturers - 
such as compounding pharmacies - are refusing to sell lethal injection drugs to 
Texas and other states because of "threats of violence." But when Rep. Terry 
Canales (D-Edinburg) asked him to elaborate on those threats, Smithee couldn't 
provide examples. Canales is the author of a stalled bill that would require 
TDCJ to post information about execution drugs, including the manufacturer, on 
the agency's website.

A similar exchange took place during debate in the Senate last week. Sen. Joan 
Huffman (R-Houston), SB 1697's author, said that when information about the 
manufacturers of execution drugs was previously disclosed, it had a "chilling 
effect on reputable pharmacies wanting to provide these compounds to the state 
of Texas." She said that investigations by the Texas Department of Public 
Safety (DPS) had led to the determination that "credible threats" had been 
directed at suppliers of lethal-injection drugs. But when pressed, Huffman 
couldn't cite specific examples. No details of the DPS investigations have been 
made public.

According to Austin-based attorney Philip Durst, lawmakers have been unable to 
point to specific threats because there haven???t been any. Durst is one of the 
plaintiff's attorneys in an ongoing lawsuit against TDCJ seeking disclosure of 
the name of a particular compounding pharmacy supplying execution drugs to the 
state.

Durst told the House Corrections Committee at the end of April that based on 
his assessment of evidence provided by TDCJ and DPS during the lawsuit, there 
have been no threats of violence against drug suppliers or manufacturers in 
Texas or in any other state.

Evidence presented by TDCJ in its motion for summary judgment includes emails 
to drug suppliers that read more like scoldings than threats and a link to a 
blog post about the Woodlands Compounding Pharmacy that includes an 
illustration of an exploding head. The post encouraged readers to write reviews 
of the pharmacy on Google+, sign a petition and contact the American 
Pharmacists Association.

A state district court sided with the plaintiffs in December 2014 and ordered 
TDCJ to reveal the name of the lethal injection drug supplier. TDCJ has 
appealed the decision, but if SB 1697 is signed into law the entire suit could 
be rendered moot.

Ultimately, "threats" against pharmacies appear to have little to do with the 
legislation passed yesterday. Even House Corrections Committee Chairman Jim 
Murphy (R-Houston) called the threat argument a "straw man." The primary 
impetus for the law, which both Smithee and Huffman acknowledged in debate, is 
preserving executions in Texas. Death penalty opponents have seen public 
shaming of drug suppliers as a potential Achilles' heel for execution-happy 
states. TDCJ has a better chance of acquiring the necessary drug supplies if 
companies are promised secrecy.

Maurie Levin, an attorney involved in the lawsuit against TDCJ, says what???s 
most troubling about SB 1697 is that it shields the agency and the execution 
process from demands for transparency or accountability.

"For Texas, of all states, to carry out secrecy in executions is a frightening 
thought," Levin said. "And I have no doubt that at some point it will come back 
and bite us."

(source: Texas Observer)








PENNSYLVANIA:

Lawyers for convicted killer Smyrnes want info about death row



Attorneys for a convicted killer said they plan to research death row living 
conditions more before deciding whether to challenge the constitutionality of 
Ricky Smyrnes' death sentence.

More information about the day-to-day life on death row is being sought from 
Smyrnes, 29, formerly of Irwin, and the state prison in Greene County where he 
is being held.

Smyrnes was convicted in the February 2010 torture slaying of Jennifer 
Daugherty, a mentally-challenged woman killed by six Greensburg roommates. 
Smyrnes is 1 of 2 men sentenced to die for his role in Daugherty's stabbing. He 
has been on death row since his 2013 conviction.

"We will speak with our client more in depth concerning that," Attorney Brian 
Aston told Judge Rita D. Hathaway Thursday afternoon during an evidentiary 
hearing on Smyrnes' post-sentence motions.

Aston and James Fox have been appointed to act as Smyrnes' appeal attorneys. 
They filed the motion in February that seeks to overturn the death sentence and 
Smyrnes' 1st- and 2nd-degree murder convictions.

In their appeal, the attorneys state that the sentence violates Smyrnes' rights 
because he is subject to solitary confinement for 23 hours daily. SCI-Greene 
houses a majority of the state's 188 male death row inmates.

Earlier this year, Gov. Tom Wolf issued a moratorium on capital punishment 
while a commission charged with reviewing the state's death penalty completes 
its work. Conditions in which condemned inmates are housed will not change, the 
governor said.

Death row inmates are kept segregated from the rest of the prison population 
and they have "a certain degree" of access to research materials and their 
attorneys, said Bruce Antkowiak, a law professor at St. Vincent College near 
Latrobe.

Pennsylvania has carried out 3 executions, all of inmates who waived their 
appeals, since 1976 with the last in 1999.

Avoiding execution is the biggest goal for appeal attorneys, Antkowiak said.

"You don't know if you represent someone on death row whether the mood of 
things will change," Antkowiak said. "Having a defendant who is on death row is 
the ultimate challenge for any lawyer. The stakes couldn't be any higher than 
they are.

"Any attorney who accepts the court appointment on a case like this - your duty 
is clear," he said.

Attorneys argued other issues in the appeal Thursday.

The prosecution said Smyrnes was the leader who took votes from the group of 
roommates as to whether Daugherty should be tortured, then killed and how her 
body should be discarded.

Aston argued that prosecutors' use of torture as an aggravating factor in the 
capital phase was improper because the decision to kill Daugherty came in a 
"family meeting" with the 6 co-defendants that occurred after she was tortured 
during 2 days of captivity.

"You have this torturous behavior that did exist, but it wasn't present at the 
time of the intent to kill," Aston said.

Assistant District Attorney Leo Ciaramitaro argued that torture was a proper 
aggravating circumstance because Smyrnes did wield the murder weapon - a knife 
- at one point in time, even if he didn't inflict the fatal blow.

In addition to Smyrnes, Melvin Knight was convicted of 1st-degree murder and 
received the death penalty. Prosecutors presented trial evidence that Knight 
inflicted the fatal stab wound.

Smyrnes' attorneys called the credibility of prosecution witness and 
co-defendant Amber Meidinger, 25, into question.

"The defense should've been permitted to explore" whether Meidinger was taking 
her medication and if that had an impact on her memory and perception of what 
was occurring, Fox argued.

Ciaramitaro responded that the trial attorney spent time questioning 
Meidinger's recollection of the events during cross-examination.

Other issues include claims by the defense that Hathaway improperly admitted 
testimony from Meidinger and limited a psychologist's testimony.

According to the defense, the prosecution should not have been allowed to argue 
to the jury that crimes Smyrnes committed as an 11-year-old could be used in 
deciding to sentence him to death. Hathaway ordered the attorneys to submit 
written legal briefs.

Angela Marinucci, then 17, also was convicted of 1st-degree murder. She was 
sentenced to a life term but is scheduled to return to court this year to be 
resentenced.

Meidinger, along with 2 other co-defendants, pleaded guilty to 3rd-degree 
murder and received lesser sentences, although each will spend at least between 
30 and 40 years in prison.

(source: triblive.com)








GEORGIA:

Future Of Ga.'s Death Penalty Unknown Due To Drug Shortage



Former Supreme Court Justice Norman Fletcher discussed his opposition to the 
death penalty during an interview with Rose Scott and Denis O'Hayer on ''A 
Closer Look.''

As Nebraska lawmakers voted to ban the death penalty this week, the future of 
capital punishment in Georgia has also been called into question. That's not 
due to lawmakers ready to ban it - but because the lethal injection drugs used 
for killing the state's worst criminal offenders are hard to come by.

State corrections officials are not revealing when executions might resume in 
Georgia after they encountered problems with the lethal injection drugs earlier 
this year.

Judge Norman Fletcher, the former Chief Justice for the Georgia Supreme Court, 
talks on ACL about the death penalty.

Former Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Norman Fletcher opposes the death 
penalty and would like to see it banned in Georgia.

The drugs are so hard to come by now because manufacturers have mostly refused 
to sell the needed drugs to states for use in executions. That raises questions 
about the future of the death penalty - or at least lethal injection as a means 
of execution - in the 32 states where executions are still legal, including 
Georgia.

If former Georgia Supreme Court Justice Norman Fletcher had his way, he would 
ban the death penalty in the state altogether, like conservative lawmakers in 
Nebraska did on Wednesday.

Fletcher explained why during an interview on "A Closer Look."

(source: WABE news)

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

Anti-death penalty group spreads awareness in Dawson



An anti-death penalty group tries to increase social activism in South Georgia.

"The most important thing for me is to get people involved, especially men of 
color," said Dorinda Tatum, Lead Organizer for the Georgians for Alternatives 
to the Death Penalty.

Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty held an open forum in Dawson 
last night.

Group leaders are traveling around the state spreading awareness about the 
death penalty and what they say is common police brutality against black men.

They're encouraging young people to join their group and others like "black 
lives matter" to voice their concerns.

"There are strength in numbers," said Tatum. "You can get things done when you 
have a group of people coming together for one purpose."

"To know how to contact their policy makers, to know how to engage their 
pastors and other community leaders and to really connect with the cause," said 
Troyia Sampson, Organizer.

The group is headed to Savannah next month and Athens in September.

(source: WALB news)

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

Killer finds solace in scholar



A few months ago, Kelly Gissendaner wrote a letter to a pen pal across the 
Atlantic. She told him the state of Georgia was about to fix a date for her 
execution. One evening soon, she would be strapped to a gurney, needles would 
be inserted into her arm, and poison would course through her veins until she 
was dead.

The letter arrived a few days later at the home of an 88-year-old man in 
Tubingen, Germany. After reading it, he took one of his white handkerchiefs, 
folded it neatly and placed it in an envelope to mail to Georgia's death row.

"When the tears are coming," he wrote, "take my handkerchief."

The man in Germany was Jurgen Moltmann, an eminent theologian and author who 
met Gissendaner in prison in 2011. The two have kept in touch through letters 
ever since.

The circumstances of their lives are vastly different. And yet, they found 
commonality. Toward the end of the war, he surrendered to the first British 
soldier he encountered. For nearly three years, he was confined to 
prisoner-of-war forced labor camps.

It was in those camps that he began to ponder the brutality of war. The guards 
often nailed photographs of concentration camps to the prisoners' huts, forcing 
them to confront the horrors of the Holocaust. He lost both faith and hope in 
German culture, his remorse so great that sometimes he wished he had died on 
the battlefield.

He began to read the Bible for the 1st time behind barbed wire in Kilmarnock, 
Scotland. He likes to say now that he did not find Christ, but that Christ 
found him in his sadness and desperation, when he was utterly without 
aspiration. Prisoners who had been professors before the war often taught other 
POWs, and Moltmann began to study Christianity. He says the camp often felt 
like a monastery. He describes it as "an existential experience of healing our 
wounded souls."

When he was finally freed, he returned home to Germany and, against his 
father's wishes, studied theology. He went on to become a professor, and a 
pastor. But the scars of a frightened, lonely prisoner of war stayed in his 
heart.

So when he first came across Gissendaner, he understood how she, too, had found 
God and theology. How she, too, had been without hope until then.

Gissendaner had been sentenced to die in 1998 for recruiting her then-boyfriend 
Gregory Owen to kill her husband, Doug Gissendaner.

The crime was horrific.

Georgia prosecutors said Gissendaner, a mother of 3, wanted her husband gone so 
she could claim 2 life insurance policies worth $10,000 and take charge of an 
$84,000 house. Owen stabbed Doug Gissendaner to death; his body was recovered 2 
weeks later. Prosecutors argued before a jury that Kelly Gissendaner had her 
husband murdered out of "pure greed."

She went to prison a selfish and arrogant woman who, by her own admission, put 
on a tough persona to shield herself from the hideous truth. Many chaplains she 
interacted with over the years have described her as such.

But in the same year Gissendaner was sentenced to die, the Atlanta Theological 
Association started a yearlong program in which women prisoners could earn a 
certificate in theological studies. The association was an alliance of 
seminaries, including the Candler School of Theology at Emory University, where 
Moltmann has been a visiting professor.

Her friends say Gissendaner had already begun to transform herself by the time 
she enrolled in the program a dozen years later, in 2010. She was the only 
student from death row. Georgia has no other women facing execution.

One of the professors in the program was Jenny McBride, who recalled that by 
the time she met Gissendaner, "she was, in the words of the Apostle Paul, a 
'new creation.' "

Inmate and professor read together the words of Rowan Williams, then the 
archbishop of Canterbury. Healing and restoration, Williams wrote, can only be 
achieved through facing the "ruins of the past" and building from it a present 
and future.

McBride, who now teaches at Wartburg College in Iowa, said Gissendaner 
confronted the actions of her past. She admitted to plotting the murder and 
expressed deep remorse to her children and her husband's family.

"I lost all judgment," Gissendaner wrote in her application for clemency 
earlier this year. "I will never understand how I let myself fall into such 
evil, but I have learned firsthand that no one, not even me, is beyond 
redemption through God's grace and mercy. I have learned to place my hope in 
the God I now know. ..."

It was during the second semester of the theology course, McBride said, when 
Gissendaner first learned of Moltmann, reading the German pastor's most 
well-known work, "Theology of Hope."

Moltmann's journey from prisoner of war to eminent scholar brought him to a 
reality centered on hope. Biblical hope, he said, is not a hope that gives up 
on life but rather one that looks for something better in the here and now.

He speaks of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the future it proclaims. He 
writes that a true Christian sets out to transform the present rather than fear 
the future.

Gissendaner was deeply affected by Moltmann's theology.

"Do you think I can write to him?" she asked McBride.

"Absolutely."

And so she began a conversation.

Dear Jurgen,

I hope this letter finds you well rested after lecturing in many countries. I 
do think you are amazing to still be lecturing and sharing your wisdom and 
knowledge with so many others. For those who hear you I know it's a blessing to 
them. If I ever get the opportunity to just meet you I would be in awe. To be 
able to sit down with you and have a conversation with you would be truly 
amazing!

Gissendaner got her wish.

Soon after receiving her letter, Moltmann visited the Candler School in Atlanta 
to deliver a special lecture on the 400th anniversary of the publication of the 
King James Bible. The next day, Gissendaner would be graduating from the 
theology program at her prison in northeast Georgia. Moltmann drove the 70 
miles from Atlanta to Lee Arrendale State Prison to speak at her graduation 
ceremony.

"Your community is important for me. Therefore I came," he told Gissendaner and 
her fellow inmates. "When I first heard of your study of theology in prison, 
pictures of my youth and of the beginning of my own theological studies emerged 
from the depth of my memory. Yes, I remember."

Gissendaner spoke of the hunger she felt for theology.

"This theology program has shown me that hope is still alive and that, despite 
a gate or a guillotine hovering over my head, I still possess the ability to 
prove that I am human," she said in her speech that day.

"Labels on anyone can be notoriously misleading and unforgiving things. But no 
matter the label attached to me, I have the capacity and the unstoppable desire 
to accomplish something positive and have a lasting impact," she said.

"Even prison cannot erase my hope or conviction that the future is not settled 
for me, or anyone. ... I have placed my hope in the God I now know, the God 
whose plans and promises are made known to me in the whole story of the life, 
death and resurrection of Jesus Christ."

Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun who has been ministering to death row inmates for 
three decades, says she understands what drew Gissendaner to Moltmann's 
theology.

Moltmann bridged what Prejean describes as a common disconnect between 
institutional religion and a person who is suffering. He also took the time to 
write to her, to give her back her dignity.

"It's an affirmation of her humanity and her potential," Prejean says.

One time, Prejean says, a death row guard told her the state was executing a 
man who he knew was different than the murderer who had walked in years ago. 
But that didn't matter.

"You are freeze-framed in an act. And the state is freeze-framed in killing," 
says Prejean, who recently testified against the death penalty for Boston 
bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

Prejean, the subject of the movie "Dead Man Walking," likens Moltmann's beliefs 
to the Liberation Theology of Latin America, which swept up the Catholic Church 
in a struggle to fight 20th-century injustices suffered by the poor.

"He connected hope to the way Jesus talked about the kingdom of God, of our 
collaboration with people who are suffering now," Prejean says. "That's what 
Pope Francis is doing. One week after he became Pope, he was in a prison 
washing the feet of prisoners. It's solidarity with all human beings."

Prejean says she has no doubt Francis would approve of Moltmann's relationship 
with Gissendaner.

"He'd do it himself if he could," she says. "He'd drive up the Popemobile to 
death row."

More than 500 members of the clergy and other religious leaders have signed a 
petition asking the state to spare Gissendaner's life, saying she has embraced 
Christianity and is no longer the person who had her husband killed. Two of 
Gissendaner's children also have spoken on her behalf. But Doug Gissendaner's 
family remains resolute in the wish to see her die. And they're not alone.

"Doug is the true victim of this pre-meditated and heinous crime," his family 
said in a statement issued in March. "We, along with our friends and supporters 
and our faith, will continue fighting for Doug until he gets the justice he 
deserves no matter how long it takes."

Phil Wages, pastor at Winterville First Baptist Church near Atlanta, is among 
those who stand with the victim's family. He says he would never put his name 
to a petition seeking clemency for Gissendaner.

"Absolutely, I believe in the power of the Gospel to change anybody from a 
sinner to a saint, from having a heart of stone to heart of flesh," Wages says. 
"But I don't think change negates what the state of Georgia decided. There was 
enough evidence to convict her and give her the death penalty. Change does not 
get her a 'get out jail free' card."

Wages was an officer in the Gwinnett County Police Department in 1997 and 
watched his colleagues bring in Gissendaner after her arrest. He says he is 
glad she turned to God.

"I think a lot of men and women behind bars would not have otherwise been 
interested in the Bible had they not been in such a difficult place," he says. 
"It does take suffering sometimes for people to begin to think about spiritual 
things."

But he does not agree with the theology that drew Gissendaner to Moltmann's 
teachings.

"Moltmann believes God suffers with us," Wages says. "This is not the 
understanding of the church for thousands of years. I would argue that God is 
transcendent. He is above creation. Therefore, he can't suffer with us."

Back in Germany, Moltmann, now old and feeble, knows he may never again see the 
woman greatly touched by his theology. Her first execution date was set for 
February 25 but was delayed because of inclement weather. She was taken to the 
death chamber again on March 2.

Moltmann prepared a candlelight ceremony with his family. He wanted to thank 
God for Gissendaner's life and ask forgiveness for her sins.

Gissendaner was given a last meal: cheeseburger, fries, ice cream. Then at the 
last moment, her life was spared again after authorities noticed a problem with 
the lethal drug phenobarbital.

A third date has not yet been set. Georgia has postponed executions until it 
determines what went wrong with the drug. Several other states have done the 
same. Public opinion has shifted against capital punishment, imposed still in 
32 states. The Nebraska Legislature voted Wednesday to repeal it.

Moltmann feels God's providence can be tricky. He argued with God after the 
State Board of Pardons and Paroles denied Gissendaner's plea for clemency.

"When the delays came," he says, "I had the feeling God was answering my 
prayers."

He thought about the handkerchief he had sent across the Atlantic. Gissendaner 
had written him back after it arrived. She told him it was the most heartfelt 
gift she'd ever received in her nearly 17 years on death row. She was beyond 
touched, she told him.

He wondered if prison officials would allow her to hold onto that little piece 
of cloth. If they knew what it meant to her. And whether, in the end, it would 
bring her a modicum of peace.

(source: CNN)








FLORIDA:

Jury selection begins for man charged in transvestite's death in Riviera 
Beach----Man, 25, faces death penalty for allegedly shooting 2 transvestite 
prostitutes and killing another



What started as a seemingly chance meeting between a pair of transvestite 
prostitutes and a motorist 3 years ago will culminate this week in a death 
penalty trial for the 25-year-old man accused of killing 1 transvestite and 
shooting at yet another minutes later.

The start of jury selection today means Luis Rijo De Los Santos will become the 
1st Palm Beach County defendant to stand trial in a death penalty case in 2 
years, accused of killing Tyrell Mashae Jackson and also facing attempted 
murder charges in the shooting of Jackson's friend Michael Hunter and the 
subsequent shooting of Terence Emmanuel Chatman in Riviera Beach.

The 12-member jury that Circuit Judge Glenn Kelley, prosecutor Lauren Godden 
and defense attorney Marc Shiner expect to pick in the case will be introduced 
beginning next week to the surviving victims in the case - all cross-dressers 
with violent pasts, including a 6-foot-3 man whose pre-trial interview once had 
to be rescheduled when a confrontation with Shiner nearly came to blows.

They will also hear Rijo De Los Santos' claims that he acted in self-defense. 
And if they convict him, jurors will meet a number of Rijo De Los Santos' 
relatives in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico who will describe an 
idyllic upbringing much different than the hard-scrabble tales of woe that 
color most penalty phase hearings.

"Self-defense or not, this is a strange, strange case," veteran defense 
attorney Shiner said Wednesday of Rijo DeLos Santos. "It's fair to say I've 
never had a case close to this one before."

But just why the Dominican native would leave his girlfriend asleep at home and 
come to such a violent confrontation with the trio of transvestites is still 
unclear from court records and initial arrest reports in the case.

In the early hours of March 24, 2014, after Jackson was pronounced dead at St. 
Mary's Hospital, Hunter gave investigators the following account from his own 
hospital bed:

Hunter and Jackson were walking north on the 4400 block of Broadway in West 
Palm Beach earlier that night, both dressed as women. Hunter told Jackson his 
feet hurt and suggested they flag down a ride back to Jackson???s house in 
Riviera Beach.

Soon afterward, a man later determined to be Rijo De Los Santos picked them up 
in his silver SUV and agreed to take them home. When they got to Riviera Beach, 
Hunter asked Rijo De Los Santos to take them to a convenience store, and 
according to Hunter it was when they tried to get out of the car that the 
driver pulled out a semiautomatic gun and began shooting.

Hunter was shot in the arm. Jackson was shot at least 3 times and died.

Less than 20 minutes later, West Palm Beach police received another report of a 
shooting, this time in the 2000 block of North Dixie Highway. Chatman, another 
prostitute dressed as a woman, was shot in the hip and told police his shooter 
took out a gun as soon as he got in the car with him.

"You got in the wrong (expletive) car," Chatman told police the gunman said.

After Rijo De Los Santos' indictment on 1st-degree murder, attempted murder and 
felony murder charges, then-interim Palm Beach County State Attorney Pete 
Antonacci announced that prosecutors would be seeking the death penalty against 
Rijo De Los Santos.

Antonacci alone made the decision to seek death - a switch from the policies of 
his predecessor Michael McAuliffe and current top prosecutor Dave Aronberg, who 
both use committees to determine which cases to pursue capital punishment. 
State Attorney's Office spokesman Mike Edmondson this week said Aronberg's 
committee did not make a separate review of Rijo De Los Santos' case after 
Aronberg took office in 2013.

Either way, Rijo De Los Santos' trial marks the 1st death penalty case to go to 
trial in Palm Beach County since the 2013 trial of Bruce Strahan, accused of 
killing his estranged wife and two others in Lake Worth. A jury recommended a 
life sentence for him after just a half hour of deliberation in the penalty 
phase of his case.

The last local jury to recommend a death sentence locally was a 2009 federal 
jury, which voted unanimously for a death sentence for Ricardo Sanchez and 
Daniel Troya for the deaths of 3- and 4-year-old brothers who were part of a 
family gunned down on Florida's Turnpike over a drug debt.

Shiner will argue that Rijo De Los Santos acted in self-defense in both cases, 
and that the shootings were not 2 separate events but rather an ongoing defense 
of himself against a trio of transvestite prostitutes who were actually 
together when he first met them. He will argue that they produced knives and 
tried to rob him, forcing him to shoot.

Shiner this week said all 3 victims have criminal pasts, including Hunter, 
whose pretrial interview with Shiner and former prosecutor Cheryl Caracuzzo 
once had to be postponed because Hunter took offense at something Shiner said 
and nearly punched him.

Jury selection in Rijo De Los Santos' case is expected to last until the middle 
of next week.

If Rijo De Los Santos is convicted, Kelley ruled that he'll take a week-long 
break before the penalty phase of the trial. Shiner had asked for a break of at 
least 2 weeks.

(source: Palm Beach Post)

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

Doctors: Early brain injuries could have contributed to Davis' killings



Barry Davis' defense team is counting on his abnormal brain to keep him out of 
a cell on Florida's death row.

Expert witnesses in the fields of clinical psychology and neuropathology 
testified Thursday that head injuries Davis suffered at an early age had caused 
traumatic brain injuries. Those injuries could well have turned him aggressive 
and affected his judgment and impulse control.

Coupled with growing up mostly unloved on the mean streets of Los Angeles, 
anxiety and depression brought on by a failing relationship and injuries Davis 
suffered playing football, boxing and in ATV accidents created a deeply 
disturbed individual, doctors Julie Harper and Joseph Wu told jurors.

The testimony, solicited by attorney Michelle Hendrix, came on the 2nd day of 
the death penalty phase of Davis' trial. He was convicted Monday of killing 
South Walton County resident John Gregory Hughes and his girlfriend, Hiedi Ann 
Rhodes of Panama City Beach.

Brain injuries to a young person are potentially more harmful later in life 
because the brain still is developing, Wu told jurors. A PET scan of Davis' 
brain indicated an abnormal frontal lobe area, he testified.

"The frontal lobe is most susceptible to brain injuries that impact judgment 
and impulse control," he said. "A damaged frontal lobe is like driving a car 
when the brakes aren't working."

Outside factors such as the environment one grows up in can exacerbate problems 
stemming from the brain injuries, Wu told the jury.

"I think Mr. Davis has several factors present," he testified.

On cross-examination, prosecutor Bobby Elmore confirmed that Wu was well 
briefed in the grisly details of the murders of Hughes and Rhodes, including 
the beatings they suffered, the effort to make sure they were dead by placing 
their heads in a bathtub and the dismembering and burning of their bodies.

"Do you believe these deaths were the results of an impulse action?" Elmore 
asked.

Wu mostly shied from answering what he termed Elmore's "philosophical" 
questions. But when asked if a person with traumatic brain injury can 
understand that it's wrong to murder, he answered, "there's a different type of 
knowing."

"You can know murder is wrong but have the inability to regulate certain 
impulses," Wu said.

Today is expected to be the last day of testimony in the 2nd phase of what has 
been a 4-week trial. The jury then will be asked to return with a 
recommendation to have Davis either sentenced to death or to life in prison 
without the possibility of parole.

Walton County Circuit Judge Kelvin Wells will impose the sentence, but by law 
he must give great weight to the jury's recommendation.

(source: Panama City News Herald)








KENTUCKY:

Judge denies mistrial request in death penalty case



A Superior Court judge has denied a mistrial request from a defense attorney 
after a juror who was previously selected was excused in the death penalty 
case. The jury selection process is in its 10th week.

One of Carl Kennedy's attorneys, Robert Campbell, requested a mistrial Thursday 
from Judge Christopher Bragg in Davidson County Superior Court but was denied. 
He presented the request in open court after Bragg granted an excusal to 
Davidson County assistant district attorneys on a juror seated in March who 
claimed Wednesday anxiety has been an issue over the possibility of giving 
Kennedy the death penalty as she has waited several weeks for the trial to 
start.

Kennedy and 2 others - David Earl Manning and Leigh Williams, both 44 - have 
been charged with 3 counts of 1st-degree murder in the November 2011 deaths of 
Sharon F. Rushing, 61, Angela Dawn Soles, 43, and Gary Lynn Seward, 52, all of 
101 Rotary Lane in Thomasville. The state is seeking the death penalty against 
all 3 people, but Kennedy's case is being tried first.

Attorneys selected their 11th juror Wednesday as they hoped to find the needed 
12 jurors and 2 alternates to start the trial. The decision for Bragg to allow 
the state to utilize 1 of its 12 excusals means there have only been 10 jurors 
seated through the 10th week of the trial.

Campbell requested Bragg consider granting the defense additional excusals if 
the court decided not to declare a mistrial Thursday. The defense attorney 
argued excusing the juror, who was the 2nd seated in the process, would 
prejudice Kennedy and his defense team as they were following a game plan with 
their excusals.

Bragg granted an additional excusal to the defense after he didn't grant the 
mistrial. That means the defense attorneys have used 11 of their now 13 
excusals, and the state has utilized eight of its 12 excusals. Bragg chose not 
to excuse the juror wanting to be dismissed for cause. The judge has the 
authority to release prospective jurors for cause when he thinks they are not 
capable of serving in the case. The numbers for being released for cause by the 
judge are limitless.

While the attorneys typically receive 12 excusals to pick 12 jurors, they 
receive a total of two excusals to choose the two alternates. An excusal allows 
each of the sides in the case to dismiss a juror when they believe the person 
should not serve on the jury.

Thursday, the juror who was dismissed said it would be difficult to serve on 
the jury because of the possibility of sentencing someone to death. This juror 
said views changed as time has passed by in the past nine weeks since she was 
initially seated.

Jury selection continues Friday as the attorneys work to pick the rest of the 
jurors. Once the trial begins, the parties involved believe the case will take 
4 weeks or more.

(source: The Dispatch)








TENNESSEE:

State prosecutor says there is no meaningful death penalty in Tennessee



One local state prosecutor says there is a problem with Tennessee's death 
penalty.

District Attorney General Barry Staubus said the most recent example is a death 
row inmate dying last week of natural causes.

Donald Strouth had been on death row for a Sullivan County murder for three 
decades, making him the state's longest-serving death row inmate.

Staubus said a more than 30-year appeal process is too long.

Tennessee is 1 of 32 states with the death penalty.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, right now, there are 73 
people currently on death row in the state.

6 people have been executed since 1976, the last execution was in 2009.

Tennessee ranks 12th in the number of people on death row in the country.

It ranks 21st in the number of executions.

I talked with attorneys on both sides of the issue to find out what they think 
should be done about the death penalty in the volunteer state.

"Is there a just way for human beings to kill other human beings? I don't 
know," Steve Wallace, Sullivan County public defender said.

It's a question that's been debated for decades.

In 1978, the same year Tennessee reinstated its death penalty, a jury convicted 
and sentenced to death 19-year-old Donald Wayne Strouth for the murder of 70 
year old shop-owner James Keegan.

"And until he passed away he was still on appeal, 2015," Staubus said.

37 years after his death sentence, Strouth died of an apparent heart attack, 
not by execution.

"I think that undermines the credibility of the criminal justice system. I 
think it's difficult for families and victims' families to deal with that long 
of an appellate process," Staubus said.

Strouth's execution date had recently been postponed until 2016.

"I just think that the cases need to be expedited in a more timely manner, and 
I know there's some movements in appellate courts to do that but there's still 
a huge backlog of these cases," Staubus said.

We talked with Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty 
Information Center, who said what's happening in Tennessee is reflecting a 
trend nationwide.

"I don't think the fact that Tennessee has not executed people recently is 
particularly extraordinary, I say that because executions are at a 20 year low 
in the United States," Dunham said.

Wallace said he remembers when Strouth was sentenced. He said at the time the 
state sought the death penalty for almost all murders.

But now, "I don't think it's a bad thing that the death penalty is used 
infrequently," Wallace said.

With the appeals process he said, "It's a big consumer of judicial time that's 
one of the biggest problems with the death penalty."

He said his solution would be to get rid of the death penalty.

We also talked with Larry Dillow, the defense attorney who represented Strouth 
in 1978.

He told me at that time he never expected Strouth would be on death row this 
long.

Right now all executions in Tennessee are on hold due to a pending lawsuit 
where death row inmates, including Strouth, questioned if the state's lethal 
injection process is constitutional.

(source: Allie Hinds, WJHL news)