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

[Rick Halperin]

May 22




KANSAS:

Kansas Man Faces Death Penalty



The Kansas Attorney General's Office announced they would seek the death 
penalty against David Cornell Bennett Jr. Bennett is charged with 4 counts of 
1st degree premeditated murder, 1 count of rape, and 2 counts of criminal 
threat. In November of 2013, Cami Umbarger, 23, and her 3 children were found 
dead in their Parsons home. Bennett is currently being held in the Labette 
County Jail on a $5 million bond. His trial is set for October 5th in Parsons.

(source: fourstateshomepage.com)

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

Parsons Reacts to Proposed Death Penalty in Quadruple Homicide



If David Bennett Jr. is found guilty and sentenced to death for the murder of 
Cami Umbarger and her 3 children in Parsons , he will be the 10th Kansas inmate 
on death row.

Kansas was the last state to re-instate the death penalty in the modern era, 
and has not executed an inmate since 1965.

Citizens reporter Tim Spears talked to in Parsons are overwhelmingly in favor 
of the death penalty in Bennett's case. Primarily due to the involvement of 
children.

"Those kids were innocent," resident Paul Wallace said. "They didn't have an 
idea even if they were in bad surroundings. They didn't deserve to be killed."

"If you're gonna murder someone and a who innocent family, or a child, same 
thing needs to be done to you," death penalty supporter Sandy Shepherd said.

"Those were innocent kids," Lisa Lawson said. "[Cami] was innocent too. And 
what [Bennett] did, he deserves to be punished for it."

"[The] children didn't do nothing," said Gennie Ainesworth, whose granddaughter 
knew one of the victims. "My granddaughter cried for over 2 months cause she 
went to school with 1 of the children. And that's not something you should have 
to explain to a child. Your friend's in heaven now."

"[The children] didn't have nothing to do with it," death penalty supporter Tim 
Shultz said. "That's a pretty bad guy to do something like that to a family and 
them kids."

Since Kansas' current death penalty law enacted in 1994, there have been 85 
capital cases in the state.

13 men have been sentenced to death, 1 sentence was removed and 2 sentences 
were vacated by the supreme court.

The 9 remaining are in early appeals.

(source: KOAM TV news)








NEBRASKA:

Nebraska governor reiterates plans to veto bill abolishing death penalty



Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts has said it before and he will say it again: He 
plans to veto a bill passed this week that would abolish the state's death 
penalty.

"The Legislature is out of touch with Nebraskans on their vote to repeal the 
death penalty," Ricketts, a Republican who took office this year, said in a 
statement posted to Facebook. "The overwhelming majority of Nebraskans support 
the death penalty because they understand that it is an important tool for 
public safety."

The state's attorney general, Doug Peterson, has also criticized the 
legislature's decision, which he said "weakened [Nebraska's] ability to 
properly administer appropriate justice."

Ricketts had previously threatened to veto the bill, which lawmakers approved 
and sent to his desk Wednesday.

However, for Ricketts's veto to be upheld, it appears he will have to change 
the minds of some Nebraska lawmakers. In the state's unicameral legislature, 
which has 49 state senators, it takes 30 votes to override a veto from the 
governor. On Wednesday, there were 32 senators voting in favor of the bill.

"I will continue to work with senators to sustain my veto when I issue it," 
Ricketts said. He has until next week to officially veto the legislation.

If the bill does become law, Nebraska would be the 19th state to formally 
abolish the death penalty.

It would also be an outlier among states to act on the issue recently. Several 
states have repealed the death penalty or announced moratoriums over the last 
decade, but they have typically been blue states such as Maryland, which was 
the most recent state to formally abolish the practice.

While a majority of Americans support the death penalty (a number that has been 
falling for 2 decades), there is a very clear partisan divide on the issue: 3/4 
of Republicans are in favor of capital punishment, while a majority of 
Democrats oppose it.

Nebraska is a reliably red state with a conservative legislature, making it 
something of an unexpected place to see the death penalty on the precipice of 
disappearing. Some lawmakers have pushed for a repeal for religious reasons, 
while others have pointed to wrongful convictions. Still others have pointed to 
it as an example of a wasteful government program.

"The reality is Nebraska hasn't executed anybody in about 20 years," State Sen. 
Colby Coash, a Republican who co-sponsored the repeal legislation, said in an 
interview. "That inability spoke to my feelings about inefficient government. 
I've said frequently, if any other program was as inefficient and as costly as 
this has been, we would've gotten rid of it a long time ago."

Nebraska last executed an inmate in 1997. Coash described his own personal 
evolution on the issue, which he traced back to that last execution, when he 
was a college student who lived not far from where the execution would be 
carried out.

"I went down to the state penitentiary where they were having the execution 
that evening," he said this week. "Out in the parking lot of the penitentiary, 
there was a party, basically. There was a band, they were cooking, people were 
tailgating. they had a countdown, like you see at New Year's Eve parties. ... 
It was a big party. You wouldn't have known you were at an execution."

He also said he saw another group praying on the other side of a security 
fence.

"After that event, I had some time to reflect on that," he said. "It didn't sit 
well with me. I didn't like how I felt celebrating the state killing somebody. 
My views on the death penalty changed pretty significantly after that 
happened."

There are 11 inmates on the state's death row. Their sentences would all be 
converted to life imprisonment if the bill goes into effect.

(source: Washington Post)

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

Ricketts appeals to public to flip death penalty votes



Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts is ramping up pressure on lawmakers to try to keep 
them from overriding his promised veto of a death penalty repeal bill Friday to 
contact their state senator and voice their support for capital punishment.

Lawmakers gave the repeal bill final approval on Wednesday with a 32-15 vote. 
At least 30 votes are needed to override a gubernatorial veto, so Ricketts has 
to flip at least 3.

Ricketts says he has argued to several lawmakers that the Nebraskans he talks 
to overwhelmingly support the death penalty, and prosecutors need it to protect 
public safety.

Ricketts has argued that lawmakers are out of touch with the public. Death 
penalty opponents are working to ensure that support for the bill holds.

The Omaha Police Officers' Association issued the following statement on the 
bill Friday:

"We believe that a total repeal is inappropriate. At a minimum the death 
penalty should be an option when a first responder or elected official is 
murdered, or the crimes are so heinous that they may warrant the ultimate 
penalty."

For several years the carrying out of the death penalty was in limbo as elected 
officials and the courts sorted out the legality of the method and procedures 
for applying the death penalty. This is no longer the case.

Governor Ricketts recently announced that Nebraska will soon have the drugs 
necessary for lethal injection.

"This issue is far too important to be decided by 33 Senators, many of whom who 
were elected while telling their voters they supported the death penalty. 
Rather, such an important issue should be decided by all the voters of Nebraska 
in a statewide ballot vote."

()source: KETV news)

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

Veto at the ready, Gov. Ricketts chases 3 votes in Legislature on death penalty 
repeal



Gov. Pete Ricketts must flip at least 3 votes to keep the death penalty in 
Nebraska.

Based on interviews with several state senators Thursday, the votes are in 
play, and advocates on both sides of the death penalty debate know it.

A leading repeal organization has activated its volunteer calling bank, and 
staff members for several senators said they were getting automated calls from 
death penalty supporters.

And the Hall County Board called an emergency meeting for today to consider a 
resolution in support of capital punishment, largely to influence the veto-vote 
decision of their state senator.

But no group carries a greater potential to influence the outcome than the 
state's top elected official.

"I really make the same argument to everybody: It's an important tool for 
public safety and public policy," Ricketts said during an interview Thursday.

The governor said he will veto Legislative Bill 268, but he declined to say 
when. Because the governor must act within 5 days of the bill's passage, the 
showdown will almost certainly take place next week, in the closing days of the 
legislative session.

The measure passed Wednesday with a surprisingly strong majority of 32 
senators. Repeal supporters must keep at least 30 on their side to override the 
veto.

Several senators said Thursday that the historic vote prompted dozens of calls 
and e-mails from both sides of the issue. The governor used newspaper and 
television interviews and his social media accounts Thursday to encourage 
pro-death penalty Nebraskans to contact to their senators.

"My concern is that they're in that Capitol so much and listening to lobbyists 
and not to your average Nebraskan," Ricketts said.

And the governor met Thursday with several Republican senators he viewed as 
being open to reconsidering their positions.

"He said he hopes I could find it in my heart to support the veto," said Sen. 
Jerry Johnson of Wahoo. "I told him I've got 4 days to think about it, and I'm 
trying to be open about it."

The governor also met with Sen. Mike Gloor of Grand Island, who also finds 
himself being lobbied by the Hall County Board. Gloor voted against the repeal 
bill on the first 2 rounds of debate but joined supporters on the final round.

3 of the board members signed a letter to call the meeting, and one other 
indicated her support in an e-mail. Six of the seven board members have 
indicated that they will attend the emergency meeting, said Hall County Clerk 
Marla Conley.

Board member Gary Quandt said he will argue for the resolution to show 
solidarity with prosecutors and law enforcement officers. But he also wants to 
apply pressure on Gloor.

"I was strongly surprised by what the Legislature did," Quandt said Thursday.

Gloor said Thursday that he ultimately decided to vote for repeal because he 
became convinced that the legal battle over the state's execution protocol will 
never end.

"I want someone to answer this question: How are we going to get over the hump 
and do something we haven't been able to do in almost 2 decades," Gloor said. 
"What's different?"

One of the governor's messages to senators is that the state recently purchased 
a fresh supply of lethal injection drugs to replace those that had expired. And 
3 current death row inmates are out of appeals, although death penalty 
opponents argue that new legal challenges will ensue once the state tries to 
carry out another execution.

In response to passage of the repeal bill, death penalty supporters also 
created a Facebook page titled: "Whose Side Are You On Senator? Save Capital 
Punishment Now." The site was dedicated to supporting the governor's veto of LB 
268, and it had received 200 "likes" in 5 hours Thursday.

It also displayed draft mailings that were targeting Johnson and two other 
senators who voted for repeal: Brett Lindstrom of Omaha and Tommy Garrett of 
Bellevue. The mailings accuse the conservative senators of standing with Omaha 
Sen. Ernie Chambers, a longtime death penalty foe, rather than their 
constituents.

Bud Synhorst, executive director of the Nebraska Republican Party, said 
grass-roots party activists were trying to rally voters to contact their 
senators. But he said the state GOP was not engaged in a robocall campaign, nor 
was he aware of any other groups responsible for such calls.

Stacy Anderson, director of Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, 
said her organization was conducting a full grass-roots push by volunteers to 
generate calls to senators. She said her group was not involved in any 
automated calling campaigns.

Sen. John Murante of Gretna said he made the difficult decision to vote for 
repeal after having discussions with his Catholic priest. But he said he always 
made it clear to repeal supporters he wasn't sure how he would vote if it came 
to a veto override.

Murante said he's now hearing from more death penalty supporters, and he's 
listening to their input. Asked if he might support the governor during the 
override vote, he said, "It's possible."

When Sen. Robert Hilkemann of Omaha campaigned for the Legislature, he said he 
supported the death penalty for the most heinous killers. But his view changed 
after listening to the argument that life in prison costs less than trying to 
carry out an execution.

And he met with a man who spent time on death row in another state for a crime 
he did not commit. Opposing the death penalty is more consistent with his 
Christian beliefs, he added.

Wednesday's fatal shooting of an Omaha police officer caused Hilkemann to 
rethink his vote for repeal. But he hasn't decided for sure how he will vote on 
the override.

A good lawmaker, Hilkemann said, keeps an open mind.

(source: omaha.com)

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

If death penalty repealed, punishment must fit crime



The Legislature's debate over the death penalty was wrenching in part because 
both sides are right about some things. And neither side is wrong about 
everything.

Those advocating for the death penalty argue that it is appropriate for the 
most heinous crimes; that capital punishment gives some criminals pause; that 
legal safeguards make it unlikely an innocent person will be put to death.

Those opposed argue that a civilized society shouldn't resort to vengeance; 
that the death penalty isn't handed down fairly to all murderers; that no 
statistical evidence shows it is a deterrent; that an innocent person might be 
wrongly put to death.

In the end, the question was largely a matter of personal conscience.

The Legislature voted to end Nebraska's death penalty, and Gov. Pete Ricketts 
promised to veto Legislative Bill 268. With more than enough lawmakers voting 
for repeal, an override of that veto seems likely.

Then what?

If they do repeal the death penalty, it will be incumbent on state senators to 
follow through and guarantee Nebraskans that adequate punishment is available 
to fit the very worst of crimes.

First, a life sentence should mean staying in prison for life.

The crimes of the 11 men on Nebraska's death row were unconscionable: Killing 
cabdrivers at random; torturing a victim for days; dismembering a 3-year-old 
boy and feeding some of his remains to a dog; shooting innocent people in a 
bank; abducting and killing a 12-year-old schoolgirl.

Such criminals should never walk the streets again. If lawmakers substitute a 
life sentence for the death penalty, then it must mean life. No possibility of 
parole. And any future effort to weaken that guarantee should be met with 
forceful opposition.

Next, fix the state's broken prison system.

The litany of problems is long: overcrowding, staffing shortages, inmates being 
given erroneous early release dates and last week's deadly riot at the Tecumseh 
State Prison.

Problems predate the new governor, new prisons director Scott Frakes and many 
current lawmakers. But all must step up now.

Tecumseh's issues date to the 1990s, when the state encouraged cities to 
compete for the new prison, selling it as an economic boon. Yet hiring and 
retaining sufficient prison staff is hard, especially in a rural locale.

At Tecumseh, guards work the most mandatory overtime in the prison system and 
too many quit. On March 31, the state had 103 vacancies for corrections 
officers and their leaders. Tecumseh, with the prison system's highest 
turnover, 23 percent, had 40 unfilled jobs when the riots occurred. Half of 
corrections officers at Tecumseh had less than 2 years' experience, and the 
average experience level of security staff was about 4 years.

Lawmakers should give prison officials the financial flexibility to address 
hiring, promotions and pay. Ricketts pledged to make headway on pay and 
incentives to reward employee experience.

The Legislature also has discussed how to ease prison crowding, find 
alternatives for the non-violent and improve programs for inmates. These goals 
must be diligently pursued to make certain there is always a cell for the most 
dangerous.

None of this is easy, or it already would have been done. But the riot showed 
that inaction has risks, too.

Finally, think again before going easier on gun criminals.

While debate has ended for this year, a bill to eliminate mandatory minimum 
sentences for some criminals could return. 6 years ago, a tougher mandatory 
penalty for drive-by shootings to combat gangs and guns passed 44-0. These are 
the people Nebraskans want behind bars.

Prosecutors and lawmen across the state have argued for keeping those mandatory 
sentences. Lawmakers should listen and stand firm against any renewed effort to 
jettison these protections.

A majority of legislators have voted to repeal the death penalty. Now they must 
make certain that dangerous criminals go to prison, that well-run prisons have 
room to hold the guilty and that a life sentence means what it says.

The punishment must fit the worst of crimes.

(source: Editorial, Omaha World-Herald)

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

Veto Expected After Nebraska Lawmakers Vote To Abolish Death Penalty



NPR's Audie Cornish interviews Bill Kelly, a reporter with NET, Nebraska's 
Public Broadcasting Network, about the Nebraska legislature's vote Wednesday to 
abolish the death penalty.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

There are 32 states that still have the death penalty, but lawmakers in 
Nebraska say their state should no longer be one of them. Legislation to end 
capital punishment was approved earlier this week. Now it's on the desk of 
Governor Pete Ricketts, and Ricketts says he'll definitely veto it. In fact, 
right now Governor Ricketts is lobbying state senators hard because anti-death 
penalty advocates just may have the votes to override that veto. Bill Kelly is 
a reporter for NET Nebraska Public Broadcasting Network, and he's going to tell 
us more. Welcome to the program, Bill.

BILL KELLY: Thank you, Audie.

CORNISH: So this is not the 1st time that there's been an attempt to repeal the 
death penalty in Nebraska, but what's driving it this time? Was there a 
particular crime incident - someone on death row that has people changing their 
minds?

KELLY: It has been a real incremental change, and so you can't point to any one 
incident to say that there was a change of opinion. We've seen a gradual change 
in public opinion and in the makeup of the legislature over the past few years 
that's led to this vote to repeal just earlier this week.

CORNISH: You talked about the makeup of the legislature, but I understand in 
Nebraska, it's non-partisan, one House, so how do you kind of figure out the 
lay of the land there?

KELLY: That's part of what made going into this legislative session so 
difficult to figure out where this issue would land. There have been efforts to 
repeal the death penalty in Nebraska literally since statehood. What's changed 
most recently, perhaps, is there has been a noticeable change in public opinion 
polls showing a shift, especially among conservatives who see the whole death 
penalty process as perhaps being too costly, that it's morally objectionable 
and consistent with their view of the sanctity of human life. We also have term 
limits, and so there was a whole new crop of freshmen senators as well, many 
who did not get asked about their position on the death penalty during their 
campaigns. So sorting it out was a significant issue, and it wasn't until these 
last votes as the bill made its way through that people had a real 
understanding of just how wide a margin it would be. And 32-15 is a pretty 
significant margin.

CORNISH: So then Governor Ricketts actually said this - no one has traveled the 
state more than I have in the past 18 months, and everywhere I go there's 
overwhelming support for keeping the death penalty in Nebraska. Is the governor 
right about that?

KELLY: In the most recent poll done by the Nebraska chapter of the American 
Civil Liberties Union, which does have an interest in the debate, 30 % said the 
death penalty was an appropriate punishment for murder, but that meant nearly 
60 % thought a sentence of no parole or the possibility of parole was 
preferable to capital punishment. That's a huge shift from the mid '90s when 
nearly 90 % of those polled said they supported the death penalty.

CORNISH: There are about a dozen people on death row in Nebraska right now. 
What happens to them, and has there been any reaction from, say, the loved ones 
of their victims?

KELLY: Probably not a lot changes. Nebraska hasn't had an execution in the 
state since 1997. That's when we still had the electric chair. There hasn't 
been a single execution since the state shifted to process of lethal injection. 
If the state goes to life without parole, they will simply stay in the state's 
correctional facilities until they die.

CORNISH: That's Bill Kelly. He reports for NET, Nebraska's Public Broadcasting 
Network. Thanks so much for talking with us. KELLY: Thank you, Audie.

(source: npr.org)








ARIZONA:

Rector attorney takes county's other death penalty case



A Mesa attorney, with an office in Kingman, now represents Mohave County's 2 
death penalty cases.

Gerald Gavin has been assigned to represent Darrell Bryant Ketchner in his 
second murder trial. In December, the Arizona Supreme Court overturned 
Ketchner's conviction and sentencing for 1st-degree murder and burglary and 
remanded the charges back for a new trial. His conviction for 3 counts of 
aggravated assault and attempted murder were upheld.

Prosecutors are again seeking the death penalty against Ketchner, 56, in his 
upcoming 2nd trial. The county's only other capital case is Justin James 
Rector, who is charged with 1st-degree murder, kidnapping, child abuse and 
abandonment of a dead body for the kidnapping and murder of Isabella 
Grogan-Cannella Sept. 2, 2014. Gavin also represents Rector.

Ketchner's murder case is being heard before Superior Court Judge Rick Williams 
at his Bullhead City courtroom. Ketchner remains on death row at the state 
prison. The judge set the next hearing for June 8. Ketchner's trial will be 
held in Kingman.

Ketchner's former appellate attorney, David Goldberg withdrew from the case. A 
2nd attorney, required in death penalty cases, will also be appointed.

Ketchner entered Jennifer Allison's Kingman home on the night of July 4, 2009, 
where she sat at the kitchen table with her 18-year-old daughter, Ariel 
Allison. Another daughter, her boyfriend and 3 younger children belonging to 
Ketchner and Jennifer Allison were in the other room.

Ketchner allegedly started to hit his ex-girlfriend, Jennifer Allison, chased 
her outside and shot her in the head as she lay in the driveway. He also 
allegedly stabbed Ariel Allison 8 times in her mother's bedroom where she later 
died. The other children escaped out a window. Jennifer Allison survived her 
wounds but had no memory of the attack.

The Supreme Court ruled that testimony from a prosecutor's witness was 
inadmissible evidence that required Ketchner's conviction and sentence to be 
reversed. The prosecutor argued that Ketchner entered Jennifer Allison's home 
to kill her to take control of the family he was losing.

(source: Mohave Daiy News)








USA:

Protestants join Catholics in reconsidering the death penalty



Nebraska is showing the most visible signs of a change in thinking by 
Christians and conservatives on the death penalty, and Catholics are helping to 
lead the way. For many, the catalyst has been a simple question: "If I value 
life, how can I support taking a life when the death penalty doesn't make us 
any safer?"

In response, more are embracing a consistent life ethic.

3 times in the past month, the Nebraska Legislature voted for a bill to repeal 
capital punishment and replace it with life without parole. The governor has 
promised to veto the legislation, and an override vote is looming. Many of the 
Christian lawmakers made it clear they cast their votes against the death 
penalty, in part, to promote a whole life ethic.

The leader of the group is Sen. Colby Coash of Lincoln, a Catholic who put his 
personal reasons for opposing capital punishment into one easily understood 
phrase. "I am pro-life," he said.

Coash and his colleagues are also interested in enacting public policies based 
on facts, as well as on faith. They have studied capital punishment in detail 
and have determined it does nothing to contribute to our safety.

They're concerned about the 153 people released from death row for wrongful 
convictions and the death penalty's disproportionate impact on communities of 
color, the poor and those with intellectual disabilities.

"Is the death penalty truly effective as a deterrent?" Coash asked. "There's 
absolutely no evidence that we've seen that the death penalty acts as a 
deterrent."

Nebraska conservative Christian politicians are not operating in a vacuum. This 
year in Kansas, Kentucky, New Hampshire and South Dakota, their counterparts 
sponsored bills to repeal capital punishment. In South Dakota, a Republican 
state representative who is an evangelical pastor changed his mind on the death 
penalty and sponsored the bill to repeal it. Conservatives in red states such 
as Tennessee, North Carolina and Montana, as well as Nebraska, have formed 
groups to question the death penalty.

According to a recent poll, roughly 1/2 of voters in Nebraska support replacing 
the death penalty with an alternative such as life in prison. That aligns with 
polling of Americans nationwide. For a growing number of Christians, opposition 
to the death penalty remains fundamentally grounded to one issue - their 
commitment to promoting a culture of life.

"We must all be careful to temper our natural outrage against violent crime 
with a recognition of the dignity of all people, even the guilty," the Catholic 
bishops of Nebraska said in a joint statement on March 17.

Catholics will remember that the seeds for what is happening today were planted 
20 years ago with "Evangelium Vitae," Pope John Paul II's encyclical expressing 
the church's position on the sanctity of human life.

Interestingly, evangelicals in Nebraska and elsewhere are joining Catholics in 
re-evaluating their support for capital punishment. For example, the Rev. 
William Thornton told the Nebraska Legislature's judiciary committee:

"I'd like to say that as a Christ follower who believes that Christ died for 
all, that no person is beyond redemption, that I believe we should never 
advocate cutting someone's life short and thereby guaranteeing no chance for 
them to experience redemption."

Nothing demonstrates this change more emphatically than the stand against 
capital punishment taken recently by a nationwide group of evangelicals. On 
March 27, the National Latino Evangelical Coalition passed a resolution calling 
for abolition of the death penalty.

"This is a biblical commitment," said the Rev. Gabriel Salguero, president of 
the association, at a news conference held during the organization???s annual 
meeting in Orlando, Fla.

New voices, Christian and conservative, are increasingly making themselves 
heard in America's death penalty debate. They are coming to the conclusion that 
ending the death penalty will help them adhere more closely to their faith and 
be more consistent in their beliefs, while helping our society better value 
life and promote justice.

(source: Commentary; Heather Beaudoin is a national advocacy coordinator for 
Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, a project of Equal Justice 
USA----Religion News Service)

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

Abolish federal death penalty



The bombing in Boston was a horrible crime. The bomber was a horrible person, 
but this trial was also about us. This trial was also about who we are.

What message do we send when a state, in cold blood, kills the killer? Perhaps, 
we would have fewer homicides and fewer acts of terrorism if we had more 
respect for human life.

Why is the United States the only western democracy that has not abolished the 
death penalty?

Even western democracies that have suffered terrible terrorist attacks have not 
brought back the death penalty.

We have ended the death penalty in Massachusetts with life imprisonment without 
parole. It is now time to end it at the federal level with life imprisonment 
without parole.

Ronal C. Madnick, Worcester

(source: Letter to the Editor, The Telegram)