[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., NEB.

[Rick Halperin]

May 28



ALABAMA:

'Bizarre' verdict: Heather Leavell-Keaton guilty of capital murder, 
manslaughter in deaths of DeBlase children



Heather Leavell-Keaton intentionally killed 3-year-old Chase DeBlase in 2010, 
but only recklessly caused the death of his 4-year-old sister, Natalie, a jury 
said Wednesday.

For more than 2 weeks, Keaton stood trial for capital murder in the deaths of 
the 2, who were the biological children of her common-law husband John DeBlase. 
He was convicted on multiple counts of capital murder in the children's deaths 
in late 2014 and sentenced to death.

According to its verdict, the jury felt Keaton's role in Natalie's death was 
different. After the verdict was read, several on the prosecution's side of 
Circuit Judge Rick Stout's courtroom seemed perplexed and 1 prosecutor not 
working the case was overheard calling the verdict "bizarre."

Immediately following the verdict, District Attorney Ashley Rich asked the 
judge for some time to confer with defense attorneys Jim Vollmer and Greg 
Hughes due to possible "inconsistencies" in the verdict. Keaton was found not 
guilty on the count of capital murder related to Natalie, and a 2nd capital 
charge alleging she intentionally killed 2 or more people.

She faced capital murder charges in relation to Natalie's death, as well.

According to prosecutors, the little girl was choked to death in March 2010 
after being duct-taped and placed in a suitcase which was set in a closet for 
12 hours.

Her body was later dumped in a wooded area near Citronelle.

Based on her conviction on the manslaughter charge, the jury believed Keaton 
did not intend to kill Natalie, but was guilty of recklessly causing her death.

Chase died in June 2010, having been taped to a broom handle and left in the 
corner of the couple's bedroom overnight. He was also choked to death, 
according to testimony, and his body was found in the woods outside Vancleave, 
Miss.

The jury, which consisted of 9 women and 3 men, deliberated for more than 7 
hours over Tuesday and Thursday, stopping 3 times to ask Stout questions. They 
spent several hours over both days re-watching video interview footage of 
Keaton in late 2010 both before and after her arrest.

She faces either the death penalty or life without possibility of parole for 
killing Chase, and 2 to 20 years in prison on the manslaughter charge. 
Sentencing will begin at 8:30 a.m. Thursday and include testimony from 
witnesses for the defense and prosecution.

Parties on both sides of the case declined to comment after the verdict, and 
said they could not speak until after the penalty phase concluded.

(source: al.com)








NEBRASKA:

Nebraska lawmakers officially abolish the death penalty, overriding governor's 
veto



Nebraska lawmakers voted to abolish the death penalty Wednesday, overriding a 
veto from the governor and making that state the 19th in the country to ban 
capital punishment.

The vote on Wednesday in Lincoln made Nebraska the 1st state in 2 years to 
formally abandon the death penalty, a decision that comes amid a decline in 
executions and roiling uncertainty regarding how to carry out lethal 
injections.

Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) had been a vocal critic of the bill before he vetoed it 
on Tuesday afternoon. Ricketts called it "cruel" to the relatives of the 
victims of people sentenced to death and wrote in a letter to the legislature 
that "the overwhelming majority of Nebraskans" want the death penalty to remain 
in place.

The state's lawmakers voted last week to abolish the death penalty, passing the 
measure with enough support to override a veto that Ricketts had said was 
coming.

In the unicameral Nebraska legislature, it takes 30 of the 49 senators to 
override the veto. Last week, 32 senators voted to repeal the death penalty. A 
spokesman for Ricketts said that he had been traveling the state to visit 
senators in an effort to sustain his veto.

On Wednesday, 30 senators voted to override Ricketts???s veto, outlawing the 
death penalty by the narrowest of margins.

The bill's passage in Nebraska was unusual, because while numerous states have 
abolished or halted capital punishment in recent years, they have typically 
been more politically liberal. Nebraska, meanwhile, is as red as it gets, and 
the legislature is largely conservative.

A majority of Americans support the death penalty - a level of support has been 
falling consistently for 2 decades - but that sentiment is much stronger among 
Republicans than Democrats. Capital punishment is supported by more than 
three-quarters of Republicans, but it is opposed by a majority of Democrats.

Some lawmakers in Nebraska offered a conservative argument for repealing the 
death penalty there, painting it as an example of government waste.

"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," State Sen. Colby 
Coash, a Republican who co-sponsored the repeal bill, said after the 
legislature approved it last week.

Nebraska has not executed an inmate since 1997. It currently has 10 inmates on 
death row; there were 11 inmates when the bill was passed last week, but the 
state Department of Corrections said that an inmate died on Sunday. Under the 
bill, these inmates will now get life sentences.

Other lawmakers said they supported the bill for religions reasons or because 
of cases where people were wrongly convicted.

Maryland was the last state to formally abolish the death penalty, abandoning 
it in 2013 and emptying its death row earlier this year. New Hampshire, the 
last state in New England with the death penalty, almost got rid of it last 
year, but the bill failed by a single vote.

While 31 states and the federal government still have the death penalty, in 
reality only a small handful of states actually carry out executions. Last 
year, seven states carried out executions, about a third the number of states 
that executed inmates 15 years earlier.

Some states have also halted the practice without formally abolishing it. 
Washington state announced a moratorium last year, while Pennsylvania's 
governor suspended the death penalty there in February. Oregon's new governor 
said this year she will keep that state's moratorium in place.

Other states dealing with legal challenges or an ongoing shortage of lethal 
injection drugs have imposed their own delays, creating de facto moratoriums in 
some places. After Ohio adopted a new lethal injection policy this year, it 
pushed back its executions scheduled through January 2016. As a result, Ohio - 
among the most active modern death-penalty states - will go at least 2 years 
without any executions.

Georgia suspended executions after an issue with a drug it was going to use and 
has not announced plans to resume lethal injections. Tennessee canceled its 
scheduled executions through early next year to let a court consider challenges 
from inmates. And 3 states have called off executions until the U.S. Supreme 
Court announces its decision in a lethal injection case.

The federal government, meanwhile, has the death penalty, but it has a 
moratorium in place while it reviews its death penalty policy. The government 
also has no lethal injection drugs, which are much harder to get these days. 
Meanwhile, more than a quarter of a century after the federal death penalty 
statute was reinstated, the government has carried out three executions, the 
last in 2003.

Even as other states have struggled to obtain lethal injection drugs, Ricketts 
said before the death-penalty repeal bill passed the legislature that the state 
purchased the drugs needed to carry out an execution. The state corrections 
department has 1 drug already, and the other 2 drugs will arrive "in the near 
future," according to Ricketts's office.

(source: Washington Post)

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

Death penalty facts



31 states still have some form of capital punishment.

16 states have executed a person in the past 3 years. But the number of 
executions and new death sentences is at a 20-year low, and just a few states 
are responsible for the vast majority of executions.

Considering population, Oklahoma has killed more people per capita - 112 -- 
since 1976, when a nationwide moratorium ended. The other top 10 are Texas 
(525), Delaware (16), Missouri (83), Virginia (110), Alabama (56), Arkansas 
(27), South Carolina (43), Mississippi (21), Louisiana (28).

Since 1973, more than 150 people have been released from death row with 
evidence of their innocence.

So far this year, 2 death-row inmates were exonerated and set free: Debra 
Milke, jailed since 1990 in Arizona; and Anthony Ray Hinton, jailed since 1985 
in Alabama by a prosecutor who said he knew Hinton was guilty "just by looking 
at him."

3,019 inmates are on death row in the United States. California has the most, 
with 743, but a federal judge there declared the death penalty unconstitutional 
in 2014 so executions are on hold.

105 of the 192 countries represented at the United Nations have abolished the 
death penalty by law, and at least 43 more have abolished it in practice, 
either through public moratorium or de facto moratorium (when a country 
declines to practice capital punishment for a decade or longer).

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule next month in a case brought by 
prisoners on death row in Oklahoma who contend that the death penalty as 
carried out there - they say it's by lethal injection that is secretly arranged 
and shoddily administered - constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. The case 
is the most substantive legal challenge to the death penalty in the U.S. in 
decades.

[sources: Death Penalty Information Center, World Coalition Against the Death 
Penalty]

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

Death penalty in Nebraska



23 people have been killed by the state of Nebraska since it took over 
executions in 1903.

8 were hanged and 15 electrocuted.

2 men were electrocuted on Dec. 20, 1920, the 1st time the electric chair was 
used.

0 have been put to death by lethal injection.

31 death row inmates have had their sentences commuted.

1 was furloughed.

1, Jeremy Sheets, was released in 2001 after his sentence was vacated.

13 were commuted since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

4 died of natural causes, including Michael Ryan on Sunday.

2 committed suicide.

(source for both: Lincoln Journal Star)

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

An unexpected win for death-penalty opponents in Nebraska



Since 2000, 6 states have banned the death penalty, and all 6 can fairly be 
described as "blue" states. 4 of the 6 - Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and 
Maryland - are in the Northeast, and the other 2 - Illinois and New Mexico - 
are hardly conservative strongholds.

But as Rachel reported on the show last night, there's a new addition to the 
list, and it's one that would have been hard to predict as recently as a few 
months ago. From Amanda Sakuma's msnbc report;

Conservatives turn on Republican governor to repeal Nebraska death penalty

The Nebraska legislature abolished the death penalty Wednesday in a 
down-to-the-wire vote overriding Gov. Pete Ricketts' veto, making Nebraska the 
1st red state in decades to strike capital punishment from its books.

In a 30-19 vote that crossed party lines, the unicameral legislature defied the 
Republican governor's opposition to the death penalty repeal, garnering the 
exact number of votes needed to overcome his veto.

Nebraska, with its unusual unicameral legislature, technically has a 
non-partisan state government, but it's hardly a secret that Republican 
policymakers dominate in this ruby-red state. It made yesterday's vote that 
much more satisfying.

The key to success, oddly enough, was framing the debate in a conservative way 
- proponents of the change made the case that the flawed existing system is too 
expensive; it's at odds with the values of honoring life; and the governments 
that kill their own citizens are the biggest of all possible governments.

It was close, and the state's Republican governor lobbied hard to keep the 
death penalty in place, but the argument won the day.

Nebraska will now join 18 states and the District of Columbia in banning 
capital punishment. But how secure is the victory?

Rachel noted towards the end of last night's segment, "One of the things to 
watch on this story in Nebraska is whether or not people who support the death 
penalty, including the governor, try to get it back through some sort of 
popular referendum. We saw this work through the legislature to get it 
repealed, including this incredible drama today with overriding the governor's 
veto. It will be interesting if they put it to a vote."

It's an angle well worth watching - Nebraska took an important step yesterday, 
but execution supporters may yet try to undo what's been done.

(source: MSNBC)

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

Nebraska legislature narrowly votes to repeal? death penalty ---- Vote 
abolishes governor???s veto and makes state the first majority Republican state 
to abolish capitol punishment in more than 4 decades



The Nebraska legislature narrowly voted on Wednesday to repeal the death 
penalty, overriding the governor's veto and making the state the 1st majority 
Republican state to abolish capital punishment in more than 4 decades.

The state has a unicameral legislature in which all bills must be voted on 3 
times. The bill to abolish the death penalty passed all 3 rounds, 30-16, 30-13, 
and finally 32-15 in its third vote. The governor vetoed the bill on Tuesday.

Legislators needed 30 votes to override the veto, and it earned 30. 19 voted 
against. The repeal is the latest move in what some experts believe is a new 
conservative push against executions.

"In many respects, what has happened in Nebraska is a microcosm of the steady 
national trend away from the death penalty in the United States," said Robert 
Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

19 states and the District of Columbia now ban the death penalty, and Nebraska 
becomes "the 1st predominantly Republican state to abolish the death penalty 
since North Dakota abolished the death penalty in 1973," he said.

The 10 men still on Nebraska's death row will remain there, though the state 
hasn't executed an inmate since 1997. The legislation passed Tuesday will 
abolish Nebraska's method of execution, essentially stopping the men's sentence 
from being carried out.

In Wednesday's debate, senators spoke passionately for and against the death 
penalty, and many referenced the bible.

"Capital punishment is not perfect, but we need it," said senator Lydia Brasch.

"Is it always fairly and equally administered? Probably not. Does it need to be 
there? Yes it does," said senator Dave Bloomfield.

Senator Ernie Chambers, who has fought for decades to repeal the death penalty, 
addressed his fellow senators repeatedly.

"I wish that I could say that it was my brilliance that brought us to this 
point, but this would not be true, and we all know it. Had not the conservative 
faction decided it was time for a change, there's no way that what is happening 
today would be happening today," he said.

"There has been a confluence of individuals groups and circumstances that have 
put Nebraska on the threshold of stepping into history, on the right side of 
history."

Nebraska reinstated the death penalty in 1973, following the Georgia v Furman 
US supreme court case that paused capital punishment in the country for 3 years 
(another Georgia case led to the death penalty's reinstatement as a state's 
rights issue).

Executions in the US have ground nearly to a halt this year as states wait to 
hear the result of a supreme court argument over whether 1 state's execution 
protocol amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.

The case, Glossip v Gross, was argued in the Supreme Court in April, and 
focuses on the drug cocktail used to carry out Oklahoma death sentences.

The state's reliance on the drug midazolam led to the high-profile "botched" 
execution of Clayton Lockett, in which it took 43 minutes for the man to be 
pronounced dead. That led to a challenge by Oklahoma inmate Richard Glossip. 
Several death penalty states have relied on the drug as part of an execution 
cocktail since pentobarbital, long used for executions, became scarce as the 
result of a European-led boycott of execution drugs.

Nebraska does not use midazolam in its lethal injection process, but instead 
relies on a cocktail of similar drugs, which the governor recently said he had 
secured from a pharmacy in India.

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



The repeal of Nebraska's death penalty means the 10 men on the state's death 
row are now effectively serving life sentences.

There were 11 prisoners there until Sunday, when murderous cult leader Michael 
Ryan, convicted of killing two people, died while in prison.

Here are the other inmates who were on death row at Tecumseh State Prison when 
lawmakers voted Wednesday to abolish capital punishment over the governor's 
wishes:

Carey Dean Moore, 56, has been on death row since 1980. He was convicted of 
murdering Omaha cab drivers Reuel Van Ness Jr. and Maynard Helgeland 5 days 
apart. He says he has become a born-again Christian since being sentenced to 
death. "When I killed the 2 men, that was my responsibility, my fault," he told 
the Lincoln Journal Star in 2011. "The devil didn't make me do it. That was 
just me."

Carey Dean Moore, 56, has been on death row since 1980.

John Lotter, 43, was convicted of murdering transgender victim Brandon Teena 
and two other people in 1993 - a crime that was the basis for the award-winning 
movie "Boys Don't Cry." His accomplice, who got life, testified that Lotter 
pulled the trigger but later recanted and said he was the gunman. " I'm going 
to fight for every last breath that I have to prove my innocence and get out of 
here," Lotter said in 2013.

Brandon Teena was murdered on New Year's Eve 1993 after reporting a rape.

Raymond Mata Jr., 42, was sentenced to die twice - first by a panel of judges 
and then by a jury after the U.S. Supreme Court said jurists couldn't make the 
call. He was convicted of murdering and dismembering his ex-girlfriend's 
3-year-old son, Adam Gomez, in 1999; parts of the boy's body were found in the 
killer's dog bowl and in the animal's stomach. Raymond Mata Jr. was convicted 
of murdering and dismembering his ex-girlfriend's 3-year-old son, Adam Gomez, 
in 1999.

Arthur Gales, 50, was convicted of murdering 2 children, 13-year-old Latara 
Chandler, who was raped and strangled, and her 7-year-old brother Tramar, who 
was strangled and drowned in the bathtub. He allegedly killed the kids so they 
could not tell police he had been with their mother, who was beaten and left 
for dead but survived.

Jorge Galindo, 34, Erick Vela, 34, and Jose Sandoval, 36, were put on death row 
for the murders of 4 workers and one customer during a Norfolk bank robbery. 
They suspects marched in and shot the victims - Lisa Bryant, 29; Lola Elwood, 
43; Jo Mausbach, 42; Evonne Tuttle, 37; and Samuel Sun, 50 - in the head in 
under a minute. "It went to hell," Vela later told police. A state trooper 
committed suicide the day after the slayings in despair that he botched a 
stolen-weapon check on one of the suspects a week earlier.

Jeffrey Hessler, 36, was found guilty of kidnapping, raping and murdering a 
15-year-old newspaper carrier, Heather Guerrero, in 2003. Hessler, who had 
pleaded guilty to the earlier rape of another teenage paper girl, represented 
himself at trial and later lost a number of appeals arguing he was mentally ill 
and should not have been allowed to serve as his own attorney.

Roy Ellis, 61, was convicted of abducting a 12-year-old girl, Amber Harris, 
after she got off a school bus, killing her and tossing her partially clothed 
body in a park ravine in 2005. Ellis, a convicted sex offender, was the 1st 
person sentenced to death in Nebraska after the state banned the electric 
chair. His victim's mother said after the sentencing that she had no hope it 
would be carried out. "Either he'll die before then, or me," she old the 
Journal Star.

Marco Torres, 42, was the most recent arrival to death row, after being 
convicted in the 2007 double murder of Timothy Donohue, 48, and Edward, Hall, 
60, possibly to cover up a robbery. In his appeals, Torres cited 
methamphetamine use as an excuse for the slaying.

(source for both: NBC news)

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

Reaction to Death Penalty Repeal



Plenty of people came out to Lincoln Wednesday to witness the historic vote, 
overriding Governor Pete Ricketts' veto of a death penalty appeal, for 
themselves.

Cheers came from outside the legislative chambers as the votes came in.

"We did it. I can't believe it. They had me on pins and needles, but we did 
it," said Miriam Kelle.

Kelle said she has been working against the death penalty for a decade.

More than 30 years after her brother, James Thimm, was killed by cult leader 
Michael Ryan. Days after the murderer's death from a medical issue while 
awaiting execution, Kelle got her wish.

"Just tears of joy. First time on this issue that we've had tears of joy," she 
said.

But, Kelle said her work is not over.

"We don't want anyone to be considered evil. We want behavioral health for 
young people and small children so that everyone can be productive," said 
Kelle.

Pierce County Sheriff Rick Eberhardt agrees there's still work to do, but said 
his focus will be on getting the issue on the ballot.

"I think the people of the state of Nebraska need to realize that it was one 
vote today. One vote made a difference. And, when you get your chance - and you 
will get your chance - and you pull that curtain shut, it's going to be your 
vote," he said.

Eberhardt said if the repeal isn't rejected by voters, taxpayers will 
ultimately suffer.

"I think by doing this it's going to make more people that are going to fight 
their murder trials because they're going to roll the dice and say hey, the 
worst they can do to me is lock me up forever," said Eberhardt. "The people of 
the state of Nebraska are going to be the ones that will foot the bill."

On Wednesday's vote, Eberhardt said he was "shocked and dismayed, very 
disappointed, upset."

(source: nebraska.tv)

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

Death penalty repeal throws a lifeline to Nikko Jenkins, Anthony Garcia



The repeal of the death penalty means that the 2 men each connected to 4 Omaha 
killings - convicted murderer Nikko Jenkins and murder suspect Anthony J. 
Garcia - will no longer face the death penalty.

Nor will Roberto Martinez-Marinero, 25, accused of killing his mother and 
throwing his 4-year-old brother, Josue, into the Elkhorn River, drowning him. 
Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine had announced plans to seek the death 
penalty in that case.

At a Judiciary Committee hearing in March, Kleine testified in favor of the 
death penalty, but he also said he was frustrated with the state's inability to 
"get its act together" as far as an execution method.

Kleine, a death penalty supporter, said he was somewhat surprised by 
Wednesday's vote.

The prosecutor, who helped put child killers Roy Ellis and Arthur Lee Gales on 
death row, said that he has spoken with Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson 
and that it is unclear how the repeal will affect current death row inmates. 
Nebraska has no means to carry out an execution.

As for those pending a death penalty decision, Kleine said, "it's over."

"To me, the Legislature represents the people - and the people have spoken," 
Kleine said. "It's the end of it."

Solicitor General James Smith of the Nebraska Attorney General's Office has 
said that if a death sentence is not "final," it would become a life sentence 
once Legislative Bill 268 becomes law.

A death sentence does not become final, he said, until the Nebraska Supreme 
Court affirms it in the automatic appeal afforded for such cases.

The new law would affect anyone awaiting trial or sentencing for 1st-degree 
murder who faces the possibility of a death sentence.

In addition to Jenkins, that would include Garcia, 41, a former Creighton 
pathology resident charged with killing 4 Omahans connected to Creighton's 
pathology department. His trial is pending.

Jenkins, 27, was found guilty after pleading no contest to shooting and killing 
Juan Uribe-Pena, Jorge Cajiga-Ruiz, Curtis Bradford and Andrea Kruger in August 
2013.

For Jenkins, the end of the death penalty wouldn't necessarily mean the end of 
his case. If he has no death penalty hearing to face, Jenkins is expected to 
try to withdraw his no-contest pleas. But judges rarely allow such withdrawals.

(source: omaha.com)