[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----IND., MO., NEB., S. DAK.

[Rick Halperin]

May 29



INDIANA:

Lawyers expected in court for Indiana man accused in deaths of 2 women, 
suspected in 5 others



Attorneys in the case of a northwest Indiana man charged with strangling 2 
women and suspected of killing 5 others are due in court.

Judge Diane Boswell could set a trial date on Friday for Darren Vann. He may 
face the death penalty if he's convicted in the deaths of 19-year-old Afrikka 
Hardy and 35-year-old Anith Jones.

Police have said Vann confessed to having killed seven women whose remains were 
found in October, but so far he's only been charged in 2 deaths.

Lake County prosecutors filed the death penalty request in April.

Hardy was found strangled in a Hammond motel on Oct. 17. While being questioned 
by police in her death, Vann led investigators to the bodies of Jones and 5 
other women in abandoned homes scattered across Gary.

(source: Associated Press)








MISSOURI:

Parma murder suspect could face death penalty



Deion Martin will know in just a few weeks whether he will face the death 
penalty.

Martin, 21, who is charged in the shooting death of Brenda Smith on May 15, 
made his 1st court appearance Wednesday afternoon in Division II of New Madrid 
County Circuit Court.

Standing quietly next to his lawyer, Martin listened as Associate Judge Josh 
Underwood read the charges he faces.

If found guilty of 1st-degree murder, Martin could be sentenced to death or 
life in prison, Underwood said.

If found guilty of 2 counts of armed criminal action, Martin faces a sentence 
of 3 to 30 years in prison, and a 1st-degree robbery charge carries a sentence 
of 10 to 30 years or life in prison, the judge said.

New Madrid Prosecuting Attorney Andrew Lawson asked the court to set Martin's 
next appearance in about 3 weeks.

"The state will decide by then whether to seek the death penalty," Lawson said.

Underwood told Martin and the lawyers to return to court at 9 a.m. June 18.

Martin is accused of entering D and L One Stop in Parma, Missouri, as Smith and 
another employee were opening for business.

According to a probable-cause statement filed in the case, Martin, armed with a 
.22-caliber revolver, demanded Smith open the safe.

When she was unable to open it quickly enough, he shot her in the head.

Martin then ordered the other employee to give him some lottery tickets before 
fleeing the scene, according to the statement.

Law-enforcement officers identified him as a suspect when he attempted to cash 
in one of the lottery tickets Sunday at 2 businesses in Stoddard County.

Martin was arrested Sunday in St. Louis and returned to New Madrid County.

Lawson said the decision on whether to seek the death penalty in the case is 
based on whether it meets the statutory requirement of aggravated 
circumstances.

If the prosecution seeks the death penalty, Lawson said he will file documents 
with the court notifying it of the intention and to give the defendant and his 
attorney notice.

(source: Southeast Missourian)








NEBRASKA:

Inside the Unlikely Coalition That Just Got the Death Penalty Banned in 
Nebraska



When the final aye of the roll call vote was recorded on the electronic panel 
above the West Chamber of the Nebraska State Capitol in Lincoln yesterday, the 
crowd in the galleries overlooking the floor couldn't contain their shouts of 
relief. Or maybe it was disbelief. The wooden benches were filled with death 
penalty opponents who had come hoping to see the senators of the unicameral 
Legislature override Gov. Pete Ricketts' veto of a bill repealing the state's 
death penalty law - but they had good reason to worry they no longer had the 
necessary votes. After enduring more than 2 hours of heated debate (ranging 
from tearful stories of personal evolution to bellowed passages from the 
Bible), the override received exactly the 30 votes required. The death penalty 
was officially abolished in Nebraska, and activists whooped and clapped, 
prompting gavel-pounding and calls for order.

Repeal of the death penalty has been championed by liberals in the Legislature 
since 1973. Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, who sponsored this year's effort, has 
tried to repeal the death penalty 36 previous times in his four decades as a 
Nebraska legislator. He secured passage in 1979 but didn't have enough votes to 
override Gov. Charles Thone's veto. In 1992, the repeal was introduced with 25 
cosponsors, but support unraveled before a floor vote. Yet, ironically, what 
made yesterday's successful override possible was not Chambers himself but 
rather a new class of 18 first-year senators, who arrived all at once because 
of term limits originally passed in an effort to ouster Chambers. "I wish that 
I could say that it was my brilliance that brought us to this point," he said 
in opening debate on the bill, "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."

This new group of conservatives were won over to Chambers' viewpoint by a 
variety of factors - the cost of pursuing death penalty cases in a state that 
has executed just 3 death row inmates since 1959; very public scandals 
surrounding recent failures in the state penal system; suspicions about handing 
the ultimate authority over to any governmental agency; and a significant push 
by the Archdiocese of Omaha, with backing from the Vatican, to outlaw the death 
penalty. Still, Ricketts, also newly elected in the fall, never expected such 
swift movement - and fought hard to block it. Just this month, when some state 
senators pointed out that Nebraska didn't have the necessary drugs to carry out 
a lethal injection, the governor went so far as to acquire new drugs without 
legislative approval from a private company in India. When a major riot 
occurred at the state penitentiary facility in Tecumseh 2 weeks ago, where 2 
inmates were killed, Ricketts organized a tour for senators to survey the 
damage and argued that the death penalty was necessary to suppress such 
uprisings.

Nevertheless, a little more than a week ago, the repeal of the death penalty 
(LB268) passed by a comfortable 32-15 majority. But then, a tragedy struck that 
seemed destined to derail the effort. Just hours after the bill went to the 
governor's desk, Omaha police officer Kerrie Orozco, who had been delaying the 
start of her maternity leave until her premature baby could be discharged from 
the hospital, was shot dead on her final shift before she was scheduled to 
bring her daughter home. The shooting was near the Omaha districts represented 
by Chambers and Tanya Cook. News of the shooting brought issues of race to the 
surface (both Cook and Chambers are African American), especially after the 
governor called on constituents "to reach out to and talk to senators." Phone 
messages and emails started flooding into the Capitol - including death 
threats. A social-media campaign was launched against senators who "chose 
Chambers" over their constituents. Ricketts said that he didn't want to 
politicize Orozco's death but held off on issuing his veto until his return 
from her funeral in Omaha on Tuesday, which drew thousands of mourners to the 
procession route.

Under such pressure, Sen. Jerry Johnson of Wahoo withdrew his support of the 
repeal. Going into yesterday's session, both Sens. John Murante of Gretna and 
Robert Hilkemann of Omaha acknowledged that they were reconsidering their 
support for the repeal as well. If both flipped, the governor's veto would be 
upheld. So as debate on the veto override proceeded on the floor, the chamber 
grew palpably tense when Murante announced, "I pledged to do my best to vote 
the way the majority of my constituents want, and it has become obvious to me 
that the majority support Governor Ricketts' veto." Everything would come down 
to Hilkemann's vote. As senators continued to rise to speak for another hour, 
the lobbying of Hilkemann by both sides grew so intense that he left the floor. 
(2 citizens who were standing in the hallway reported seeing representatives 
from the governor's office shouting at him before the final vote.) After 
Hilkemann finally decided to continue his support for the repeal, sealing the 
30-19 victory, death penalty activists rushed to the chamber door to embrace 
him and shake his hand. He smiled broadly but insisted that he didn't deserve 
any special recognition. "We were all number 30," he said.

Within a matter of hours, the editorial board of the New York Times was 
ballyhooing the vote as a bipartisan acknowledgment, even "in the deep-red 
heart of America," that "capital punishment is an abhorrent and indefensible 
practice." But even as opponents of the death penalty are celebrating around 
the country, Sen. Beau McCoy of Omaha has announced the creation of Nebraskans 
for Justice, a new group dedicated to putting the death penalty on the ballot 
measure. If he can get signatures from 10 % of registered voters by the end of 
August, implementation of the law will be halted pending the outcome of the 
popular vote. So while the events of yesterday were stunning, especially to 
those of us who live in Nebraska, the future of the death penalty in the state 
- and the fate of the 10 men left on our death row - is far from certain.

(source Mother Jones)

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

Nebraska just banned the death penalty, but opponents say the fight isn't over. 
What happens next?



On Wednesday, Nebraska became the 1st state in 2 years to abolish the death 
penalty. Lawmakers narrowly voted to override a veto from the governor, 
deciding by a single vote to make Nebraska the 19th state in the country 
without capital punishment.

For opponents of capital punishment, the bill's passage offered a moment of 
relief after a long, emotional debate. But people who wanted the death penalty 
to remain the law of the land in Nebraska say the argument is far from over.

"Those of us that fought very hard to keep the death penalty in place in 
Nebraska are disappointed, but we know this is just the beginning of another 
long discussion and a continued long discussion about this issue in our state," 
state Sen. Beau McCoy said in an interview after the override vote Wednesday.

McCoy says he and other opponents of the bill are hoping to get the issue onto 
the ballot next year. Meanwhile, there is the question of what happens to the 
inmates currently on death row, as another high-ranking Nebraska official has 
vowed to fight a part of the bill that deals with those men.

What happens to death row inmates when there is no more death row?

First, it is important to note that the death penalty repeal bill did not 
automatically go into effect on Wednesday. Bills in Nebraska go into effect 3 
months after the legislature adjourns. The last day on the session's calendar 
is June 5 - the end of next week - so if the legislature sticks to that 
schedule, the bill would go into effect in early September.

But if the law does go into effect (more on that below), the state still has 10 
inmates on death row. There were 11 inmates when the legislature passed that 
bill last week, but the state Department of Corrections said that an inmate 
died Sunday.

The new bill states that these inmates will instead be given life sentences. 
The law says that in any case in which "the death penalty has been imposed but 
not carried out" before the repeal goes into effect, deaths sentence are 
converted to life in prison.

However, the state appears ready to fight this particular part of the new law. 
Doug Peterson, the state's attorney general and an outspoken critic of 
repealing the death penalty, said Thursday that he will challenge attempts to 
alter these sentences.

Peterson's office said in a statement that it believes this section of the law 
is unconstitutional, arguing that only the state's Board of Pardons can change 
court-imposed sentences.

"Thus, the Attorney General intends to seek a court decision, at the 
appropriate time, to definitively resolve the issue of the State's authority to 
carry out the death sentences previously ordered by Nebraska's courts for the 
10 inmates now on death row," his office said.

What have other states done to death row inmates after abolishing the death 
penalty?

Nebraska is the 7th state in the country to abolish the death penalty in the 
plast decade. Different states have handled this issue in various ways 
recently.

In 2013, Maryland abandoned capital punishment, but that did not apply to the 5 
prisoners on the state's death row at the time (1 of whom later died of natural 
causes). Late last year, as then-Gov. Martin O'Malley prepared to leave office, 
he said he would commute the sentences of the 4 remaining inmates, eventually 
giving them sentences of life in prison without parole.

Similarly, when Connecticut (in 2012) and New Mexico (in 2009) outlawed the 
death penalty, they did not apply that to the people already on death row. And 
a Connecticut jury sentenced a man to death there last year for a killing 
committed before the death penalty was banned.

Meanwhile, when Illinois abolished the death penalty in 2011, then-Gov. Pat 
Quinn also announced he was commuting the sentences of the state's death-row 
inmates and sentencing them to life imprisonment without parole. New Jersey's 
then governor, Jon Corzine, did the same thing in 2007, signing a bill 
repealing the death penalty and then commuting the state's 8 death-row inmates.

In New York, the issue was resolved by the courts. The New York Court of 
Appeals effectively suspended the death penalty in 2004, and the same court 
threw out the sentence of the last inmate on death row in 2007.

How supporters of capital punishment in Nebraska could get this issue onto a 
ballot

In Nebraska, while the attorney general said he will fight one portion of the 
law, other opponents are looking at how to undo the entire thing. Shortly after 
the vote on Wednesday, McCoy said he was forming of a group called Nebraskans 
for Justice, which is aimed at putting the death penalty issue before voters 
next year.

"I have heard from an enormous number of Nebraskans ... that are reaching out 
to help, offering to send money in order to help with this effort, who want to 
put this to a vote of the people, so Nebraskans as a whole have an opportunity 
to weigh in on this issue," said McCoy, a Republican who represents part of 
Douglas County, the state's largest county.

McCoy said his group would spend the coming weeks organizing and figuring out 
how, precisely, to go about this task. That will involve meeting with community 
groups and civic leaders as well as other Nebraska residents.

Nebraska has some very recent experience with pushing high-profile issues onto 
the ballot. Last year, supporters of a statewide minimum wage increase were 
able to get that topic before voters in the general election, and the measure 
passed.

To get a referendum on the ballot in Nebraska, supporters need to have a 
certain number of signatures depending on what, precisely, they are trying to 
do. A referendum suspending a law from taking effect requires the signatures of 
10 % of registered voters, according to the office of John Gale, the Nebraska 
secretary of state. However, a referendum aimed at repealing the law, rather 
than suspending it, would take 5 % of these voters.

People who want to repeal the new bill also have a limited window to act, 
because they need to submit signatures within 90 days of the close of the 
legislative session (before the law goes into effect, basically). If they get 
enough signatures, the referendum can appear on the ballot during the general 
election in November 2016.

Referendums can only be used to repeal laws passed by the legislature during 
the most recent session. If proponents of capital punishment want to amend the 
state's constitution, that would require 10 % of registered voters, while an 
entirely new law would require 7 % of these voters. These options would allow 
more time, because signatures have to be submitted only in July 2016.

(source: Washington Post)

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

Nebraska AG: Death Penalty Repeal is Unconstitutional



Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson added a new twist to the state 
legislatures decision to abolish the death penalty. Peterson said Thursday that 
it's his opinion that part of the law is unconstitutional.

On Wednesday, the legislature overrode Gov. Pete Ricketts' veto on repealing 
the death penalty by a 30-19 vote. 30 votes were needed to override his veto.

Now, the attorney general is questioning a part of the bill where it says, "It 
is the intent of the Legislature that in any criminal proceeding in which the 
death penalty has been imposed but not carried out prior to the effective date 
of this act, such penalty shall be changed to life in prison." In a statement 
Peterson said, "We believe this stated intent is unconstitutional."

He said the state constitution reserves to the Board of Pardons the exclusive 
power to change final sentences imposed by the courts. He will seek a court 
decision to definitively resolve the issue of the state's authority to carry 
out the death sentences previously ordered by Nebraska???s courts for the 10 
men currently on death row.

(source: WOWT news)

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

Capital punishment backers consider options for putting death penalty issue 
before Nebraska voters



Supporters of capital punishment moved immediately after Wednesday's vote to 
begin exploring how to put the issue of the death penalty before Nebraska 
voters.

State Sen. Beau McCoy of Omaha announced the formation of a group called 
"Nebraskans for Justice" that will look at gathering signatures for a voter 
referendum on the repeal law, or a ballot issue to enact a new law permitting 
capital punishment.

"My phone and email have been jammed the last couple of hours with people who 
want to help," McCoy said after the vote.

Nebraskans, he said, have already offered to work and donate money to such an 
effort.

"They want to weigh in on this issue, and I think they're going to get that 
opportunity," McCoy said.

The repeal of Nebraska's death penalty won't go into effect for 90 days, and 
supporters of capital punishment have at least 2 or 3 options.

One is a referendum petition.

Under the state constitution, if a group can collect signatures of 10 % of the 
state's registered voters within 90 days after the end of a legislative 
session, implementation of the new law is put on hold.

Voters would then decide the fate of the repeal law in a referendum during the 
next general election in 2016.

About 115,000 signatures would be required to put the repeal law on hold.

That would compare with the 134,899 signatures gathered over about 6 weeks last 
summer during a well-financed, successful effort to raise the minimum wage in 
Nebraska.

A 2nd option would be to gather signatures to force a referendum in 2016 
without suspending the law. That would require fewer signatures: 5 % of 
registered voters.

Either referendum option would require the signatures to be collected within 90 
days.

Another option, one that would give such a group more time to organize and 
gather signatures, would be to propose a new state law or constitutional 
amendment concerning capital punishment.

To get a law change placed on the 2016 general election ballot would require 
gathering the signatures of 7 % of registered voters. A proposed constitutional 
amendment would require more signatures, 10 % of registered voters. Either way, 
those signatures would not be due until July 2016.

McCoy said his group will consider its options in the next couple of weeks.

Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers, the Legislature's leading proponent of repealing the 
death penalty, chided McCoy for considering such an effort now.

"Anger, disappointment can lead you to say and do things in a way that is 
impetuous, unrealistic and unwise," Chambers said. "So that's what he's doing 
now, and it won't go anywhere."

(source: Omaha World-Herald)

*********

NYS cultivated wave against death penalty



The debate was emotional and included citations that ranged from the Bible to 
constituent email. And by the time it was over, Nebraska had become the 1st 
conservative state to abolish the death penalty in 40 years.

The repeal on Wednesday underscores the work of a diverse coalition, including 
Republican lawmakers who believe capital punishment is inefficient, wrong or 
both. And the win in Nebraska for death penalty opponents comes just before the 
U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on the use of a lethal injection drug 
that led to botched executions, and as several states scramble to get the 
chemicals.

Nebraska -- the 1st with a majority GOP legislature to ban the death penalty 
since North Dakota in 1973 -- may have tipped the scale. It joined New York and 
17 other states that have banned the death penalty since the U.S. Supreme Court 
revived the practice in 1976. Since then, Americans have debated capital 
punishment, grappling with its flaws while trying to fix it. New York 
determined 10 years ago that the death penalty could not be fixed and that it 
was time to let it go.

New York's action marked a turning point in America's move from the death 
penalty, just as Illinois had marked a turning point 5 years earlier and 
Nebraska marked a turning point this week.

The campaign to eliminate capital punishment came into sharp view in 2000, when 
Illinois became the 1st state to impose a moratorium on executions to fix the 
system. America wasn't ready to give up on the death penalty then, but concerns 
about wrongful convictions were growing. Illinois' moratorium helped put those 
concerns into policy, and a number of states set up studies or reformed their 
systems.

However, New York's decision to abandon the death penalty changed the 
conversation -- from how to fix capital punishment, as Illinois had asked, to 
whether it should be fixed at all. In New York, the courts had sent the death 
penalty back to the State Legislature to fix a flaw in the process. After 5 
public hearings, featuring more than 170 witnesses, the Assembly decided not to 
change the defect and let the death penalty die.

Several states went through a similar process after New York State. New Jersey 
decided to suspend executions and conduct a study, and it repealed the death 
penalty in 2007. Illinois' moratorium lasted 10 years before lawmakers repealed 
capital punishment in 2011. Maryland studied the death penalty twice, passed 
the nation's most restrictive death penalty reforms in 2009, and 4 years later 
repealed it.

The last execution in Nebraska was in 1997. Lawmakers there held on to the 
death penalty for another 18 years, changing execution methods and trying to 
get executions back on track. But the more they looked at the system, they 
found a risk of executing innocent people, a lengthy process that harmed 
victims' families, and high costs for no return.

Nebraska isn't the 1st red state to reconsider the death penalty. In the last 
few years, Republicans have sponsored repeal legislation in GOP-controlled 
chambers in Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming. In 2010, 
Kansas' Senate came within 1 vote of repeal. This year, Montana's House of 
Representatives also came within 1 vote.

The momentum sparked by New York's Democratic Assembly 10 years ago cultivated 
a wave against the death penalty. Nebraska's decision marks the a new wave of 
repeal because the process has now become bipartisan.

(source: Op-Ed; Shari Silberstein, Newsday)

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

UN rights office welcomes Nebraska as latest US state to abolish death penalty



Welcoming Nebraska as the 19th state in the United States to abolish the death 
penalty, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) today 
urged the Federal Government to engage with those states retaining the policy 
towards achieving a nationwide moratorium as a 1st step to abolition.

"We welcome the abolition of the death penalty in the state of Nebraska on 
Wednesday," said OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani, who added that Nebraska 
has not executed any inmates since 1997.

States, such as Colorado, Delaware, Montana and Kansas, whose legislative 
bodies are currently debating the abolition of the death penalty, are 
encouraged to follow Nebraska's lead, Ms. Shamdasani said.

OHCHR also called on the US Federal Government, at the recommendation of the 
Human Rights Committee in March 2014, to establish a federal level moratorium 
on the death penalty, while engaging "retentionist states with a view to 
achieving a nationwide moratorium," as a 1st step towards abolition.

The number of people executed each year, and the size of the population on 
death row in the US have progressively declined in the past 10 years. In 2014, 
the death penalty was carried out only by 7 states, and the number of 
executions was 35, the lowest since 1994.

(source: UN News Centre)








SOUTH DAKOTA:

AG Jackley Reacts To NE Death Penalty Repeal



With just 1 vote, the death penalty in Nebraska is gone. The state's debate 
over capital punishment quickly caught the attention of South Dakota Attorney 
General Marty Jackley.

"You know, there had been a lot of discussions about what could happen in 
Nebraska, and I think it just recently became a reality. I think people had 
felt that it may pass the legislature, but that a Governor's veto was likely," 
Jackley said.

That veto came this week, but just a day later, the legislature voted again to 
overturn that decision. Nebraska becomes the 18th state to repeal the death 
penalty, and as Jackley can attest, the discussions behind ending capital 
punishment are always emotionally charged.

"It's a hard discussion. These are tough issues that the legislators have 
overwhelmingly looked at it and decided that our very narrow scheme in South 
Dakota has been appropriate. Our most highest court, the South Dakota Supreme 
Court, has held it to be constitutional," Jackley said.

Jackley has been part of talks the past 2 legislative sessions for looking into 
a death penalty repeal, but each time those talks never reached the level they 
did in Nebraska. He also says South Dakota isn't dealing with some of the 
capital punishment problems states like Nebraska have battled.

"We haven't had a situation where we haven't had the substances available or 
that there had been issues that perhaps Oklahoma or other states have 
experienced. I really attribute that to the preparations put in place by the 
DOC," Jackley said.

Jackley believes the way sentences are carried out and how rare they are will 
keep South Dakota from following in Nebraska's footsteps.

"There are just those unfortunate situations where in order to save an innocent 
life and to protect the public or corrections officers or law enforcement, we 
really have no other choice," Jackley said.

Jackley does say the decision in Nebraska will keep the discussions about the 
death penalty in South Dakota going in Pierre, but he still believes there 
isn't enough momentum to make a change.

(source: keloland.com)