[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., FLA., OHIO, NEB., ARIZ., US MIL., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 6



NORTH CAROLINA:

Gregory brought from NY to face Raleigh murder, rape, kidnap charges


Kendrick Keyanti Gregory made his 1st appearance in a Wake County courtroom 
Thursday, where District Court Judge Jacqueline Brewer told him he could be put 
to death if he is convicted of the 1st-degree murder of a Capital Boulevard 
pawn shop owner this summer.

Gregory, 21, was brought from New York City back to Raleigh this week to face 
charges he shot Thomas Durand at his store in Mini City during a daylong string 
of violent crimes on Aug. 31. That same day, police say, Gregory also raped a 
15-year-old girl on a North Raleigh street as well as shot Lenin Alvaringa and 
stole $780 from him outside a New Bern Avenue hotel.

Police also accused Gregory of taking a handgun that friends said Durand always 
carried when he was in the pawn shop.

A Wake County grand jury indicted Gregory on 10 charges, including 1st-degree 
murder, 1st-degree rape, 3 counts of robbery with a dangerous weapon and 
possession of a firearm by a felon.

Short in stature with a slim build, Gregory walked into a 3rd-floor courtroom 
in downtown Raleigh on Thursday afternoon clad in red prison garb. He appeared 
with Jonathan Broun, an attorney with the N.C. Capital Defenders Office who 
declined to comment after the hearing.

Gregory was quiet as Brewer told him he could be put to death or spend the rest 
of life in prison if convicted of murder. The judge also read the cache of 
remaining charges against him and explained that regardless of the murder 
charge he could spend decades in prison if convicted of them.

New York City police arrested Gregory on Sept. 1. They said he was driving a 
car that had been stolen a short time earlier from outside a bank in lower 
Manhattan, where the owner reportedly had left it running.

Prosecutors in Manhattan told a judge last month that they would defer their 
charges against Gregory so he could be returned to Raleigh. Gregory waived a 
hearing to fight extradition, and North Carolina corrections officers took 
custody of him following a Wednesday morning court appearance in Manhattan.

In its indictment of Gregory for having a gun illegally, the grand jury cited a 
black pistol that it said was used to shoot Alvaringa and rob him outside the 
hotel. The felony cited in the possession charge was from a guilty plea he 
entered Aug. 26 to a charge of breaking into a motor vehicle on July 31.

In addition to the charges related to what happened Aug. 31, Gregory has also 
been charged with breaking into homes off New Hope Church Road. 1 warrant 
accuses him breaking into an apartment on Bonneville Court on Aug. 29 and 
taking a pair of jeans, a wallet and 2 sets of keys, while the 2nd warrant 
charges that he broke into a 3-family home on Brockton Drive on July 24.

After his arrest in New York, Gregory's mother said that he suffered from 
mental illness and was hearing voices. A woman who encountered Gregory at a 
fast-food restaurant earlier this year said he asked her to pray with him 
because he couldn't control his body.

Stephen McNair of Raleigh, a friend of Durand, wishes someone had intervened. 
McNair, 37, said he used to visit the slain man's pawn shop with his father and 
decided to attend Gregory's court hearing after a friend called him that 
morning and told him about it.

"I wanted to see him. I really didn't have closure, and I wanted to see him," 
McNair said. "If he was truly mentally ill, why didn't somebody catch it? Why 
didn't someone put a stop to it?"

(source: News & Observer)






FLORIDA:

Proposed bill would allow death penalty for killing local law enforcement


Law enforcement and first responders are asked to serve and protect their 
communities. Unfortunately, this could cost some their lives. Lawmakers are 
pushing a bill that would impose the death penalty for the killing of local law 
enforcement and first responders. There is already a law to help federal law 
enforcement, but the new bill would extend that to local officials as well.

Bay County Sheriff's Office Major Tommy Ford says it's a good step in the right 
direction.

The new bill will amend the federal criminal code to make the killing or 
attempted killing of a local law enforcement officer or first responder an 
aggravating factor in death penalty determinations.

According to the present law, this is already in effect for federal enforcement 
officers and prosecutors. The new bill will allow that same rule to apply to 
juries dealing with local law enforcement and first responders.

One local family knows this process all too well. Panama City Beach Police 
Sergeant Kevin Kight was shot and killed during a traffic stop in 2005. The man 
who murdered him is now on death row.

Kight's Widow, Christina Kight-McVay, says she would be in favor of the 
proposed law.

"I think it's going to be more for the families; its going to give them peace 
of mind," said McVay.

Several local authorities are in favor of the new proposed bill as well.

"It is not alright to harm law enforcement officers, and there will be serious 
consequences. In this case, anyone that kills a law enforcement officer would 
receive the death penalty," said Ford.

Next the bill must be passed by both the House and Senate in identical form and 
then be signed by the President before it becomes a law.

(source: mypanhandle.com)

**********

Pushing for life: Death penalty opponents share their opinions at Ave Maria law 
school


George F. Kain is a death penalty convert.

A retired corrections officer from Connecticut, he was a staunch believer in 
capital punishment. He believed it was the right thing to keep communities safe 
from the biggest and baddest criminals.

Now a professor of justice and law administration at Western Connecticut State 
University and a police commissioner, he travels the nation to speak against 
the death penalty.

"If people knew the truth about the death penalty - the risk of executing the 
innocent, the discrimination against minorities - they would never be able to 
support it," Kain said. "The death penalty doesn't keep us safe."

Kain was 1 of 3 speakers at a death penalty panel discussion at the Ave Maria 
School of Law on Tuesday. The panel, which included Sheila Hopkins, board chair 
of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, and Mark Elliott, 
executive director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, is 
involved in a statewide effort to abolish the death penalty in Florida.

The panelists argued that a life sentence in prison is enough, that factors 
like eyewitness misidentification, false confessions, prosecutorial misconduct 
and evidence flaws contribute to false convictions and executions.

Statistics from the Death Penalty Information Center shows that Florida has 
executed 91 people since 1976 after the Supreme Court reinstated capital 
punishment. 24 innocent people have been freed from Florida's death row, which 
currently has 391 inmates, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.

The cost is another issue.

"Taxpayers help pay for executions," Elliott said. "We're all involved in these 
killings whether we like it or not."

A report from the Florida Bar estimates that the state spends $51 million a 
year to implement the death penalty. It is unclear how much money the state 
would save by keeping inmates behind bars for life, instead of executing them.

Some of the students who attended the panel discussion agreed that the death 
penalty should be abolished.

"Some people argue that the more heinous the crime, the more atrocious the 
punishment. But there's a remedy for that: life in prison," said Meghan Davis, 
an Ave Maria law student who has worked with criminal defense lawyers for 7 
years.

Davis said that working with an attorney who worked on the Florida Innocence 
Project piqued her interest on the issue.

"With capital punishment, we put people's lives in our own hands," she said. 
"There's little objectivity because the jury doesn't have to be unanimous. I 
don't agree with it."

Florida is the only state to only require a 7-5 jury vote in recommending the 
death penalty. Delaware and Alabama require 10 votes, and the remaining states 
require a unanimous vote.

In Florida, once the jury recommends the death sentence, the judge can accept 
or overturn the recommendation.

Brian Ashby, president of the law school's Criminal Justice Society, said the 
discussion made him think, but it didn't change his mind about supporting the 
death penalty.

"I know it has its flaws and can be improved significantly, but I don't think 
repealing the whole capital punishment system is a good idea," he said.

He did, however, agree that a jury should be unanimous in its decision to 
recommend the death penalty. Ashby also believes capital punishment is fit for 
those who have committed unspeakable crimes.

"It's limited to acts that are the most heinous. People waking up one morning 
and deciding they were going to kill someone. Not an accident, not something 
that happened in the heat of passion, but murder. A person who went through the 
thought process and followed through with it," he said. "The way I see it is 
that the person's victim didn't have the luxury of being put on a gurney, 
injected with drugs and being put to sleep."

(source: Naples News)






OHIO:

State closer to reconsidering death penalty


I thank The Dispatch for its evolving perspective on Ohio's death penalty 
("Worth the trouble?" editorial, Oct. 18). The editorial asked whether the 
death penalty is worthwhile because it is difficult to impose and trying to 
make it work uses up too much time, energy and money.

In its Tuesday editorial "Shine light on executions," The Dispatch rightly 
raised a core belief all Ohioans share: The most irrevocable act government 
undertakes should be transparent. It is admirable to see a newspaper that has 
long been a staunch supporter of the death penalty begin to rethink this very 
challenging issue. In doing so, it is not alone.

Among those now calling for the repeal of Ohio's death-penalty laws are some 
who were previously its most ardent enforcers, including the very architects of 
the law itself.

2 such changed minds belong to Supreme Court Justice Paul Pfeiffer and former 
Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro, who as legislators worked to pass Ohio's 
death-penalty law in 1981.

Terry Collins and Reginald Wilkinson, who between them helped execute more than 
40 Ohio prisoners in their roles at the Ohio Department of Correction and 
Rehabilitation, now call themselves members of Ohioans to Stop Executions.

Even former Gov. Bob Taft, who saw 24 executions on his watch, has publicly 
questioned his continued support for the punishment.

While we've not yet seen The Dispatch call for the abolition of capital 
punishment in Ohio, that day no longer seems impossible or far off. The reason 
is simple: Once anyone holds up Ohio's death-penalty law for close inspection, 
the arguments for it fall away among grave errors, inequity of application, 
secrecy and the failure to accomplish any of its most basic intentions. While 
we won't all get to that conclusion immediately, at the very least we should be 
asking ourselves the exact questions The Dispatch is raising.

KEVIN WERNER -- Executive director -- Ohioans to Stop Executions -- Columbus

(source: Letlter to the Editor, Columbus Dispatch)

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

Killer spared death penalty


A Butler County jury decided Thursday that Daniel French would not be put to 
death for killing an 87-year-old woman.

After deliberating for about 90 minutes, the jury spared his life and 
recommended a sentence of life in prison without parole.

It took the jury about two hours last week to convict French in the brutal 2012 
death of Barbara Howe of Middletown.

Before jurors went into the room to deliberate his sentence Thursday, French 
got a chance to address them.

"Hello everyone, I'm Daniel French," he said.

After nearly 3 weeks, the jury tasked with deciding whether French should be 
put to death finally got to hear from him. The 57-year-old convicted of 
aggravated murder spoke for about 2 minutes.

Reading from a yellow legal pad, French spoke softly, rarely looking up. He 
told the jury, seated a few feet from him, he was a man with 3 children who had 
been married twice.

"I destroyed a life. I caused a great pain and suffering by my actions," French 
said. "I became a monster that I believe was never there."

Before the sentence was announced, French's sister, LeeAnn Ifcic, rocked back 
and forth in her courtroom seat. Then she stood, trembling, before the jury was 
brought in.

One of French's attorneys, Lawrence Hawkins III, had his hand on his client's 
shoulder the entire time. He patted him on the back as the decision was read. 
Melynda Cook, French's other attorney, turned to French and smiled.

French shook her hand and looked to the back of the courtroom where Ifcic and 
another sister sat. He smiled, probably for the first time during the trial, 
and blew her a kiss. French then hugged his sisters, who cried, before he was 
escorted out.

Common Pleas Court Judge Charles Pater will decide whether to proceed with the 
jury's recommended sentence during a hearing Nov. 16. He cannot upgrade it to 
death.

French told the jury he offered to plead guilty before the trial started if he 
was granted life in prison without parole because he didn't want to cause 
anymore pain.

Butler County Prosecutor Mike Gmoser, who turned down that offer, said 
afterward he "wanted the people of Butler County to decide."

And they did.

"I stand before you, or sit before you, filled with great remorse and sorrow," 
French said. "If I could change time I would in a heartbeat, but I cannot 
change time."

On Wednesday, French's friends and family testified about decades of abuse he 
and his siblings suffered at the hands of his mother and father.

"Mom and dad weren't very nice people," said Kenneth French, Daniel's brother.

That was a focal point the defense counsel focused on throughout the sentencing 
phase. At times, the details even made Howe's family cringe.

On Thursday, a clinical psychologist testified French suffered from a "major 
depressive disorder, recurrent with psychotic features." He also has anxiety, 
panic disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from childhood 
abuse, said Nancy Schmidtgoessling.

Schmidtgoessling, who has been a psychologist for 35 years, recently evaluated 
French. She spoke with him at the Butler County Jail 3 different times for a 
total of about 5 hours.

"He reported being depressed his whole life," said Schmidtgoessling.

She testified this did not mean he was insane and told the jury he knew what he 
did was doing.

Prosecutors questioned the way she arrived at her conclusion, specifically with 
how French's depression related to his childhood. Prosecutor Gmoser argued 
French's depression could have been because he was the prime suspect for two 
years in a murder investigation.

He also said French tried to minimize his involvement in Howe's brutal death to 
police and simply did so again to the psychologist.

When Judge Pater read the jury's recommendation, Howe's family sat without much 
of a reaction. Afterward, their comments were brief.

Pat Marshall, Howe's sister, consoled French's sisters before leaving.

"It's been hard on both families," she said. "Justice was served."

(source: cincinnati.com)






NEBRASKA:

Nebraska corrections director grilled over $54,000 purchase of foreign-made 
execution drugs


Nebraska's corrections director faced blistering criticism Thursday for 
spending more than $54,000 on foreign-made lethal injection drugs the state 
hasn't received because the federal government says their import is illegal.

Members of a legislative oversight committee grilled Nebraska Department of 
Correctional Services Director Scott Frakes over the purchase, saying he 
approved the prepayment without following typical procedures or taking steps to 
ensure the state could recover the money.

Frakes' testimony during a wide-ranging hearing on the troubled state prison 
system offered new details about Nebraska's efforts to obtain execution drugs 
amid a nationwide shortage.

The corrections director agreed to buy sodium thiopental and pancuronium 
bromide from Chris Harris, a distributor in India who contacted him in April, 
as lawmakers were debating whether to abolish the death penalty. Both drugs are 
required in Nebraska's 3-drug lethal injection protocol.

Lawmakers repeatedly questioned Frakes about whom he consulted before making 
the purchase, and whether he spoke with Gov. Pete Ricketts. Frakes responded by 
saying he couldn't remember whether the governor or others were in meetings 
during which the drugs were discussed.

The drugs were never delivered because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration 
has said their import is illegal. Attempts to ship the drugs in August via 
FedEx were thwarted because the transport company said it lacked the required 
paperwork required to travel internationally.

Sen. Heath Mello of Omaha said he was concerned that the state had no way to 
recoup the tax money paid to Harris.

"I'm not trying to get you to say that you're never going to get the drugs," 
Mello told Frakes. "I know you're never going to get those drugs."

Frakes told lawmakers that he spoke with Harris last week and was waiting for 
him to complete the necessary paperwork and registration to try shipping the 
drugs again.

Sen. Paul Schumacher of Columbus said the hearing marked a "sad day" because 
lawmakers had supported Frakes after Ricketts appointed him in January. 2 
previous corrections directors left their positions amid criticism that the 
department was mismanaged.

"We thought you were going to be a breath of fresh air that we could trust," he 
said, adding later: "I'd bet you that no one in this room believes you."

Ricketts, who supports capital punishment, announced the purchase of the drugs 
shortly before lawmakers abolished the death penalty in May despite his veto. 
Death penalty supporters responded with a statewide petition drive that 
successfully suspended the repeal law until voters decide whether to keep the 
punishment in November 2016.

Members of the oversight committee who questioned Frakes all voted to repeal 
the death penalty.

Nebraska officials bought the drugs from Harris, who also sold execution drugs 
to the state in 2010. The drugs' manufacturer later accused Harris of 
misrepresenting how he intended to use them, and legal challenges prevented the 
state from using that batch of drugs before it expired.

The latest drug batch was bought without a request for proposals, a standard 
practice the state uses to buy goods and services. Frakes said one of his 
deputies consulted with the Department of Administrative Services - which 
oversees state purchases - and told him the purchase was allowed.

He acknowledged under questioning that he allowed Harris to dictate the price 
and quantity of both drugs. Nebraska spent $26,700 for 1,000 doses of sodium 
thiopental and $26,000 for 1,000 doses of pancuronium bromide, despite having 
only 10 men currently on death row. Nebraska's last execution was in 1997, 
using the electric chair.

"The decision was made because the seller, the vendor, said those are the 
terms," Frakes said in testimony to the committee.

Nebraska and other states have been forced to come up new sources for drugs as 
pharmaceutical companies, many of which are based in Europe, have stopped 
selling them for executions.

(source: Associated Press)



ARIZONA:

Arizona death row inmate asks for pardon


He sits there on death row, never having actually killed anybody.

Meanwhile, the murderer - 1 of 2 men he was with that gruesome night - will 
someday go free. Maybe someday soon.

Patrick Bearup says he has faith in the justice system, the one that has marked 
him for execution. He's asked the state Board of Executive Clemency to 
recommend that he be pardoned in the 2002 murder of Mark Mathes.

"I believe that people will see that this is an act of God versus anything 
else," Bearup told me. "I know I am in a right-wing state. I'm a right-wing 
conservative myself. It's an uphill battle but I believe in justice and I 
believe that Gov. (Doug) Ducey and the board will see that there is some merit 
to what I'm asking."

Bearup, 38, is the 1st death-row inmate in Arizona ever to seek a pardon. It's 
hard to feel much sympathy for the guy, who insists he was in the wrong place 
at the wrong time. But something's not right here.

In February 2002, Bearup was 1 of 3 men who went to Mathes' Phoenix home to 
confront him about $200 in missing money that belonged to Mathes' roommate, 
Jessica Nelson.

According to prosecutors' theory of the case, the 3 men surrounded Mathes on 
the patio and Jeremy Johnson proceeded to beat him with an aluminum baseball 
bat, hitting him in the head and upper body as many as 25 times. Johnson and 
Bearup then dragged him to a car and stuffed him into the trunk.

The men and Nelson drove to a remote spot near Crown King where testimony 
indicated Bearup cut off Mathes' finger to retrieve a ring for Nelson. Mathes 
was thrown over the guardrail into a ravine, then shot twice by Gaines.

It's not known whether the beating or the shooting killed Mathes, whose body 
was found a year later by hunters.

What is known: this case has a odor to it. Eau de payback, perhaps?

All 3 men and Nelson were charged with 1st-degree murder and then-Maricopa 
County Attorney Andrew Thomas announced his office would seek the death 
penalty.

Then he doled out 3 plea bargains.

Johnson along with Nelson, who instigated the confrontation, got deals to 
2nd-degree murder and kidnapping and were sentenced to 14 years. Gaines pleaded 
guilty to 2nd-degree murder and got 25 years.

Bearup, meanwhile, was never offered a plea deal.

Put another way, prosecutors wanted death for the man who didn???t kill anyone 
while offering leniency to the men who did and to the woman who set up the 
attack.

It's worth noting that Bearup???s father, Tom, was a major thorn in the side of 
Thomas' cohort, Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Bearup was Arpaio's top aide until 1997, 
when they had a falling out. Arpaio has said Bearup was incompetent. Bearup 
says he refused to help cover up the 1996 death of jail inmate Scott Norberg. 
Norberg died after being beaten and tied into a restraint chair -- a case that 
eventually cost the county $8.25 million.

Bearup ran against Arpaio in 2000 and again in 2004, while his son was in jail 
awaiting trial.

The elder Bearup believes there's an easy explanation for why his son, who had 
a prior conviction for aggravated assault, wasn't offered a deal.

"It's retaliation against me and that's the most difficult thing that I've had 
to deal with," Tom Bearup told me. "He's there (on death row) because of me. I 
had the audacity to stand up against these people in the beginning. Everything 
I said at that time is coming out with Judge (Murray) Snow now: the cover ups 
and going after people. Laurie, this is ludicrous in America. But it happened."

As a condition of their plea deals, both Johnson and Nelson testified against 
Bearup. After being found guilty of 1st-degree murder and kidnapping in 2007, 
Bearup opted not to offer any defense to counter prosecutors' push for a death 
sentence.

Given that, jurors had little choice but to decree that Bearup should die.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Warren Granville, in sentencing Bearup to 
12 years for the kidnapping conviction, was disturbed enough to rebuke Thomas. 
A death sentence, Granville wrote, was "not justified in the context of the 
relative responsibility of the co-defendants". But there was nothing he could 
do.

"It is County Attorney's motto that 'let justice be done.' This, of course 
coincides with a prosecutor's unique ethical responsibility," Granville wrote. 
"This Court finds that justice was not done for Mr. Bearup."

The Supreme Court let Bearup's death sentence stand, noting that although he 
didn't kill Mathes, he was a "major participant" in the crime.

Bearup, who was ordained as a minister last year, is appealing to the Board of 
Executive Clemency for a pardon on the murder conviction. The board has 
scheduled a Tuesday hearing. If the board agrees, it would be up to Ducey to 
make the call.

"I just pray that God opens that door," Bearup told me. "1 way or another it's 
in his hands. Even if he calls me to stay in here, I know that I'm going to 
walk out faithfully what he has for me."

It's hard to envision a pardon. Yet I wonder ...

Gaines, the man who shot Mathes, could be out by 2025.

Nelson and Johnson, the man who beat Mathes to death or nearly so with a 
baseball bat, will be out in September 2017.

... Are we really willing to execute the man who didn't kill anybody while the 
actual killer walks free?

(source: Arizona Republic)






US MILITARY:

Fort Hood shooter's lawyer predicts death-penalty escape----Convicted 
murderer's legal team sees winning appeal


John P. Galligan, a defense attorney who represented the former Army Major in 
civil court, says the convicted murderer is not likely to pay with his life for 
the mass shooting.

"Is the death penalty in this case going to be sustained on appeal? I say, 
probably not," Galligan told the Killeen Daily Herald on Thursday.

Hasan was found guilty on on 13 charges of premeditated murder and 32 of 
attempted murder Aug. 23, 2013. His execution would be the first for an 
active-duty soldier in more than 50 years.

Galligan said the case will immediately be appealed once the U.S. Army 
authenticates and approves the transcripts from Hasan's trial.

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"Several steps of the post-trial process must occur prior to action by the 
general court-martial convening authority," Fort Hood officials told the 
newspaper. "These steps include authentication of the record by the military 
judge, review by the staff judge advocate, and potential submission of clemency 
matters by the accused. The current General Court-Martial Convening Authority 
is Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland. The completed record has not been forwarded to the 
convening authority and may be presented to him or any successor in command 
without restarting the post-trial process."

Galligan will eventually make the case that Hasan was denied the opportunity to 
effectively testify before the court. The Army also refused to pay a 
physiologist to evaluate bullet wounds he sustained during the rampage.

"He was effectively foreclosed of any meaningful opportunity to testify. The 
judge told him pretrial he wasn't going to allow him to argue or present 
evidence on this business about defense of thirds," the attorney said.

Hasan planned to say his actions saved the lives of Iraq children jeopardized 
by the U.S. military.

"If a jury had been at least presented with those things, I think there would 
have at least been a possibility," that Hasan would have only received a life 
sentence instead of the death penalty, Galligan told the newspaper. "I joke 
with people who ask me if Hasan got a fair trial at Fort Hood. He couldn't even 
get a bank account at Fort Hood, much less a fair trial."

(source: wnd.com)






USA:

Democrats' divide on death penalty emerges as major point of difference -- Less 
than 3 decades ago, calling for an end to the death penalty on the campaign 
trail could sink a candidate. Now, with public support for executions waning, 
Democrats are making it a key issue


A generation ago, opposition to the death penalty ended political careers.

Now, the 3 candidates sparring for the Democratic nomination are questioning 
the effectiveness and application of the death penalty.

Among them, only former secretary of state Hillary Clinton opposes abolishing 
the practice, and only in certain cases. Former Maryland governor Martin 
O'Malley signed into law a repeal of the death penalty in his state in 2013 and 
commuted sentences of the state's remaining death row inmates in 2014. And 
Vermont senator Bernie Sanders has been a vocal opponent of the practice as 
matter or principle and policy.

As the candidates prepare to square off at a Democratic forum in South Carolina 
on Friday evening, the issue of the death penalty has emerged on the campaign 
trail as a point of contention in a race that has swerved to the left.

While in New Hampshire last week, Clinton said she did not support abolition 
and that "there are certain egregious cases" which merit the punishment. She 
expressed concern that the practice "has been too frequently applied, and too 
often in a discriminatory way". She added that it is an issue she believes is 
best left to the states.

-----

What the death penalty looks like in the US today

Along with the federal government, a majority of US states (32) have the death 
penalty. Over the past 4 years, governors in 4 states have halted executions, 
citing questions over the fairness of capital punishment, among other issues. 
18 states and the District of Columbia have abolished the death penalty 
outright.

A 10-year, county-wide moratorium on capital punishment was in effect from 
1967-1977, but the death penalty was reinstated in January of that year. Nearly 
1,500 people have been executed since - more than 1/3 of them in Texas.

Years death penalty was abolished by state: Michigan (1846), Wisconsin (1853), 
Maine (1887), Minnesota (1911), Alaska, Hawaii (1957), Vermont (1964), Iowa, 
West Virginia (1965), North Dakota (1973), District of Columbia (1981), 
Massachusetts, Rhode Island (1984), New Jersey, New York (2007), New Mexico 
(2009), Illinois (2011), Connecticut (2012), Maryland (2013). Moratoria: Oregon 
(2011), Colorado (2013), Washington (2014), Pennsylvania (2015).

Nebraska lawmakers abolished the death penalty in May 2015, but a petition 
drive to overturn their decision succeeded in October. The issue will be put to 
voters in 2016.

The federal government has put to death 3 people since 1977.

[source: Death Penalty Information Center]

-----

After the event, Clinton expanded on her remarks in an interview with a New 
Hampshire news network. "We ought to reserve it for terrorism and related 
incidents that are, like the Boston Marathon bomber," she told NH1. "So that's 
why I think we should be really limiting it but not abolishing it when it comes 
to applying it."

O'Malley, who called the capital sentencing of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev "ineffective 
as a deterrent", immediately responded to Clinton's comments, declaring that as 
president he would work to ???build consensus to end it nationally".

"The death penalty is [a] racially biased, ineffective deterrent to crime, and 
we must abolish it," O'Malley said in a statement.

The following day, Sanders, Clinton's chief rival, took to the US Senate floor 
to declare that "the time is now for the United States to end capital 
punishment" and said ending the practice was the "right point of view".

"I would rather have our country stand side-by-side with European democracies 
rather than with countries like China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and others who 
maintain the death penalty," he told his Senate colleagues.

"I think that those of us who want to set an example - who want to say that we 
have got to end the murders and the violence that we're seeing in our country 
and all over the world - should, in fact, be on the side of those of us who 
believe that we must end capital punishment in this country."

Several decades ago, views like this are believed to have sunk the White House 
ambitions of then-Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis.

In 1988, 1 presidential aspirants took the stage in Los Angeles for the 2nd 
debate of the election campaign.

"Governor,' began CNN anchor Bernard Shaw's famous question about the 
governor's wife. "If Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an 
irrevocable death penalty for the killer?"

Dukakis replied: "No, I don't, Bernard, and I think you know that I've opposed 
the death penalty during all of my life."

The moment scarred the Democratic party, tired of being pilloried by 
Republicans as "soft on crime".

4 years later, the Democratic presidential candidate, then-Arkansas governor 
Bill Clinton, would stop campaigning in New Hampshire to return home and 
personally oversee the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a convicted murderer who 
was so mentally impaired that he requested the pecan pie served as his last 
meal be saved for "tomorrow". The move, many would speculate, was an attempt to 
show he was tough enough.

Public support for capital punishment peaked in 1994 - the year crime and drugs 
were top issues for voters, according to Gallup polling. But in the decades 
since then, as violent crime and murder rates have fallen, so too has support 
for the death penalty.

The most recent Gallup poll on the issue found that 61% of respondents still 
favored the death penalty for someone convicted of murder. However, Democrats 
are far less likely to support the death penalty than Republicans, respectively 
49% versus 82%.

The prospect of executing an innocent person has raised efficacy questions 
around the practice, while the length and cost of the current appeals process 
has raised concerns about its economic efficiency. Meanwhile, politicians from 
both parties are calling for criminal justice reform and an end to the era of 
mass incarceration.

"That's where we are in the United States," said Diann Rust-Tierney, the 
executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. "And 
it's coming up more in conversation as we try to figure out a nation how to 
move forward without the death penalty."

She said the debate over the death penalty has lost some of its political 
potency as a preponderance of evidence suggests executions are not an effective 
deterrent to crime.

More frequent media coverage has also helped raise public awareness of the 
racial disparities in capital sentencing and the number of innocent inmates 
exonerated from death row, Rust-Tierney said. DNA evidence and other testing 
methods have helped exonerate 156 condemned prisoners, according to the Death 
Penalty Information Center.

Since 2007, 6 states have abolished the death penalty, a sign of the growing 
backlash against the practice. In May, Nebraska became the 1st conservative 
state in 40 years to repeal its death penalty law, although the law has since 
been put on hold by a referendum campaign to reverse it.

"We've seen in state after state," Rust-Tierney said. "As Justice Blackmun 
wrote in Callins v Collins 'I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of 
death.' We have tried to get this right and we can't. So the conversation is 
changing."

When marshaling support to end public executions in Maryland, O'Malley framed 
the debate as a matter of public policy rather than one of moral consequence. 
The practice doesn't prevent crime and its not cost-efficient, he argued then.

At the signing of the bill, O'Malley said: "We have a responsibility to stop 
doing the things that are wasteful and ineffective."

How big an issue the death penalty will become in the primary will likely 
depend on Clinton's challengers, both of whom are eager to tout their relative 
progressiveness and shine a light between their platforms and hers.

Opposing the death penalty gives O'Malley and Sanders a small comparative 
advantage against Clinton among progressive voters, said Elizabeth Smith, an 
associate professor of political science at the University of South Dakota. 
But, she said, the issue is so inconsequential to voters that it's highly 
unlikely to make a dent in the primary race. And in fact, should either of them 
clinch the nomination, their abolitionist view could hurt them in the general 
election.

"In the primary, opposing the death penalty is not a huge risk because it's not 
a voting issue for a lot of people," Smith said. "When you move into the 
general election, it can be a huge risk."

Still, a question in Friday's forum could reveal just how far the political 
dynamics have shifted on the issue since Clinton's husband first ran for 
president.

"Being for the death penalty is symbolic of being tough and crime," Smith said. 
"And politicians have been winning elections for being tough on crime for a 
very long time."

(source: Associated Press)

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

Don't Be Fooled by This 'Religious Liberty' Conference


GOP candidates are joining a conference featuring those who want 'religious 
liberty' to execute gays.

Antigay extremists are increasingly arguing that more rights for gay people 
mean fewer rights for them. They have lifted up cases challenging business 
owners who have refused service to LGBT people as examples of religious liberty 
supposedly being infringed by the gay rights movement.

A conference taking place in Des Moines this week shows exactly what these 
claims of "religious persecution" really are - a cover for a political agenda 
that's about anything but liberty.

Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, and Bobby Jindal 
are expected to speak at the so-called National Religious Liberties Conference 
alongside what organizers call "targeted men and women of faith," including 
David and Jason Benham, who claim to have been persecuted after their vitriolic 
antigay rhetoric caused them to lose a contract for a television program, and 
Sgt. Phillip Monk, whose claims to have suffered anti-Christian discrimination 
at the hands of a lesbian superior have been thoroughly debunked.

The organizers of this conference are not looking to simply freely practice 
their religion. Instead, they have made it abundantly clear that they wish to 
use the power of the government to impose their religious beliefs on others.

3 speakers at this "religious liberties" conference have defended imposing the 
death penalty on gay people - yes, the death penalty - including the 
conference's main organizer, Kevin Swanson. Swanson has made very clear that he 
does not wish to grant anybody else the religious liberty that he claims he is 
being denied. He praised a Ugandan measure that would have made homosexuality a 
criminal offense punishable by life in prison or the capital punishment. He 
continually reminds listeners of his radio program that the Old Testament 
requires that "homosexuals should be put to death."

Swanson is no big fan of rights for women either. He claims that working women 
"do not love their children" and are destroying society. He has warned that 
efforts to empower women in developing countries by helping them buy cows will 
"destroy the nuclear family." He claims that women who are on the birth control 
pill have "these little tiny fetuses, these little babies, that are embedded" 
in their wombs, which "effectively have become graveyards for lots and lots of 
little babies." He once placed partial blame for wildfires in Colorado on 
"feminist trends" such as women wearing pants.

It's not just Swanson. Another speaker at the conference, Phillip Kayser, has 
argued for the death penalty for gay people, writing, "While many homosexuals 
would be executed, the threat of capital punishment can be restorative." Yet 
another speaker, Joel McDermon, has made the same argument, writing that God 
"revealed that the homosexual act as a civil crime deserves the death penalty" 
and that "where God says a civil crime deserves the death penalty, I propose 
that we keep in step with the first greatest commandment and recognize His 
total sovereignty in heart, soul, strength, and mind."

Multiple speakers at Swanson's conference are proponents of "Christian 
Reconstructionism," the idea that the United States must be governed by a 
particular interpretation of biblical law. As you can probably imagine, this 
interpretation is not one that's friendly to LGBT people.

Americans of all political stripes cherish our constitutional religious liberty 
and will fight to preserve it, and we must unite to ensure that our country 
remains a beacon of freedom to those who face persecution around the world.

But Swanson and his allies have something else in mind. They aren't interested 
in preventing a theocracy that quashes religious dissent. Instead, they want to 
create one. Anyone, especially candidates for president of the United States 
should think twice before associating themselves with such an agenda.

(source: MICHAEL KEEGAN is president of People for the American 
Way----advocate.com)