[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, WASH., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 14



OHIO:

Death penalty possible for 2013 Norwood murder suspect


The Hamilton County Prosecutor is seeking the death penalty for the suspect in 
the 2013 murder a then 20-year-old woman.

Jaleel Markeith Smith-Riley, 22, shot Porshia Brooks during a robbery in 
Norwood in Nov. 2013, Prosecutor Joe Deters said. He was arrested by Norwood 
police earlier this month and is being held on a $5 million bond at the 
Hamilton County jail.

Deters indicted Smith-Riley on aggravated murder, murder, attempted murder, two 
counts of felonious assault and aggravated robbery. If convicted of all 
charges, he faces the death penalty.

Aron Martin was also shot in the head that night and survived.

Surveillance video released after the shooting showed 3 potential suspects 
walking towards the scene of the double shooting.

Martin called the act senseless.

"At what point you just decide OK I'm going out and take someone's life without 
thinking about OK their loved ones are going to miss them," questioned Martin.

Norwood Police Lt. Ronald Murphy says a 2nd suspect is currently incarcerated 
in an out-of-state jail with pending charges and Murphy says both suspects 
admitted involvement in the crime.

The 3rd suspect in the case is deceased.

Police have not released the identities of the other 2 suspects.

(source: WXIX news)






WASHINGTON:

Lewis County's Jonathan Meyer Among Washington Prosecutors Seeking Public Vote 
on Death Penalty


Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer said Friday he agrees with a plan to ask 
legislators to place a referendum on the death penalty on a 2016 ballot.

"It was enacted by the people and the people need to decide whether they want 
it or not," he said.

The Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys issued a statement Thursday 
saying prosecutors in the state believe voters should weigh in on whether 
Washington should have the death penalty as a sentencing option in aggravated 
murder cases.

Gov. Jay Inslee enacted a moratorium on the death penalty in 2014.

Meyer said he supports the death penalty.

While expensive, he said it is the only deterrent left in some cases, citing 
the 2011 murder of Washington State Reformatory corrections officer Jayme 
Biendl by Byron Scherf, an inmate serving life in prison.

Scherf was sentenced to death in 2013.

"I think there definitely is a place for the death penalty in Washington," 
Meyer said.

However, he's not confident the state Legislature will put the measure on a 
ballot. If they did, he said supporters would have to work hard to raise 
awareness of the vote to make sure each side has their say.

"I have a concern about the vote because of how our voices tend to get lost in 
King County's," he said. "If it's going to be by popular vote, whoever votes 
the most will be able to carry the day."

(source: The Chronicle)






USA:

Boston Marathon bombing case to be back in federal court in Dec.


The case of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will be back in federal 
court in Boston next month.

US District Judge George A. O'Toole Jr. has scheduled a hearing for Dec. 1 on 
several motions filed after Tsarnaev was sentenced to death in June.

One of the motions is a request by prosecutors to order Tsarnaev to pay 
restitution to his victims, a largely symbolic gesture given Tsarnaev's lack of 
assets. Prosecutors have not disclosed the amount they are seeking, but it is 
expected to be in the millions of dollars.

Meanwhile, Tsarnaev's lawyers have asked the judge to extend attorney-client 
privileges they had with Tsarnaev while he was on trial. Tsarnaev is now being 
held under tight security measures, and his lawyers argue that tighter 
restrictions proposed by the US Department of Justice would interfere with 
attorney client privileges that any prisoner is entitled to, such as the 
ability to examine work documents with his lawyers.

O'Toole has also agreed to hear arguments on Tsarnaev's motion for a new trial. 
Such a motion is typical in any criminal case - Tsarnaev's lawyers continue to 
argue that his trial should have been moved outside of Boston - but O'Toole has 
agreed to hear arguments solely related to a recent Supreme Court decision that 
may have redefined some of the charges Tsarnaev was convicted of.

In a June decision, the Supreme Court struck down certain provisions of a law 
that called for tougher penalties for the use of a firearm or explosive in a 
crime of violence, finding that the law is too broad and constitutionally 
vague. Tsarnaev's lawyers argue that the decision applies to 15 of the charges 
of which Tsarnaev was convicted. Though Tsarnaev was sentenced to death on 
separate charges, his lawyers argue that the jury could have been influenced by 
the 15 charges that were affected by the Supreme Court decision.

It was not immediately clear if Tsarnaev will attend the Dec. 1 hearing.

Tsarnaev, 22, admitted his role in the Boston Marathon bombing, which killed 3 
people and injured more than 260, the fatal shooting of an MIT police officer, 
and a firefight with police in Watertown. His lawyers argued that Tsarnaev did 
not deserve the death penalty because he was influenced by his older brother, 
who was killed during the confrontation in Watertown.

Tsarnaev is being held at the federal supermax prison in Colorado while he 
appeals his death sentence.

(source: Boston Globe)

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

Death Penalty Takes On New Dimension in 2016 Campaign


Less than a month before the New Hampshire primary in 1992, Bill Clinton left 
the campaign trail and tended to a pressing matter.

Rickey Ray Rector, a convicted killer, was scheduled to be executed in 
Arkansas. Mr. Clinton, then the governor, returned to Little Rock and was 
present in the state when Mr. Rector was put to death, a detour that 
demonstrated his toughness on crime. Democrats "should no longer feel guilty 
about protecting the innocent," Mr. Clinton had said at a debate a few days 
earlier, emphasizing, in general, the need to punish criminals.

Nearly a quarter-century later, Mr. Clinton's wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, has 
taken a strikingly different tone. While stopping short of calling for the 
death penalty's abolition, she urged a "hard look" at its use, saying it had 
been applied too frequently, and often in a discriminatory manner. Last week, 
she said she would "breathe a sigh of relief' if the Supreme Court struck it 
down.

Mrs. Clinton is one of several presidential candidates from both parties who 
are voicing skepticism about capital punishment, seizing on a growing national 
ambivalence. The issue has been a source of political pressure, but in a 
changed way: While Mr. Clinton leaned rightward, playing up his commitment to 
law and order, Mrs. Clinton is now contending with an expectant left, as well 
as passionate calls from her 2 Democratic rivals for the death penalty to be 
repealed outright.

Presidential Candidates on the Death Penalty

Most candidates support the existence of the death penalty, but many have 
acknowledged problems or reservations with the current system.

"From Bill to Hillary is a remarkable signal of the changed climate surrounding 
capital punishment," said Austin D. Sarat, a professor of law and political 
science at Amherst College who has long studied the death penalty.

But memories of an earlier political era, when crime was high and Democrats 
found themselves on the losing side of the issue, remain strong. So do memories 
of the fate of the party's 1988 nominee, Michael S. Dukakis, a death penalty 
opponent, whose campaign was damaged by his clinical response in a debate when 
he was asked if he would favor the death penalty if his wife were raped and 
murdered. He said he would not.

Although public support for the death penalty has waned, 56 % of Americans 
still support it for people convicted of murder, according to a poll in March 
by the Pew Research Center.

"Have minds been changed somewhat on the death penalty?" Mr. Dukakis, who 
supports Mrs. Clinton's candidacy, said in an interview this week. "Yeah, I 
think so. But I don't think coming out against the death penalty will win you 
points in this election. And it will certainly provoke plenty of criticism from 
the other side."

Mrs. Clinton, for all her reservations, has been willing to move only so far.

"Politicians were more comfortable saying 'civil unions' before they were 
comfortable saying 'gay marriage,'" Mr. Sarat said. "I think that's what you 
see in the Hillary Clinton kind of approach."

The scrutiny of the death penalty is part of a broader look at the wisdom of 
the country's criminal justice policies, a discussion motivated in part by 
concerns over how racial minorities are treated. The parties have found common 
ground in the need for criminal justice changes, with Democrats and Republicans 
alike speaking of their desire to reduce the country's prison population.

The use of the death penalty has changed significantly since Mr. Clinton was 
weighing the fate of Mr. Rector, who had killed two people, including a police 
officer, and then shot himself, destroying part of his brain. Jeff Rosenzweig, 
a lawyer for Mr. Rector, contended that he was "in the vernacular, a zombie," 
too impaired to grasp the punishment he was about to receive, and that "his 
execution would be remembered as a disgrace to the state."

Mr. Rector, who saved a helping of pecan pie from his last meal so he could eat 
it later, was put to death by lethal injection, and the next day, Mr. Clinton 
said he respected death penalty opponents' right to their opinions. "All I ask 
is that you respect mine," he added, "for I have spent most of my public life 
worrying about what it would take to give our children a safe place to live 
again."

Last year, only 7 states conducted executions, according to the Death Penalty 
Information Center, and the number of people executed, 35, was the lowest in 20 
years.

In his address to Congress in September, Pope Francis argued for the death 
penalty's abolition, saying, "Every life is sacred." And last month, the 
National Association of Evangelicals, which represents more than 45,000 
churches and had for decades stood in support of capital punishment, adopted a 
resolution affirming that "evangelical Christians differ in their beliefs about 
capital punishment."

Proponents of abolishing the death penalty said they believed candidates were 
freer to express reservations now than in past election cycles. For one thing, 
they have several pragmatic reasons to cite, including how minorities are 
treated; the high costs of litigation surrounding death penalty cases; and the 
large number of death row exonerations, including from DNA evidence.

"It's not a litmus test in the same way that it used to be," said Cassandra 
Stubbs, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Capital Punishment 
Project.

Although the death penalty is an enduring topic for presidential campaigns, the 
president's actual power to end capital punishment is limited, because a vast 
majority of executions are carried out at the state level. Only 3 people have 
been executed by the federal government in the last half-century; the most 
recent, in 2003, was Louis Jones Jr., who had kidnapped, raped and killed a 
female soldier. The president could indirectly influence the future of the 
death penalty, though, through Supreme Court appointments.

But in the Democratic primary, Mrs. Clinton's rivals have been eager to use the 
issue as another way to draw a distinction with her, especially among 
left-leaning voters who may already have doubts about the depth and purity of 
Mrs. Clinton's liberalism.

Only 40 % of Democrats support the death penalty, according to the Pew survey, 
and among Democrats who described their political views as liberal, only 29 % 
were in support of it.

Asked about the death penalty last month while campaigning in New Hampshire, 
Mrs. Clinton said the country needed to be "smarter and more careful" about how 
it was applied.

"I think there are certain egregious cases that still deserve the consideration 
of the death penalty, but I'd like to see those be very limited and rare, as 
opposed to what we have seen in some states," she said.

The day after Mrs. Clinton's comments, her main opponent for the Democratic 
nomination, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, drew an implicit contrast by 
taking to the Senate floor to reaffirm his opposition to the death penalty. He 
said that the government "should itself not be involved in the murder of other 
Americans."

The 3rd Democratic candidate, former Gov. Martin O'Malley of Maryland, went 
directly after Mrs. Clinton on the issue. As governor, Mr. O'Malley 
successfully pushed for the repeal of the death penalty in Maryland, and before 
he left office, he commuted the sentences of 4 men who had remained on death 
row because the repeal was not retroactive.

In an interview on CNN, Mr. O'Malley said that Mrs. Clinton was "often a bit 
behind the times" about "what works in terms of public policy."

The Republican field has been generally supportive of the death penalty, but 
not without some reservations.

In a recent interview on NBC News's "Meet the Press," former Gov. Jeb Bush of 
Florida described himself as "conflicted" and said the death penalty was "not a 
deterrent anymore because it's seldom used." A Roman Catholic, he invoked his 
faith, saying, "It's hard for me as a human being to sign the death warrant, to 
be honest with you." But he acknowledged that it could provide "closure" for 
victims' loved ones.

During Mr. Bush's time as governor, Florida executed 21 people. His emails show 
him grappling with the subject, calling it, at one point, "an issue that tears 
at my heart."

But other Republican candidates still take a firm stance in favor of the death 
penalty.

After a woman was beaten and raped while jogging in Central Park in 1989, 
Donald J. Trump paid for full-page newspaper advertisements that declared in 
large capital letters: "Bring Back the Death Penalty." (It was reinstated in 
New York in 1995 - fulfilling a campaign promise by Gov. George E. Pataki, 
another presidential candidate - but the state's highest court effectively 
struck it down before anyone was executed.)

In an interview this summer, Mr. Trump argued that the death penalty deterred 
crime. When someone is executed, he pointed out, "you know that person's not 
going to kill again."

(source: New York Times)