[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GA., ALA., KY., UTAH, IDAHO, CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 19



GEORGIA----impending execution

Georgia man convicted in woman's killing to be executed


A Georgia man convicted of killing a woman he met in a nightclub is set to be 
executed.

Marcus Ray Johnson is scheduled to die at 7 p.m. Thursday at the state prison 
in Jackson. The 50-year-old was convicted in the March 1994 rape and murder of 
Angela Sizemore in Albany.

Johnson's attorneys argue he shouldn't be executed because doubts remain about 
his guilt. Prosecutors say there is no doubt Johnson killed Sizemore.

A judge on Wednesday rejected a constitutional challenge to Johnson's sentence 
and conviction and declined to stop his execution. His lawyers have appealed to 
the state Supreme Court.

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles is the only entity authorized to 
commute a death sentence. The board held a hearing Wednesday and voted not to 
grant clemency.

(source: Associated Press)






ALABAMA----new death sentence//female

Jury recommends death penalty in murder for hire plot


A jury has recommended the death penalty for an east Alabama woman convicted of 
hiring a hit man to kill her daughter.

Multiple news outlets reported Wednesday that a jury recommended the death 
penalty for Lisa Graham, who was convicted of paying a family friend to fatally 
shoot her 21-year-old daughter Stephanie Shae Graham in July 2007.

Authorities have said Graham hired Kenny Walton to carry out the slaying. 
Walton confessed in the case and is serving a life prison sentence.

Graham was convicted during a retrial. Her 1st trial was declared a mistrial 
because a judge's deteriorating health prevented him from hearing the whole 
case.

(source: Associated Press)

**********

Jurors weighing death penalty in Alexius Foster case----Alexius Foster was 
found guilty of 2 counts of capital murder Monday morning at the Tuscaloosa 
County Courthouse.


Jurors began the sentencing phase Wednesday of a man they found guilty of 
capital murder earlier this week.

They could decide as early as today whether to recommend life without parole or 
death for Alexius Foster.

The jury on Monday convicted Foster, 37, of capital murder in the 2013 slaying 
of his uncle George Foster. They also convicted him of felony murder in the 
death of his friend Antonio Williams.

The possible death sentence is for the murder of George Foster, who was stabbed 
or cut more than 60 times before he bled to death in his bedroom.

Tuscaloosa County Senior Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Cross told jurors 
Wednesday before they started deliberations that the crime was "heinous, 
atrocious and cruel." He asked jurors to sentence Foster to death.

Foster's attorneys presented a report compiled from interviews with Foster's 
parents, wife and a friend. The report stated that Foster had bad parents while 
growing up and had been abusing drugs since 2008.

"You can't help the cards that you're played, but you can help how you play 
them," Cross said.

Foster graduated from Stillman College in 2004, where he had played baseball.

"This defendant is very intelligent," Cross said. "He knew better."

The jury will recommend either life in prison with no possibility of parole or 
the death penalty. Tuscaloosa County Circuit Court Judge John England then will 
make the final ruling at a sentencing hearing scheduled for Dec. 17.

At least 7 jurors must agree to recommend a life sentence. At least 10 must 
concur to recommend the death penalty. The jury will reconvene at 9 a.m. today.

(source: Tuscaloosa News)






KENTUCKY:

Central Kentucky grand jury issues murder indictments in police officer's 
shooting death


A grand jury has indicted 4 co-defendants in the fatal shooting of a central 
Kentucky police officer and in the attempted robbery he was investigating 
earlier this month.

A Madison County grand jury Tuesday indicted 34-year-old Raleigh Sizemore of 
Richmond, the man accused of shooting 33-year-old Daniel Ellis, multiple media 
outlets report.

Sizemore faces murder, 2 counts of attempted murder and 4 other charges.

Madison County Commonwealth's Attorney David Smith would not say whether he 
will seek the death penalty against Sizemore. Kentucky law allows the death 
penalty in murder cases where there is an "aggravating circumstance" such as 
robbery, rape or the death of a police officer.

Ellis died Nov. 6, 2 days after he was ambushed and shot in the head while 
searching an apartment for a robbery suspect.

25-year-old Gregory Ratliff also was indicted on 4 charges, including 
complicity to murder. 44-year-old Rita Creech and 35-year-old Carl Banks are 
facing charges related to the attempted robbery earlier in the day in Richmond.

Authorities said Ellis, a 7-year veteran of the department, went to Ratliff's 
apartment in search of Sizemore, who had hidden with Creech in the back 
bedroom. The indictment indicates that Sizmore was armed with a .22-caliber 
revolver.

Police have said that Sizemore admitted shooting Ellis as Ellis entered the 
bedroom and firing at 2 other officers as they entered the apartment to help 
Ellis.

Sizemore is being held at Kentucky State Reformatory in LaGrange in lieu of a 
$2.5 million bond. Ratliff's, Creech and Banks are being held in the Madison 
County Detention Center. Their bails are $2 million, $10,000 and $100,000 
respectively.

(source: Associated Press)






UTAH:

Preliminary hearing scheduled for man accused of killing Mt. Pleasant couple


The case against a man accused of killing a Mt. Pleasant couple in their home 
has moved very slowly since prosecutors plan on pursuing the death penalty.

"When you have 2 quality people that lost their lives at the hands of another, 
you certainly have an important cause," said Sanpete County Attorney Brody 
Keisel.

That's why Keisel said that seeking justice for Woody and Ann Fullwood, the 
couple killed 4 years ago, takes not only time but also patience.

Since their deaths at the end of 2011, prosecutors have had to wait for Logan 
McFarland to be prosecuted for crimes in Nevada before he could be extradited. 
Since he arrived in Utah in January of this year, it has taken time to get 
qualified defense attorneys on board, since prosecutors intend to seek the 
death penalty.

On Wednesday, attorneys told the judge they will be ready for a preliminary 
hearing in March when the judge will decide if there is enough evidence against 
McFarland for a trial.

"We look forward to having that hearing," Keisel said. "We expect it to happen. 
We don't see anything that would keep it from happening in the middle of 
March."

If McFarland is ordered to stand trial on 2 counts of aggravated murder, Keisel 
said it could still be several more months before a trial is held. That would 
include a penalty phase if McFarland is convicted.

The preliminary hearing for McFarland is scheduled to last 3 days, beginning 
March 15.

(source: KSL news)

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

Lawyers want to depose all Utah prosecutors on death penalty


Lawyers for a southern Utah man facing a possible death penalty sentence are 
planning to depose all of Utah's 29 county prosecutors in an effort to show 
capital punishment is unconstitutional.

The Spectrum of St. George reports (http://bit.ly/1O3U5nR) that attorneys for 
34-year-old Brandon Perry Smith said Wednesday that the testimony from the 
state's prosecutors will help them show the death penalty is unfairly applied.

Attorneys Gary Pendleton and Mary Corporan say that prosecutors seek the death 
penalty in less than 3 percent of eligible cases, resolving most with a life 
prison sentence.

Judge G. Michael Westfall says he doesn't want to further slow the progress of 
the case. A new hearing was set for Feb. 3.

Smith is accused of cutting 20-year-old Jerrica Christensen's throat at a St. 
George townhome in 2010.

(source: Associated Press)



IDAHO:

Idaho death row inmate gets life sentence, can't appeal


A death row inmate in Idaho pleaded guilty Tuesday to a reduced charge as part 
of a bargain that ensures he will never be released from prison.

Gene Francis Stuart pleaded guilty to 2nd-degree murder by torture for the 1981 
beating death of 3-year-old Robert Miller. Miller was the son of Stuart's 
then-girlfriend, reported the Lewiston Tribune (http://bit.ly/1MmfhmB).

Stuart was sentenced to be executed in 1983, but an appeals process began 
working its way through the court system and he was granted a new sentencing 
hearing in 2013.

He was offered the plea agreement after a federal court overturned his original 
death sentence. As part of the deal, Stuart gave up his right to appeal or to 
file a motion asking for reconsideration of the sentence.

The judge sentenced him to life in prison.

"So it's a done deal," said Clearwater County Prosecutor E. Clayne Tyler. "We 
won't have to worry about re-sentencing him or retrying him."

Tyler spoke to the Tribune after the hearing at the Idaho Maximum Security 
Institution in Boise. He said the judge didn't think Stuart could be 
rehabilitated.

Stuart had appealed on the claim that he had ineffective assistance from his 
attorney, the late Robert Kinney of Orofino. Although re-sentencing Stuart 
could have cost Clearwater County as much as $1 million, Tyler said the county 
was willing to pay.

"This particular case still remains raw in the psyche of the people of 
Clearwater County," the prosecutor recently told the Tribune. "Those who were 
around at the time remember it and it brings up emotions that have not been 
dulled with the passage of 30-something years. It was a terrible, terrible 
case. The child was beaten for months - I mean badly."

The 3-year-old boy died from blows that damaged his liver and caused him to 
bleed to death. Stuart was convicted of 1st-degree murder by torture in 1982 
for repeatedly hitting the boy over an extended period of time.

Reports from the trial say Stuart was a strict disciplinarian expecting almost 
adult behavior from the 3-year-old.

Tyler said the Clearwater County office re-evaluated the case 2 years ago, when 
they heard they might have to re-sentence Stuart.

He said they determined that they probably had enough evidence for a hearing, 
including potential witnesses like a police officer present for Stuart's 
confession, a pathologist who testified about Miller's injuries and a 
radiologist who looked at film from the child's autopsy.

That radiologist "is not only still alive but claims the case haunts him," 
Tyler said. "He recalled not only the nature of the fractures that he 
identified but where it was and in what area 34 years after the fact."

Tyler said his office decided to offer Stuart a plea deal in consultation with 
the attorney general's office, law enforcement and county commissioners.

He said they did the math and realized that if Stuart was given the death 
penalty, he could appeal again and would likely be in his mid-80s before the 
sentence could be carried out.

"Mr. Stuart would not see a lethal injection. He would die of natural causes," 
said Tyler. "So the question then became, why spend up to $1 million in 
taxpayer money ... when the defense was offering a fixed life if I was to pull 
the death penalty off the table and resolve all of the appeals and the case 
would be done?"

"It was a difficult decision, but we were all pretty much on board with, this 
is what needs to be done," he continued. "My ultimate goal ... was to ensure 
that Gene Francis Stuart will die in prison. Whether he died by lethal 
injection or natural causes was something that was secondary to ensure that the 
man did not walk out."

(source: Associated Press)






CALIFORNIA:

Appeals court gets it wrong on death penalty


How can it be that a criminal punishment is unconstitutional, but a federal 
court can provide no relief? The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Nov. 12 
reversed Orange County federal judge Cormac Carney's decision holding that the 
death penalty as administered in California is so arbitrary as to be cruel and 
unusual punishment. But the 9th Circuit came to this conclusion without 
disagreeing with Judge Carney's facts or analysis about the death penalty.

Instead, the court said that the challenge to the death penalty should have 
been dismissed by Judge Carney on procedural grounds. Although both the Supreme 
Court and Congress have limited the ability of federal courts to provide relief 
to convicted criminals, even under these very restrictive rules Judge Carney's 
decision should have been upheld.

The case, Jones v. Davis, involved a criminal defendant - Ernest Dewayne Jones 
- who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1995. His appeals will 
last many more years. Judge Carney noted that since 1978, when the current 
death penalty system was adopted by California voters, over 900 people have 
been sentenced to death for their crimes. Of them, only 13 have been executed. 
The average delay between sentencing and execution is 25 years.

Judge Carney explained that "for most, systemic delay has made their execution 
so unlikely that the death sentence carefully and deliberately imposed by the 
jury has been quietly transformed into one no rational jury or legislature 
could ever impose: life in prison, with the remote possibility of death. As for 
the random few for whom execution does become a reality, they will have 
languished for so long on death row that their execution will serve no 
retributive or deterrent purpose and will be arbitrary."

He concluded that such an arbitrary punishment violates the Eighth Amendment's 
prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.

Contrary to a popular misconception, this is not because of delaying tactics by 
those on death row and their lawyers. Countless factors - the process of direct 
review by the California Supreme Court without consideration by a court of 
appeals, the lack of qualified attorneys to handle death penalty cases, the 
need for care before imposing the ultimate punishment - contribute to long 
delays and unpredictability in carrying out death sentences.

The 9th Circuit disputed none of this in reversing Judge Carney. Rather, the 
court said that it could not consider the issue because Jones' case was in 
federal court on a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, and a rule created by 
the Supreme Court prevented providing any relief.

A federal court may grant habeas corpus to a criminal defendant and overturn a 
conviction or a sentence if it violates the Constitution or federal law. Long 
before the United States became a nation, English courts could grant habeas 
corpus to those wrongly convicted or sentenced. The Constitution expressly 
declares that the writ of habeas corpus may not be suspended except in cases of 
rebellion or invasion.

But for the past few decades, both the Supreme Court and Congress have imposed 
many new limits on the ability of federal courts to hear habeas corpus 
petitions, even for those who have been wrongly convicted or even innocent. A 
1989 Supreme Court decision, Teague v. Lane, held that federal courts, in 
ruling on a habeas corpus petition, cannot recognize constitutional rights that 
create new procedural rules. Federal courts only can apply existing rights that 
pertain to the procedures that law enforcement and the courts must follow in 
handling criminal cases.

The 9th Circuit invoked Teague to reverse Judge Carney. But the court's 
reasoning was flawed on many levels. Most importantly, the Supreme Court 
repeatedly has said that changes in substantive constitutional rights, as 
opposed to procedural ones, always can be the basis for habeas corpus relief. 
That is exactly what Judge Carney found in holding the death penalty 
unconstitutional: its application in California is so arbitrary that the state 
cannot apply it in a constitutional manner.

Also, Judge Carney's opinion did not create a new right. The Supreme Court long 
has said that arbitrary imposition of the death penalty is cruel and unusual 
punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

The more general point is the extent to which the Supreme Court and Congress 
have closed the courthouse doors to those who claim to be wrongly convicted and 
sentenced in violation of the Constitution and federal laws. Federal courts 
must be available to hear such claims and provide relief. The decision of the 
9th Circuit in Jones v. Davis is just the most recent example of justice being 
denied on habeas corpus.

(source: Opinion; Erwin Chemerinsky is dean of the UC Irvine School of 
Law----Orange County Register)






USA:

Fell's lawyers challenge death penalty law


A Vermont man facing the federal death penalty for the 2000 killing of a woman 
abducted from outside a Rutland supermarket is asking a judge to declare the 
death penalty law unconstitutional, court documents say.

In documents filed in federal court Monday, attorneys for Donald Fell argue the 
federal death penalty is unreliable, arbitrary and adds "unconscionably long" 
delays in cases. "Most places within the United States have abandoned its use 
under evolving standards of decency," the attorneys say.

They contend that U.S. Supreme Court justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader 
Ginsburg earlier this year "issued a clarion call for reconsideration of the 
constitutionality of the death penalty."

It also noted that the Connecticut Supreme Court, relying largely on Breyer and 
Ginsburg's arguments, found that state's death penalty unconstitutional.

"Mr. Fell asks this Court to (rule)... that the federal death penalty, in and 
of itself, constitutes a legally prohibited cruel and unusual punishment 
prohibited by both the Fifth and Eighth Amendments," his filing said.

Fell, 35, was convicted and sentenced to death in 2005 for the 2000 killing of 
Terry King, a 53-year-old North Clarendon grandmother who was abducted in 
Rutland and later killed. A judge last year ordered a new trial for Fell 
because of juror misconduct during the original trial.

The trial is scheduled for next fall.

U.S. Attorney Eric Miller said his office would respond to the defense filings 
at the appropriate time.

Vermont has no state death penalty; Fell was sentenced to death under federal 
law.

In 2002, the judge then hearing the case declared the federal death penalty 
unconstitutional. But 2 years later, an appeals court overturned that ruling, 
allowing the trial to go forward.

Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said 
a decade's worth of data has accumulated showing the legal problems with the 
federal death penalty since the ruling allowing Fell's case to go forward.

There's more evidence the federal death penalty is overwhelmingly applied in 
Southern states that have state death penalties, and there are significant 
racial disparities in the application of the federal death penalty as well, 
Dunham said.

"You can expect going forward that there will be constitutional challenges of 
this type filed in most, if not all, federal capital prosecutions," Dunham 
said.

(source: Associated Press)

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

The Unfolding Campaign to Save the Death Penalty ---- Supporters rally around a 
more efficient system of execution.


Late last month, a group of California district attorneys and family members of 
murder victims launched a campaign to save the death penalty in their state. 
"This is not pro-death penalty," announced Anne Marie Schubert, the district 
attorney of Sacramento County. "We have come together to say we acknowledge 
it's broken but we have come here to fix it." Over somber music in a YouTube 
video of the event, the advocates describe a ballot initiative, slated for 
November 2016, that would accelerate appeals for death row inmates and change 
the way they are housed, all in the interest of saving money and speeding up 
executions.

This is not the first time supporters of capital punishment have proposed laws 
to make the death penalty more efficient (President Bill Clinton signed a bill 
to do so in 1996). What is different now is the sense of urgency: the 
initiative will be in direct competition with another ballot initiative, 
already announced, to get rid of the death penalty altogether. "We need to fix 
the death penalty or it's going to go away," Mike Ramos, the district attorney 
in San Bernardino County, said by phone shortly before the announcement of the 
campaign. "It's that simple."

The emergence of Californians for Death Penalty Savings and Reform is the most 
visible sign of a growing nationwide response to the success of efforts to 
abolish the death penalty. For decades, executions were carried out steadily, 
and supporters, always a majority1, were a silent one. But since 2007, seven 
states have repealed the death penalty and in many others the pace of 
executions has slowed as prison agencies struggle to find lethal injection 
drugs and prosecutors decline to pursue death sentences. A group of defense 
attorneys want to bring a constitutional challenge to the Supreme Court, and 
even Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush has voiced ambivalence.

According to Gallup polling, national support for the death penalty has stayed 
between 60 and 80% since the early 1970s, though it has been on the decline in 
recent years.

All of this activity has led death-penalty supporters to reemerge as a 
political voice, and California may be their first battlefield. Only 13 
executions have taken place there since the 1970s, despite hundreds sent to 
death row, and a recent judicial ban on executions was recently lifted.

Ramos, who has already announced a campaign for California attorney general in 
2018, is positioning himself as a national figure, defending the death penalty 
in television appearances. He is also president-elect of the National District 
Attorneys Association and says his colleagues around the country "are looking 
to California as a bellwether" of the death penalty's future.

Even if California is the bellwether, there are other places to see the 
backlash in action. In Nebraska, the state legislature repealed the death 
penalty in May, only to see a grassroots effort to collect signatures - with 
funding from Gov. Pete Ricketts - to bring a public vote in November 2016 over 
whether to restore it. Over the last few years, the Florida legislature passed 
the Timely Justice Act to speed up appeals and North Carolina lawmakers 
repealed an earlier law, called the Racial Justice Act, that had given death 
row inmates more power to argue that their sentences were racially biased.

Like many of these movements, the California initiative grew organically in 
response to efforts to abolish the death penalty. The victims' advocates and 
prosecutors now leading the charge began working together in 2012 when 
opponents of the death penalty brought Proposition 34 - a straightforward 
abolition proposal - to voters. Those opponents included men and women with 
tough-on-crime credibility, from Jeanne Woodford, the former warden of San 
Quentin prison, to Ron Briggs and Don Heller, both political figures who 
championed an expansion of capital punishment in the 1970s.

The pro-death penalty community won the 2012 fight with a nail-biting 52% of 
the vote, despite being outspent by several million dollars (Silicon Valley 
money was major factor; Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has already given $150,000 to 
anti-death penalty efforts in the 2016 election).

Taking this as a sign that the public was fundamentally on their side - and 
aware that they might not win a rematch - death-penalty advocates started 
raising money from law enforcement groups and individual donors in order to 
hire professional signature-gatherers. They enlisted several former governors 
and ex-NFL star Kermit Alexander, whose family members were murdered by a man 
who was sentenced to death but has not been executed.

The group developed policy changes to address the cost of capital punishment, 
which is one of the primary arguments of the anti-death penalty community. 
Making the death penalty cheaper may appeal to Californians who voted against 
it last time less out of moral conviction than of fiscal concern.

Despite the rarity of executions, California spends an estimated $184 million 
per year on death penalty trials and appeals and death row housing. The current 
reform proposal would give the state supreme court the power to oversee an 
expedited process for appeals, require that defense attorneys for appeals be 
appointed faster (currently it can take 5 years). It would also require death 
row inmates to work and pay restitution to victims' families and allow them to 
be placed in double-cells (currently each lives in a single cell, which is more 
expensive).

Death Penalty Focus, the leader of abolition efforts, has cautioned that these 
changes might lead to less-experienced attorneys and judges taking on death 
penalty cases, leading to more mistakes. Paula Mitchell, a law professor who 
co-authored the most comprehensive report on the costs of California's death 
penalty, says there is little proof that proposals for fixing the system would 
work: the backlog is already crushing, and even if more lawyers agreed to take 
capital cases, they would need to be trained, which might negate the savings 
the reformers are touting. The initiative, says Mitchell, "should be 
characterized as a Letter to Santa."

A year from now, California and Nebraska will test support for the death 
penalty at the ballot box. Could other states join them? Last week, the 
Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys issued a statement calling on 
the state to offer voters a similar choice, explaining that "prosecutors want 
to know that when we embark on the long and difficult process of capital 
punishment for the worst crimes inflicted upon our community that we are doing 
so with the support and approval of the people we represent."

(source: themarshallproject.org)