[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., ALA., KY., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 29



FLORIDA:

Florida Supreme Court Rejects Appeal In Broward Girl's Murder


The Florida Supreme Court has unanimously rejected an appeal by a Death Row 
inmate convicted of murdering an 11-year-old Broward County girl nearly 3 
decades ago.

Michael T. Rivera, now 53, was sentenced to death in the murder of Staci Lynn 
Jazvac, who disappeared in January 1986 after leaving her Lauderdale Lakes home 
to ride her bicycle to a nearby shopping center. The girl's body was found in 
February 1986 in a field in Coral Springs.

In the appeal, Rivera's attorneys pointed, in part, to newly discovered DNA 
evidence. That evidence involved a hair, which was found in a van that 
prosecutors said had been used by Rivera to abduct the girl. The hair was found 
to not belong to the victim, which Rivera argued could bolster his contention 
that he did not murder the girl.

But the Supreme Court rejected the argument.

"The DNA evidence simply confirms the possibility that was asserted during 
trial that the hair did not belong to Staci," said the 36-page opinion. 
"Notably, the evidence is not exculpatory in nature, nor does it establish that 
Staci was never in contact with Rivera or in (the) ... van. Moreover, the state 
presented ample evidence during trial that Rivera committed the murder, 
including the testimony of 2 non-jailhouse witnesses to whom Rivera confessed."

(source: CBS news)






ALABAMA:

Parents of murdered brothers say victims overlooked in death penalty debate


Like thousands of aging couples in thousands of towns across America, Joe and 
Cindy Burch while away the time between doctors' appointments at a fast-food 
restaurant, talking about the world's problems.

On this chilly day in early November, it's the Arby's on Quintard. The topic is 
the death penalty and the inmates who claim it's cruel and unusual.

"They get more rights than some of our children, some of our elderly," Cindy 
says, with a nervous chuckle.

"I believe in the right to live, but they've also earned the right to die," Joe 
says.

They could be any couple in America, opining about crime a few steps from the 
soda fountain. Cindy chuckles nervously when she says something assertive. Joe 
leans in, taps the table with his fingers, looks you in the eye. When the point 
is made, he leans back and looks away.

They're not just any couple.

"He suffered nothing," Joe says.

"Well, to not know that his 8-year-old son ... graduating ... I think he was 8 
in 2002," Cindy says. "To miss the wedding, miss the dating. But, I mean, we're 
not going to get any of that."

"No wedding, no grandkids," Joe says.

"I want to be a good grandma," Cindy says, her voice cracking.

"We will never have that," Joe says. "Our family tree is done. He took away our 
family tree. It stopped right then, on May 15th."

Deadly day

In 2002, if you lived in Jacksonville and wanted to see a movie on Wednesday 
night, you'd probably head to Blockbuster on McClellan, the biggest movie store 
for miles around. If someone warned you to be safe, you'd assume they were 
warning you to look twice before pulling out into the rush of traffic on 
Alabama 21.

The Burch's sons, 19-year-old Andrew and 20-year-old Joseph, went out to grab a 
movie on a Wednesday night in May, and never came back. A customer found the 
Burch brothers and Blockbuster employees Austin Joplin and Doug Neal all shot 
dead inside the store.

A gun found at the scene led investigators to Donald Ray Wheat, of Clay County, 
who had already served a 10-year sentence for a 1971 manslaughter.

Police hailed Andy Burch as a hero: evidence at the scene suggested he fought 
back before being shot, and may have unsettled his attacker so much that Wheat 
fled the scene without his gun.

For Joe and Cindy Burch, parenthood was over, in the blink of an eye. Andrew 
and Joseph - acolytes at St. Luke's, partners in a grass-cutting business, 
stunningly good bowlers who sometimes put in 20 games a day - were their only 
children.

Donald Wheat died of natural causes in prison, leaving 2 sons behind. But he'd 
been sentenced to death: to be strapped to a gurney, injected with poison and 
killed.

Joe and Cindy Burch still wrestle with that. With the fact that Wheat's full 
sentence was never carried out. With the fact that, had he lived, Wheat would 
likely be at least a decade away from execution and still filing appeals.

"If you're not going to use the death penalty, if it takes 25 or 30 years, just 
don't do it," Cindy Burch says. "You need to respect the death sentence."

She's no capital punishment opponent. It was Cindy who called the newspaper, 
after reading months of headlines about inmates' legal battles to block their 
pending executions. The core of their argument - that lethal injection is 
unconstitutionally cruel and unusual - turns her stomach.

"Look what they do," she said. "And then they're crying, when it's time for 
them to be put to death."

A long wait

Last week, the state scheduled inmate Christopher Brooks for execution Jan. 21 
for a 1992 murder.

If that execution happens, Brooks will be the 1st person to die by lethal 
injection in Alabama in more than 2 years. State officials seem as eager as 
ever to set execution dates for the 188 people now on death row. But the world 
around Alabama's justice system has changed.

First, European drugmakers refused to supply the state with the drugs that once 
were the staple of execution by lethal injection. American companies followed 
suit. A leading pharmacists' group this year discouraged its members from 
participating in executions. Every new proposed drug combination brings new 
legal challenges.

The ground of public opinion has shifted, too - nationwide, if perhaps not in 
Alabama. In 2002, the year the Burches buried their sons, a Gallup survey 
showed seven Americans in 10 supported capital punishment. This October, the 
number was 61 %, nearly a 40-year low.

Even in conservative Alabama, the tone on crime is different than it was 20 
years ago. Republicans have joined Democrats in saying prisons are overcrowded. 
The Burches have noticed.

"They're saying they're going to let out prisoners," Cindy says, referring to 
the state's plan to reduce the prison population by thousands, by reducing 
sentences for small-time thieves and drug offenders. She's not convinced it 
will stop at non-violent criminals.

So much pain

In an hour of talk at their table, the Burches never lapse into the 
bumper-sticker talk - "an eye for an eye" - that characterizes so many 
conversations about capital punishment. But they can't escape the idea that 
justice has to contain some measure of retribution.

"There's so much pain there inside of me," Joe says. "I cannot get it out. I 
tried. I cannot get it out."

He remembers sitting behind Wheat in the courtroom. Joe was younger then, 
healthier. He knew that if he tried, he could have made it over the bench and 
landed at least 1 blow.

"If I would have hit him 1 time, I would have felt better," he said. But Wheat 
was surrounded by police, "more protected than I would be protected in my whole 
life." The law itself, in the person of a deputy, sat by Joe's side during much 
of the trial. He doesn't say whether the deputy was there to support him, or 
restrain him, or both.

"I know we're supposed to forgive," says Cindy. "The Lord is going to have to 
forgive for me until I can. I know forgiving is not for Him, it's for us, and I 
want to do it. But if I say that out loud, I feel like I'm not loving my boys 
anymore."

That's about it, Cindy says. After reading so much about inmates in the paper, 
she just wanted to say her piece.

"I don't know," Joe says. "If you write about this, it's going to get everybody 
up in arms about the death penalty. You've got all these church groups that 
don't favor the death penalty. But they have never had anything like that 
happen to their family."

"Possibly," Cindy corrects.

"Possibly, you know," Joe says.

He leans back, and looks away.

(source: The Anniston Star)






KENTUCKY:

Death row inmate fights for hip-replacement surgery


A Kentucky death row inmate has renewed his request for a federal court order 
requiring the state to arrange hip-replacement surgery for him.

The Lexington Herald-Leader reports that Robert Foley's request has been turned 
down by a federal judge twice since his hip gave out in July. Foley's hip 
surgery could cost more than $50,000.

In 2012 the Department of Corrections looked for a hospital willing to do the 
surgery, but a half-dozen declined.

Foley's attorneys say a doctor recommended the surgery in August, and say the 
surgery could be done at Baptist Health Paducah Hospital.

Foley was convicted of shooting 2 brothers to death in Laurel County in 1991, 
and of shooting 4 people in Laurel County in 1989 and covering their bodies in 
an unused septic tank.

Sharon Vaughn McGeorge, who was only a teenager when her father, Rodney Vaughn, 
and uncle Lynn Vaughn, were murdered, told CBS affiliate WKYT in 2010: "I don't 
think I will ever have peace in my life..... until Robert Foley is executed."

(source: CBS news)






USA:

Where's death penalty in push for criminal justice overhaul?


Even as President Barack Obama tries to make a hard case for overhauling 
sentences, rehabilitating prisoners and confronting racial bias in policing, he 
has been less clear about the death penalty.

Obama has hinted that his support for capital punishment is eroding, but he has 
refused to discuss what he might call for.

A Justice Department review has dragged on for 18 months with little mention or 
momentum. The president recently repeated he is "deeply concerned" about the 
death penalty's implementation, though he also acknowledges the issue has not 
been a top priority.

"I have not traditionally been opposed to the death penalty in theory, but in 
practice it's deeply troubling," Obama told the Marshall Project, a nonprofit 
journalism group, citing racial bias, wrongful convictions and questions about 
"gruesome and clumsy" executions. His delay in proposing solutions, he said, 
was because "I got a whole lot of other things to do as well."

Obama said he plans to weigh in, and considers the issue part of his larger, 
legacy-minded push for an overhaul of the criminal justice system. White House 
officials say the president is looking for an appropriate response and wading 
through the legal ramifications.

Capital prosecutions are down across the United States. A shortage of lethal 
injection drugs has meant de facto freezes in several states and at the federal 
level. Spurred in part by encouragement from Supreme Court justices Stephen 
Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, advocates are debating whether the time is 
right to push the court to take a fresh look at whether the death penalty is 
constitutional.

A solid majority - 61 % - of the public supports the death penalty in murder 
cases, but that share has crept downward while opposition has inched up, 
according to a Gallup poll last month.

Obama isn't alone in struggling with the issue.

"We have a lot of evidence now that the death penalty has been too frequently 
applied and, very unfortunately, often times in a discriminatory way," 
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said. "So I think we 
have to take a hard look at it." She also said she does "not favor abolishing" 
it in all cases.

For Clinton's Democratic presidential rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the 
issue is settled. "I just don't think the state itself, whether it's the state 
government or federal government, should be in the business of killing people," 
he said.

On the Republican side, candidate Jeb Bush says he's swayed by his Catholic 
faith and is "conflicted."

"We should reform it," he told NBC's "Meet the Press." ''If it's to be used as 
a deterrent, it has to be reformed. It can't take 25 years. That does no one 
any good. Neither the victims nor the state is solving this problem with that 
kind of tangled judicial process."

In September, Pope Francis stood before Congress and urged that the death 
penalty be abolished. Obama specifically noted the comment when talking about 
the speech to aides. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama was 
"influenced" by what the pope said.

Such hints have death penalty opponents likening Obama's deliberations to his 
gradual shift toward supporting gay marriage.

Charles Ogletree, a Harvard law professor who taught the president, said: 
"Though not definitive, the idea that the president's views are evolving gives 
me hope that the he - like an increasing number of prosecutors, jurors, judges, 
governors and state legislators - recognizes that the death penalty in America 
is too broken to fix."

White House officials caution that any presidential statement disputing the 
effectiveness or constitutionality of the death penalty would have legal 
consequences.

For example, would the administration then commute the sentences of the 62 
people currently on federal death row to life in prison?

Every lawyer representing a death row inmate would make that case in an appeal, 
said Douglas Berman, criminal law professor at Ohio State University's Moritz 
College of Law. Among those inmates: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted of murder in 
the Boston Marathon bombing.

"There's not been a president who in the modern use of the federal death 
penalty has indicated a disaffinity for it," Berman said. "And if this one were 
to say, 'I don't think it's something we ought to be doing,' that's a policy 
statement and personal statement, but it is also one that indisputably would be 
put in the legal papers and would require courts to grapple with its 
significance."

If Obama went further, perhaps formalizing the federal freeze, it could affect 
other major terrorism cases. The Justice Department has yet to decide whether 
to seek the death penalty in the prosecution of the man charged in the attack 
on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, for example.

A moratorium might serve as a model for the states - where most capital 
prosecutions occur - and would make more of a mark than expressions of concern, 
advocates argue.

"On an issue like this, it's important to make judgments on what people 
actually do," said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty 
Information Center, which opposes the death penalty. "We have seen in many 
states governors who say they are against the death penalty, nonetheless 
denying clemency in controversial cases. ... Whether people say they're 
personally supportive of the death penalty or not doesn't really matter. It's 
what they do that matters."

(source: Associated Press)

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

Former host of NBC's news program calls OKC bomber's conviction cathartic to 
America


The former host of "Meet the Press" writes in a memoir that bomber Timothy 
McVeigh's conviction brought emotional release to the country.

"In our post-9/11 world, it's easy to lose sight of the gravity of the Oklahoma 
City bombing and the trial that followed," David Gregory wrote in "How's Your 
Faith? An Unlikely Spiritual Journey."

He wrote the 1995 bombing "shocked and frightened the American public like 
nothing before" and that McVeigh's 1997 trial in Denver was "a major news 
event."

"For the most part, McVeigh's guilty verdict brought nationwide emotional 
release. It was like a national panacea after the mockery of justice that was 
the O.J. Simpson trial," he wrote. "People poured out of neighboring office 
buildings and restaurants to cheer on and thank the prosecution team as they 
made the short walk from the courthouse back to their offices, escorted by 
police on horseback."

Gregory, now 45, covered McVeigh's trial as an NBC correspondent. He later was 
the chief White House correspondent for NBC during the presidency of George W. 
Bush.

He was moderator of NBC's Sunday morning talk show "Meet the Press" from 
December 2008 until he was replaced in the summer of 2014.

His memoir was released in September. He wrote at length about the bombing case 
because he met and fell in love during the trial with prosecutor Beth 
Wilkinson. The 2 wed in 2000.

Gregory described himself in the book as a Jew, the product of a Jewish father 
and a Catholic mother. He described his wife as coming from a strong Protestant 
family. He said his wife was the one who pressed him for more depth about his 
faith, putting him on a journey to understand and deepen his spirituality.

Gregory is scheduled to speak about his journey Wednesday at the Oklahoma City 
National Memorial & Museum.

McVeigh was found guilty June 2, 1997, and hundreds of people gathered across 
the street from the federal courthouse to hear the verdict. The spectators 
loudly applauded prosecutors as they walked out of the courthouse.

In an oral history for the museum, Wilkinson recalled the moment as emotional.

"We looked around and the streets of Denver were just filled with people," she 
said in the 2011 interview for the museum. "I remember walking ... with the 
rest of the trial team ... and being totally overwhelmed with emotion by the 
outpouring, not for us, although obviously that felt good, but for the victims, 
the survivors, the people of Oklahoma and for the justice system."

Jurors on June 13, 1997, chose a death sentence as McVeigh's punishment, but 
there was no similar cheering outside the courthouse for that verdict.

Wilkinson said: "It was a very somber moment. No one was happy. We thought that 
was justice, but there was no showing of that kind of joy. ... And and I think 
that's right because it's a very sad thing that the death penalty was 
appropriate."

In the chapter about the bombing, Gregory also criticized the conspiracy 
theories about the attack. He wrote that, in 20 years, "no evidence supporting 
those theories has come to light."

In an interview with The Oklahoman, he was harsher, calling the conspiracy 
theories nonsense.

"People ... don't want to accept the answer that's right in front of them - 
that it was possible for 2 psychopaths to be so twisted in their ideology that 
they would actually have the capacity to pull this off and to pull this off on 
their own. People were willing to deny the evidence that was right in front of 
them, that was completely satisfactory, that answered all the questions. 
Instead, they wanted to reach for something that was much harder to 
understand."

He recalled being frustrated with others in the profession. "I think the media 
loves a juicy conspiracy story that they can keep holding on to. I think there 
was some really bad journalism at that time,??? he said.

(source: The Oklahoman)