[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., GA., ALA., OHIO

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 21



TEXAS----new death sentence

Gonzalez gets death sentence in Sgt. Vann's fatal shooting


A jury that began deliberating Monday afternoon in the penalty phase of the 
trial of Mark Anthony Gonzalez in the death of Bexar County Sheriff's Office 
Sgt. Kenneth Vann decided on the death penalty for Gonzalez on Tuesday 
afternoon.

The jury last week found Gonzalez guilty of capital murder in Vann's shooting 
death.

Vann's wife Sgt. Yvonne Vann testified she believes Gonzalez was "full of rage" 
when he shot at her husband more than 40 times on May 28, 2011.

Vann was responding to a non-emergency call and was parked at a red light near 
Loop 410 and Rigsby Avenue when the shooting happened.

The jury deliberated for less than an hour before returning the guilty verdict, 
but deliberations in the penalty phase went on for more than 24 hours across 2 
days.

Gonzalez did not testify during his trial. He is the 1st person sentenced to 
death in Bexar County since 2009.

(source: KENS news)

**********

Was this Texas case the strangest death penalty trial ever?


When we last told you about James Calvert, his trial in Tyler, Texas was just 
beginning. Accused of murdering his ex-wife Jelena Sriraman and kidnapping 
their 4-year-old son Lucas, Calvert had refused to take attorneys and was 
instead representing himself in court, despite no real legal training.

Last week, a jury sentenced him to death by lethal injection - but only after a 
trial that included a shock belts, screams, and the defendant being dragged 
through court. Some legal experts believe that the courtroom antics suggest 
grounds for a successful appeal.

Thousands of defendants around the country choose to defend themselves in court 
- but only a rare few do so during capital murder trials. Calvert's trial is 
perhaps a case study of what can go wrong for those who do.

The 44-year-old defendant had already unnerved Judge Jack Skeen, Jr., in the 
months leading up to the trial, when he acted out during preliminary hearings. 
Once, he had to be dragged into the courtroom. He also apparently waived his 
Fifth Amendment rights before the trial even began.

Once the trial began, he led long, rambling questionings of witnesses, filed 
many, many motions, and objected constantly to the prosecution???s testimony.

The trial took a turn for the dramatic on Sept. 15, when Calvert refused to 
stand up while talking to Judge Skeen. Fed up, the sheriff's department 
activated Calvert's shock belt - essentially a wearable taser placed on most 
defendants - sending 50,000 volts of electricity coursing through his body. He 
writhed in pain and screamed loudly for several seconds. Common trial procedure 
says that a shock belt should only be used when a defendant poses an immediate 
security threat.

It's not clear whether the jury heard his screams - they were out of the 
courtroom at the time - although they later heard testimony that he had been 
shocked. The judge then revoked Calvert's right to self-representation, 
something he had threatened to do for weeks.

2 new attorneys who had the unenviable task of taking up his defense in the 
middle of the trial moved for a mistrial, but Skeen denied the motion. The 
prosecution continued making its case, while the attorneys tried to work with 
what they had. The closing arguments sound like something out of a Law & Order 
episode. Here's the description from KLTV:

First Assistant District Attorney April Sikes closed for the state in a very 
emotional, passionate argument for the jury. "I have waited a very, very, very 
long time to stand here and speak on behalf of Jelena Sriraman and Lucas 
Calvert," Sikes said. "He tried to silence her," Sikes said as she showed the 
jury a picture of Jelena and her 2 children. "That's why we're here!!" 
Recovering from throat surgery, Sikes made her argument with the help of a 
microphone ... "I'll tell you this - voice or no voice -I got a lot of fight 
left in me," she said ... She got very emotional at times, even being handed a 
tissue by the court bailiff to wipe away tears.

The jury quickly convicted Calvert of murder. The sentencing phase of the trial 
focused on how bad an inmate he was, with witnesses from the county jail staff 
noting that he had been an "uncooperative" inmate who talked back and didn't 
follow orders.

Jason Cassel, one of Calvert's defense attorneys, told me that he had tried to 
argue that a life sentence made sense because Calvert was only a danger to his 
ex-wife - and would be unlikely to encounter any more ex-wives while serving a 
life sentence. But the jury didn't buy it. "Because he represented himself for 
so long, they got to experience his personality and how he is, and there 
weren't any signs of remorse," Cassel said. "It just kind of changed how the 
jury looked at him."

Calvert's case was automatically appealed to Texas' highest court after he was 
sentenced to death. Some experts believe the trial antics - and particularly 
the use of the shock belt - could lead the case to be overturned. (Calvert will 
be represented by new attorneys; there's no right to self-representation on 
appeal.) Neither Judge Skeen nor prosecutor Matt Bingham's office responded to 
a request for comment."The court bended over backwards in this instance to give 
him the right to represent himself," Cassel said. "I think a lot of other 
judges wouldn't have been as patient in these proceedings."

It's rare for defendants facing a murder charge to represent themselves in 
court. But there are those who do - 1 Ohio defendant said he would earlier this 
month.

(source: fusion.net)

********

Another Texas Exoneration Calls Bite Mark Evidence Into Question----Steven 
Chaney became the 26th person to be wrongly convicted or indicted based on bite 
mark evidence. The 2 dental experts who testified against him have also 
testified in numerous other cases - and they've been wrong before.


After serving 28 years in prison, Steven Chaney walked away a free man last 
Monday when a Dallas judge overturned his 1987 murder conviction. The clincher 
that sent Chaney to prison nearly 3 decades ago? Bite mark testimony, given at 
his trial by 2 forensic odontologists. The clincher that secured his freedom? 
Discredited bite mark testimony.

The outcome of Chaney's case is yet another notable strike against the 
controversial practice of using bite marks to secure convictions. For decades, 
testimony from forensic dentists - who inspect the injuries of victims and 
attempt to match them to the dental patterns of alleged perpetrators - has been 
admissible in court. Often, this testimony is the prosecutor's only physical 
evidence.

Chaney was on trial for the murder of John Sweek, a drug dealer found stabbed 
to death on his kitchen floor. Chaney, a construction worker, had been one of 
Sweek's customers. During the trial, Homer Campbell, a forensic dentist from 
Albuquerque, told the court that there was a "reasonable dental certainty" that 
the bite marks on Sweek's arm came from Chaney. Jim Hales, chief dental 
consultant for the Dallas County Medical Examiner's Office, piled on with an 
alarming statistic: that there was a "1 to a million chance" someone other than 
Chaney was the biter. Even though Chaney had nine alibi witnesses, the jury 
placed considerable stock in the word of these experts. One juror, when asked 
why he voted for Chaney's guilt, said, "The bite mark."

But now, in an affidavit filed with the court, Hales has admitted what critics 
of bite mark evidence have been saying for years: even an expert can't reliably 
match bite marks to teeth.

Conclusions that a particular individual is the biter and their dentition is a 
match when you are dealing with an open population are now understood to be 
scientifically unsound. Under today's scientific standards, I would not, and 
could not, testify to a reasonable medical/dental certainty as I testified at 
the time of trial nor could I testify that there was a '1 to a million' chance 
that anyone other than Mr. Chaney was the source off the bite mark.

Chaney's lawyers - Julie Lesser, with the Dallas County Public Defender's 
Office, and Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project - challenged the conviction, 
citing Texas's junk science law, passed in 2013, which says that a conviction 
can be attacked in a writ of habeas corpus if there is new science that 
contradicts the science that was used at trial.

The truth is, there was never any conclusive data or rigorous studies to back 
up bite mark evidence, which has been under fire from scientists and defense 
lawyers ever since it was first allowed in court in 1974. Tests of bite mark 
evidence reliability have found error rates between 12 and 64 %, but since no 
court ever ruled against its admissibility, it was allowed.

Bite marks are nothing like DNA profiles.

Forensic odontologists sometimes can't even agree on whether marks found on 
skin - a malleable, inconstant medium - came from teeth or not. The 1st 
official red flag about bite mark evidence came in 2009 when a report from the 
National Academy of Sciences said, "The scientific basis is insufficient to 
conclude that bite mark comparisons can result in a conclusive match." Around 
that time a husband and wife team of researchers at SUNY Buffalo began doing 
research on bite marks using cadavers, and after more than a dozen studies, 
they found that "statements of dental uniqueness with respect to bitemark 
analysis in an open population are unsupportable." In other words, bite marks 
are nothing like DNA profiles - and there are certainly no statistics to back 
up accurate comparisons between sets of teeth, like Hales did when he said 
there was a "1 to a million chance" anyone but Chaney was the biter.

It was significant that Dallas County DA Susan Hawk concluded that "the bite 
mark evidence that was critical to [Chaney's] conviction has been discredited" 
- he is now the 26th person to have been wrongly convicted or indicted based on 
bite mark testimony - but county prosecutors knew about his case for months. 
All summer long the Texas Forensic Science Commission - which for the past 5 
years has been blazing a trail of state-wide criminal justice reforms via 
numerous investigations of labs and forensic disciplines - has been looking 
into bite marks after a complaint was filed by Chaney's lawyers, who asked the 
commission to "exercise its statutory mandate to investigate and report on 'the 
integrity and reliability' of bite mark evidence." The FSC has already held 1 
meeting to look into bite marks - last month in Dallas - and Chaney's name came 
up often. His name will come up again when the FSC convenes again next month in 
Fort Worth.

One of the things Chaney's lawyers asked the FSC to do is go back and vet cases 
where bite mark testimony was used in Texas in the same way the FSC has been 
re-investigating old hair microscopy cases. When it does so, the commission 
will find other troublesome Texas cases, including three that Campbell (now 
deceased) and/or Hales handled at the same time as Chaney's.

One of those cases involved 2 men convicted for the rape and murder of Juanita 
White in Waco in 1986. When investigators found what they believed to be bite 
marks on White's body, they took a dental mold of a suspect named Calvin 
Washington and drove it to Dallas for Hales to inspect. His conclusion? 
Washington's teeth matched the wounds on White's body. But the story didn't end 
there. Investigators began to suspect Washington had an accomplice, a man named 
Joe Sidney Williams, and they made a mold of his teeth too. This mold - along 
with Washington's mold and White's autopsy photos - was sent to Campbell, who 
saw things differently than Hales: Williams was the biter, not Washington. 
Prosecutors chose to go with Campbell's identification, not Hales's, and in 
August 1987 Williams went on trial. The only physical evidence were the bite 
marks. Campbell identified 4 of them on White's body and said Williams's teeth 
were consistent with an injury on her hip. "The research states that there are 
no 2 people that have the same position [of their teeth]," Campbell testified, 
though no such research has ever been done. Williams was found guilty, as was 
Washington in a later trial where almost the same evidence was presented.

But both Campbell and Hales were wrong, a fact not found out until 2000, when 
the semen in the rape kit was compared to the DNA profile of another man. It 
matched the new suspect and Washington was freed. (Williams had been freed in 
June 1993 because testimony from a jailhouse informant had been ruled 
inadmissible.) The 2 men served a total of 19 years in prison for a murder they 
had nothing to do with - all based on bogus bite mark testimony.

The 3rd case is even more troubling because it involved an execution. The 
defendant's name was David Spence, and he was, oddly enough, Juanita White's 
son. (For more on this labyrinthian case read "The Murders at the Lake.") 
Spence was convicted in 2 trials, in 1984 and 1985, of the murders of 3 Waco 
teens and given the death penalty. The only physical evidence against him: bite 
marks on the bodies of 2 of the victims. The expert who testified: Homer 
Campbell. Spence, Campbell said, was "the only individual" to a "reasonable 
medical and dental certainty" who could have bitten the women. According to 
jurors, Campbell's words were powerful. "We had life-size pictures of the marks 
and a cast of [Spence's] teeth brought into the jury room," remembered one 
juror afterward. "The testimony - 'everyone's bite mark is different, like a 
fingerprint' - was very convincing."

Spence's appellate lawyers tried to attack Campbell's methods with other 
forensic odontologists. One, Thomas Krauss, a former president of the American 
Board of Forensic Odontology (ABFO), said Campbell's methodology was "well 
outside the mainstream." Krauss helped the lawyers set up a blind panel of 5 
odontologists to analyze the autopsy photos and vet Campbell's work by 
comparing the marks with dental molds from Spence and 4 other subjects. The 
results were astonishing. Though the 5 experts identified several patterns that 
were possibly bite marks, they couldn't say much more. One of them said the 
photos were too poor in quality to compare to the molds. A 2nd wrote that the 
marks were "more likely than not made by insects or artifacts." A 3rd thought 
that some of the marks were probably bite marks, but he couldn't match any of 
the molds to them. 2 of the experts did indeed match 1 of the marks to 1 of the 
molds, but it was not Spence's. It belonged to a housewife from Phillipsburg, 
Kansas. Unfortunately for Spence, the study wasn't completed until after the 
deadline for Spence's writ. He was eventually executed, despite numerous 
questions about his guilt - the biggest coming from the fact that the only 
physical evidence against him came from Campbell.

Campbell made at least 1 other embarrassing mistake that we know of. In 1984, a 
few years before he testified against Spence and Chaney, he was asked by a 
lieutenant in the sheriff's department in Coconino County, Arizona, for help in 
identifying the body of a young woman found alongside I-40 near Flagstaff. The 
lieutenant had a hunch the girl was a missing runaway from Jacksonville, 
Florida, named Melody Cutlip, who had left home in 1981. Campbell compared the 
corpse's teeth with those in a photo of Cutlip that he enlarged. "They matched 
exactly," he told the Ocala Star-Banner. Cutlip's family was notified and the 
corpse was buried in a Williams, Arizona, cemetery under a headstone with her 
name. In 1986, Cutlip contacted her mother. She was alive. Campbell was wrong.

A review of old bite mark cases will almost certainly reveal more false 
identifications, simply because of the nature of the way experts thought and 
testified. As Hales said in his affidavit in Chaney's case:

At the time of the trial in December 1987 both the ABFO guidelines and the 
scientific field of Forensic Odontology supported use of the terms match and 
biter to relate a suspected person to a bite mark and it was permissible for 
experts to testify to a reasonable degree of medical/dental certainty that an 
individual was the biter in a case.

And indeed, if you go back and look at old cases, the word "match" is 
constantly used by experts, dating back to that very first 1974 case ("The bite 
mark matches the teeth reproduced in the model"). If experts didn't say 
"match," they said words that meant the same thing: "no question in my mind" 
(the defendant bit the victim); "it could be no one but [the defendant] that 
bit this girl???s arm." Sometimes, as Hales did in Chaney's trial, they would 
go further and use statistics, even though no studies had ever been done. 
Campbell did it in a 1977 Arizona case, when he testified that marks found on a 
murder victim's breasts and a model he'd made of defendant's teeth were 
"consistent," which he then quantified by saying, "The probability factor of 2 
sets of teeth being identical in a case similar to this is, approximately, 8 in 
1 million, or 1 in 125,000 people."

Statements like these were, in Hales's own contemporary words, "scientifically 
unsound" - opinions from well-intentioned experts with little to guide them but 
their own eyes and their own experience. (We reached out to Hales, who declined 
to comment for this article.) Campbell himself acknowledged the basic problem 
with bite mark analysis during the Joe Sidney Williams trial in 1987, when he 
was asked about its inherent subjectivity. "It is subjective," he said. "I'll 
admit it."

(source: Michael Hall, Texas Monthly)






NORTH CAROLINA:

5 alleged gang members plead guilty in connection with Lake Wylie murder case


The case of the reputed gang killings of a Charlotte-area couple took a major 
turn Tuesday with 5 accused members of United Blood Nation pleading guilty for 
their roles in the 2014 killings of Doug and Debbie London.

New documents filed with the pleas also reveal powerful new details about the 
deaths of the couple, who prosecutors say were shot down in their Lake Wylie, 
S.C., home a year ago this week to keep them from testifying against UBN 
members who tried to rob their Pineville store.

More pleas are expected. Missing from the ranks of purported gang members who 
walked into U.S. Magistrate Judge David Keesler's courtroom were Jamell 
"Assassin" Cureton, who ordered and helped plan the hit from his Mecklenburg 
jail cell, and Malcolm Hartley, who carried it out, prosecutors say. Both 
remain in custody and face possible death penalties in the case.

Cureton and Doug London exchanged gunfire during a May 2014 attempted robbery 
of the Mattress Warehouse on South Boulevard. Cureton was wounded in the 
stomach.

Months later, and angered by the Londons' appearances at preliminary hearings 
in the robbery case, Cureton ordered the potential witnesses silenced, 
prosecutors say.

"That s--- got out of hand, bro," Cureton told Hartley during a phone call from 
the jail on Oct. 7, 2014, 2 weeks before the shootings, according to the 
documents. "I didn't want it to come to that but that s--- done got out of 
hand."

On Oct. 23, 2014, Hartley put on blue latex gloves, emptied the chambers of the 
murder weapon, then wiped each bullet clean of fingerprints with a red bandana, 
the new documents say. Briana "Breezy B" Johnson, a UBN affiliate and the 
daughter of a Concord police officer, then drove her boyfriend across the state 
line.

Around 8 p.m., Hartley knocked on the front door on the Londons' home. When 
Deborah London opened it, Hartley shot her in the face, documents say.

Doug London came running from another side of the house and fired a shot before 
his gun jammed on the spent cartridge. Hartley shot him, then fled, documents 
say. He stopped and retraced his steps when he heard Doug London crying behind 
the front door. The reputed gang member known as "Bloody Silent" re-entered the 
house and again shot the husband, this time killing him, documents say. 
Authorities found the couple's bodies near each other. Doug London had bullet 
wounds in his face, chest and 2 in his back.

Afterward, gang members celebrated the killings at an apartment near Interstate 
85 and Sugar Creek Road, prosecutors say. 2 days later, Cureton called Hartley 
from the jail. The new documents describe their conversation.

"Who do I owe my thanks to?" Cureton asked.

"Silent," Hartley said, referring to his nickname.

Cureton thanked him.

"I did what I could," Hartley replied.

Afterward, prosecutors say Hartley got a promotion within the gang.

5 of their alleged co-conspirators pleaded guilty to charges ranging from 
murder to robbery and racketeering conspiracy on Tuesday. None were at the 
Londons' house when the couple was killed, but they played roles before or 
afterward, prosecutors have said. Each of the murder charges carries the 
maximum penalty of death, though prosecutors are not expected to pursue it in 
these cases.

They are:

-- David "Flames" Fudge, 22, of Pineville. He drove the getaway car after the 
failed May 2014 robbery of the Londons' store and took an active role planning 
the killings, prosecutors say. He pleaded guilty to 2 murder counts, robbery 
and conspiracy. If prosecutors pursue the death penalty, Fudge can withdraw his 
guilty plea.

-- Rahkeem "Hitman" McDonald, 23, of Charlotte, who prosecutors say buried the 
murder weapon and destroyed other evidence. He entered a guilty plea on 2 
murder counts and racketeering conspiracy. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Elizabeth 
Greene and Don Gast told Keesler that McDonald will not face the death penalty. 
In return for his plea, 2 weapons charges were dropped.

-- Ibn "IB" Kornegay, 36, of Greenville, N.C., a top statewide UBN leader who 
helped plan the killings, prosecutors say. He pleaded guilty to racketeering 
conspiracy.

-- Centrilia "CeCe" Leach, 31, of Charlotte. Cureton's sometimes girlfriend 
photographed Debbie London at a court hearing and gathered other evidence about 
the couple, prosecutors say. She pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy.

-- Daquan "Day Day" Everett, 21, of Charlotte, who also pleaded guilty to 
racketeering conspiracy. He hosted a celebration of the Londons' killings at 
his home, prosecutors say.

All 5 will be sentenced later. Racketeering charges normally carry a maximum 
sentence of 20 years in prison. Because this conspiracy involved murder, the 
maximum punishment becomes life in prison, prosecutors said. As part of their 
pleas, the 5 promised to cooperate with authorities in their investigation of 
the gang. In return, prosecutors can recommend lighter sentences.

Charges stemming from the Londons' killings remain pending against 7 of the 
reputed gang members, though that number could change with additional pleas.

They are:

-- Cureton, 23, of Charlotte - 2 counts of murder, robbery, racketeering 
conspiracy, assault with a deadly weapon and other weapons charges.

-- Hartley, 22, of Charlotte - 2 counts of murder, conspiracy and 3 weapons 
charges.

-- Johnson, 19, of Concord - 2 counts of murder, conspiracy and weapons 
charges.

-- Nana "Ratchet" Adoma, 20, of Charlotte - robbery, racketeering conspiracy, 
assault with a deadly weapon and a weapons charge.

-- Randall "Foe" Hankins, 21, of Charlotte - 2 counts of murder, conspiracy 
and weapons charges.

-- Nehemijel "Swagg Out" Houston, 21, of Charlotte - racketeering conspiracy.

-- Ahkeem "Lil Keem" McDonald, 21, of Charlotte - racketeering conspiracy.

Cureton and Ahkeem McDonald also face murder and weapons charges in connection 
with the 2013 execution-style killing of Kwamne Clyburn, a homeless teenager 
from Winston-Salem. Court documents say Clyburn was bound and shot multiple 
times in a Charlotte park because he falsely claimed to be a member of the 
gang.

UBN, an East Coast affiliate of the better known Bloods, has strong criminal 
ties in Charlotte. Authorities estimate the gang has more than 460 members in 
Mecklenburg County.

(source: Charlotte Observer)






GEORGIA:

Jesse James Warren can't be forcibly medicated for murder trial


The state cannot force anti-psychotic drugs on a man charged with murdering 
four people at a Kennesaw Penske Truck Rental business in 2010 to make him 
competent to go on trial, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled Monday.

But the justices left open the possibility that Jesse James Warren could be 
forced to take anti-psychotic medications if prosecutors show that his medical 
circumstances has changed or if doctors offer a detailed treatment plan before 
the judge in his death penalty trial signs off on it.

State doctors have said several times that Warren was delusional and not 
competent to stand trial for the 2010 shooting of 5 men, 4 of whom were 
employees at the business where Warren had once worked. 3 died at the scene and 
the 4th died 3 years later. The 5th man survived his wounds.

The justices said in a 53-page decision that the judge hearing the case did not 
adequately cite reasons why anti-psychotic medication should be forced on 
Warren. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

The justices said Warren's mental and physical condition could have changed 
since the June 2014 hearing that resulted in the order to forcibly medicate 
him.

State doctors had said they were reluctant to give Warren certain medications 
because of the physical dangers they posed to him because of his age - in his 
mid 60s - and his other physical ailments, including high blood pressure.

"If the State elects to pursue its motion for involuntary medication on remand, 
the trial court should allow the parties to present additional evidence to 
ensure that the court's findings are based on current circumstances," the 
opinion said.

(source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution)






ALABAMA:

With lethal injection drugs scarce, states consider firing squads


Ohio's decision to delay executions another full year while it hunts for lethal 
injection drugs highlights an ongoing dilemma faced by the remaining death 
penalty states.

Although support for capital punishment continues, states are struggling to 
find a legal means to carry it out, and that has created an opening for 
opponents hoping to end the death penalty permanently.

"It really underscores the public's growing distrust and dissatisfaction with 
state corrections departments being able to administer the death penalty," 
Kevin Werner, who leads Ohioans to Stop Executions, said Tuesday.

Shortages and legal fights over drugs and their source are occurring in several 
states, among them Arkansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma. Yet capital punishment 
supporters say older methods such as hanging, electrocution and the firing 
squad are still viable options.

"We've got plenty of electric and plenty of rope," said state Sen. Bill Seitz, 
a Cincinnati Republican.

Alabama death row inmate Tommy Arthur's attorney, Suhana S. Han, earlier this 
month filed a motion asking U.S. District Court Judge Keith Watkins to 
reconsider his Oct. 5 order that denied Arthur the chance to argue the firing 
squad as a feasible alternative to the state's 3-drug lethal injection method.

"Mr. Arthur has alleged numerous facts showing that the firing squad is 
'feasible' and 'readily available'," Han stated in her motion.

On Monday, Ohio Gov. John Kasich used reprieves to move 11 executions scheduled 
next year and one in early 2017 further into the future. Ohio now has 25 
inmates scheduled to die, including some in 2019.

Ohio's prison agency said it needs more time to find drugs. It hasn't executed 
anyone since January 2014.

Death penalty supporters acknowledge the shortage could be the wedge in the 
door that leads to abolition of capital punishment. In central Ohio, Franklin 
County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien complains the state has "a functional moratorium" 
in place.

Nebraska currently has no way to execute inmates because it lacks 2 of the 3 
required lethal injection drugs for its protocol. Voters will decide next year 
whether to keep a legislative repeal of capital punishment in place.

Like Ohio, Nebraska has looked overseas for execution drugs, which the Food and 
Drug Administration opposes. 2 years ago, a federal appeals court ruled in a 
case brought by death row inmates in Tennessee, Arizona and California that the 
FDA was wrong to allow sodium thiopental to be imported for use in executions.

Congress could easily correct that ruling to allow such importation, said Kent 
Scheidegger, executive director of the California-based Criminal Justice Legal 
Foundation, which supports capital punishment.

"It is preposterous that well-deserved and already excessively delayed 
sentences are further delayed due to a completely artificial shortage of lethal 
injection drugs," Scheidegger said.

Last week, the attorney general's office in Oklahoma announced no executions 
will be scheduled until at least next year as the office investigates why the 
state used the wrong drug during a lethal injection in January and nearly did 
so again last month.

Earlier this month, an Arkansas judge halted executions of eight inmates who 
are challenging a law that allows the state to withhold any information that 
could publicly identify the manufacturers or sellers of its execution drugs.

On Oct. 1, Virginia executed serial killer Alfredo Prieto, but only after 
obtaining pentobarbital from the Texas prison system. Texas has continued to 
purchase supplies of compounded pentobarbital without saying how much it has or 
where it came from.

Other death penalty states also are looking at alternatives to lethal 
injection. Tennessee passed a law last year to reinstate the electric chair if 
it can't get lethal drugs, and Utah has reinstated the firing squad as a backup 
method.

Oklahoma approved nitrogen as an alternative method. But that's just as flawed 
as lethal injection because it confuses medicine with punishment, said Robert 
Blecker, a New York Law School professor who favors capital punishment for the 
worst offenders.

Blecker, author of "The Death of Punishment: Searching for Justice Among the 
Worst of the Worst," notes there has never been a botched execution by firing 
squad.

"How we kill those whom we rightfully detest should in no way resemble how we 
put to sleep beloved pets and how we anesthetize ourselves," he said.

(source: al.com)






OHIO:

Jury selection in Daniel French case will continue into 3rd day


Jury selection will continue into a third day Wednesday in the death penalty 
trial of Daniel French.

After 6 hours of questioning Tuesday, court adjourned for the day and Butler 
County Judge Charles Pater told the room full of prospective jurors to return 
at 9 a.m. Wednesday.

The 2nd day of the selection process began with questioning of the second panel 
summoned for trial.

By noon, several of the estimated 41 juror candidates had been dismissed due to 
medical issues, plans to move out of the county by the end of the trial, 
objections to the death penalty and an inability to set aside prior media 
coverage in determining a verdict. The morning general questions were asked by 
the judge.

The afternoon was filled with more specific questions by the prosecution and 
French's defense team and included the 30 remaining prospective jurors from 
Monday's panel.

4 jurors were questioned individually Tuesday after three indicated they could 
not impose the death sentence if French is found guilty. One woman, who said 
she had read extensive reports about the case in the newspaper, indicated she 
had already formed an opinion about French's guilt or innocence.

When asked if she could put aside what she had read in the media and only 
consider what was presented at trial, the woman said, "I would want to. My 
problem is I know he has confessed."

The prospective juror added, "My attitude is why are we going though a trial. 
It seems pretty expensive. He confessed, I don't think I could be persuaded 
otherwise."

Pater dismissed the woman.

Another female prospective juror said she could not impose the death penalty.

"My mind could do it, but my heart couldn't live with it," the woman said. "I 
guess I could (consider the death penalty) if it was a really horrendous 
situation. But it would always be in the back of my mind that I had been a part 
of killing someone ... I just don't want that in my heart."

French, 56, faces the death penalty if found guilty of the aggravated murder of 
87-year-old Barbara Howe of Monroe. French entered guilty pleas last week to 
lesser charges of aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery, tampering with 
evidence and gross abuse of a corpse.

Defense attorneys said French, who confessed to police that he killed Howe, was 
willing to plead to all charges with the promise of a sentence of life in 
prison without the possibility of parole. Butler County Prosecutor Michael 
Gmoser rejected that offer, saying a jury of citizens should decide French's 
fate.

On Tuesday morning, before court began, defense attorney Melynda Cook told 
Gmoser again her client was willing to plead guilty with the life without 
parole promised sentence. There was not response from the prosecutor.

Pater said due to the length of the trial, four alternates will be seated for a 
total of 16 who will hear the evidence.

Before jury selection began, Pater addressed attorneys making it clear he 
wanted civility in the courtroom throughout the trial. At a hearing last week, 
things heated up between the defense team and prosecutors, and the judge even 
raised his voice to take control.

Pater said Monday there were to be no "snide" remarks during the trial.

"There will be no argumentative behavior in front of the jury," Pater said. 
"The jury does not need it, and I am not going to tolerate it."

If convicted of aggravated murder, the jury will consider punishment with the 
following choices: death, life in prison without the possibility of parole, 30 
years to life in prison and 25 years to life in prison.

(source: The Journal-News)

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

Sentencing hearing for man convicted in shooting death of Akron police officer 
rescheduled for Thursday


The sentencing phase in the Summit County capital murder trial of Kenan D. 
Ivery has been delayed until Thursday, court officials said.

Ivery, 36, was convicted of aggravated murder and 13 additional felonies last 
week in connection with the Nov. 16 shooting death of off-duty Akron Police 
Officer Justin Winebrenner at Papa Don's Pub.

Ivery's sentencing hearing, in which the same jury that convicted him will 
decide whether the death penalty should apply, was supposed to begin Tuesday 
morning in Common Pleas Judge Alison McCarty's court.

However, a scheduling conflict with a witness, most likely for the defense, 
necessitated a delay.

The attorneys for Ivery, who was convicted of 14 of the 15 counts in his 
indictment, are expected to call several witnesses who will testify in what is 
known as the mitigation phase of the trial.

The hearing amounts to a mini-trial. In order for the death penalty to apply, 
prosecutors must show that the aggravating factors of the crime outweigh any 
factors presented on Ivery's behalf.

The jury of 6 men and 6 women would need to vote unanimously to send a 
recommendation of death to the judge. McCarty then would have the final say on 
whether to accept such a recommendation.

Court officials have set aside all day Thursday and part of the day on Friday 
in the defense's attempt to spare Ivery's life.

If 1 or more jurors oppose death, the panel would have 4 options for its 
sentencing recommendations: life in prison with no chance of parole, or life 
with parole eligibility after 20, 25 or 30 years.

McCarty issued a gag order months ago prohibiting comment outside of court 
proceedings by all parties directly involved in the case.

Winebrenner, 32, died in the early hours of Nov. 16, 2014, about 30 minutes 
after being shot twice in the torso while trying to defuse a tense situation 
only a few feet inside the main doorway of the East Market Street pub.

In the evidentiary phase of Ivery's trial, prosecutors presented evidence that 
he returned to Papa Don's at 1:53 a.m., angry and seeking revenge, after he was 
kicked out for unwanted advances toward several women who were there that 
night.

Ivery was convicted of purposely killing Winebrenner and acting with prior 
calculation and design - 2 essential elements that must be met to find a 
defendant guilty of aggravated murder.

5 additional victims, all of whom testified at the trial, were wounded or 
grazed by a burst of 4 gunshots fired from a .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun.

Jurors rejected Ivery's claim that he was justified in using deadly force in 
order to defend himself.

(source: Akron Beacon Journal)