[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MO., OKLA., NEV., CALIF., ORE., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 27



MISSOURI----impending execution

Group plans demonstration to protest the execution of Ernest Johnson


A group of Columbia residents is pushing to stop the execution of Ernest 
Johnson, who killed 3 people during a robbery at a Columbia convenience store 
in 1994.

The Columbia chapter of Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty will 
demonstrate from noon to 1 p.m. Tuesday in front of the Daniel Boone City 
Building, according to a news release.. The protesters are calling attention to 
Johnson's execution by lethal injection, scheduled for next Tuesday. They also 
plan to mourn the deaths of the victims, Mary Bratcher, Fred Jones and Mable 
Scruggs.

According to the release, Johnson is intellectually disabled, and executing him 
would violate a 2001 Supreme Court ruling that executing a mentally disabled 
person constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment."

Johnson was convicted in May 1995 after killing Jones, Bratcher and Scruggs 
with a hammer at the Casey's General Store where the 3 victims worked, 
according to previous Associated Press reporting.

Johnson's attorneys appealed his convictions, but the Missouri Supreme Court 
rejected the appeal in 2008 after voting 4-3 that the defense must prove a 
mental disability, the Associated Press reported in 2008.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Johnson would be the 7th 
person executed this year in Missouri. Only Texas has executed more people in 
2015.

(source: Columbia Missourian)

***********

Missouri court gets help to try to decide death penalty case


The Missouri Supreme Court is bringing in some help as it tries to decide a 
lingering a death penalty case.

The court announced Monday that Western District appellate Judge Lisa White 
Hardwick will sit as a special member of the high court to help it resolve a 
case involving Reginald Clemons.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in February 2014 on whether to overturn 
Clemons' murder conviction and death sentence for the 1991 deaths of sisters 
Julie and Robin Kerry, whom prosecutors say were shoved off a St. Louis bridge 
into the Mississippi River. At issue is a report from a special judge who said 
prosecutors suppressed evidence that police may have beaten Clemons while 
questioning him.

The 7-member Supreme Court originally heard the case with just 6 members 
present.

(source: Associated Press)






OKLAHOMA:

Murder defendant in Moore beheading case wants to plead guilty, accept death 
penalty----The former Moore food plant worker accused of beheading a co-worker 
says he wants the death penalty.


The former Moore food plant worker accused of beheading a co-worker wants the 
death penalty, a psychologist revealed Monday.

"He's not trying to fight it," psychologist Jeanne Russell testified. "He's 
saying, 'I'll take the death penalty. That's it.'"

Her testimony came on the first day of a competency trial for murder defendant 
Alton Alexander Nolen.

"Death is nothing," he told her, according to her testimony. "We all have to 
die. ... This world is supposed to be enjoyed briefly."

Nolen, 31, of Moore, is accused of going on a rampage at Vaughan Foods on Sept. 
25, 2014. He had started working at the Moore food distribution plant in 
January 2013 while at a halfway house for felons finishing prison sentences, 
records show.

Prosecutors allege he acted out of revenge shortly after he was suspended for 
racial remarks. Police reported in a court affidavit Nolen "openly admitted" he 
beheaded a co-worker, Colleen Hufford, 54, of Moore, with a large kitchen knife 
and attempted to behead another co-worker, Traci J. Johnson.

The attack ended when he was shot by the company's chief operating officer, 
authorities said.

Cleveland County District Judge Lori Walkley is being asked by defense 
attorneys to find Nolen mentally incompetent.

Russell was hired by the defense attorneys and concluded Nolen is incompetent. 
She specifically found, after he scored 62 and 69 on IQ tests, that he is 
mentally retarded, a term still used in the legal system.

Nolen, a Muslim convert, talked about his faith a lot during 2 interviews that 
lasted 7 hours total, she said.

She disclosed during her testimony that he said he wants to plead guilty 
because of his faith.

Nolen told her, "I don't want to lie and plead not guilty or no contest. I'm 
Muslim," according to her testimony.

Nolen is charged with 1 count of 1st-degree murder, 1 count of assault and 
battery with a deadly weapon and 4 counts of assault with a dangerous weapon. 
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

The psychologist also revealed he sought to justify what he did, indicating 
that he thought it is OK to kill people who are evil. "He doesn't see it as a 
crime," she said of his actions.

The psychologist was asked by a prosecutor if, as a Muslim, Nolen expects good 
results in the afterlife for his actions. "He said he doesn't know, that it 
could be hell or it could be heaven," Russell replied.

The competency issue initially was going to go to a jury. Prosecutors and 
defense attorneys then agreed to let the judge decide instead. Testimony is 
expected to last 2 days.

Criminal proceedings have been on hold until the mental competency issue is 
decided. Also, under state law, a murder defendant must be found to be mentally 
competent before he can accept a death sentence.

If he is found to be mentally incompetent, he would be sent for treatment to a 
state mental hospital in Vinita.

Nolen, dressed in orange jail clothes and handcuffed in court, has kept his 
head down during most of the testimony.

(source: The Oklahoman)






NEVADA:

Judge declares mistrial in Las Vegas death penalty case


A judge declared a mistrial Monday in the death penalty trial for Will Sitton, 
who faces murder, burglary and robbery charges alongside his girlfriend, 
Jacquie Schafer, in the killing of Brian Haskell.

Prosecutors said Sitton viciously beat the 68-year-old man at his Las Vegas 
home, rendering him unconscious at least twice, after Schafer punched Haskell 
in the face.

Sitton's younger brother, Robert, admitted to beating Brian Haskell and became 
the prosecution's star witness in the 2-week trial.

After gathering briefly late Friday afternoon to select a foreperson, the jury 
started deliberating Monday morning.

Lawyers quickly learned that the jurors had reviewed transcripts that were not 
admitted as evidence in the case. The documents contained statements by Schafer 
that implicated Will Sitton.

After interviewing 5 jurors about the evidence, District Judge Douglas Smith 
declared a mistrial and set a new court hearing for next month.

Prosecutors said that after the Oct. 29, 2009, beating, the couple stole 
Haskell's laptop and television, cashed several checks from his account, 
accessed his bank information and used his cellphone.

Schafer had been living with Haskell before he asked her to move out. She 
accused him of groping her in front of her daughter and physically attacked 
Haskell before the brothers beat him, prosecutors said.

Robert Sitton testified that Haskell was unconscious but still breathing when 
the trio left the northwest valley apartment.

Haskell's bedroom was the scene of the "bloodbath," prosecutor Jacqueline Bluth 
said. A medical examiner said he could have lived for three days longer. His 
body was found Nov. 14, 2009, with at least 2 different types of shoe prints on 
his back. Bones were broken in his nose, ribs and spine.

Police found Haskell's black Cadillac less than 2 miles from Schafer's mother's 
home.

Defense lawyers tried to pin the slaying on Robert Sitton, saying he acted 
alone in the beating, and tried to paint him as a liar.

Robert Sitton pleaded guilty to 2nd-degree murder and could be eligible for 
parole in about 5 years. Smith, who is presiding over the trial, is slated to 
determine his sentence.

Will Sitton faces a possible death sentence, in part for his violent past. He 
has a history of sex-related convictions in Clark County. Schafer faces life in 
prison without parole if convicted.

(source: Las Vegas Review-Journal)






CALIFORNIA:

Documentary on race, class and death penalty makes Oscar shortlist


A deeply personal short documentary that explores how race and class can affect 
the outcomes of death penalty cases is on the shortlist for an Oscar 
nomination.

Last Day of Freedom is one of 10 films that have made it to the final stage 
before final nominations are unveiled in January next year, the Academy of 
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Monday.

The 27-minute animated documentary, directed by Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi 
Talisman, tells the story of a man who turned his brother into the police after 
he suspected he had killed an 78-year-old woman named Leah Schendel.

An all-white jury ultimately decided Manny Babbitt - who was black - would face 
the death penalty. He was put to death in 1999.

Last Day of Freedom unravels Babbitt's history and explores complex and 
systemic criminal justice issues using a reported 32,000 drawings.

Babbitt was a Vietnam veteran who fought at Khe Sanh, a 77-day battle 
recognized as one of the most brutal confrontations in the Vietnam War. Babbitt 
came back to the U.S. with PTSD and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

2 jurors who sentenced him to death later changed their minds. The trial lawyer 
later announced his defense was "inept." And thousands of other veterans 
announced their support, including more than 600 other fellow Marines who 
endured the 1968 siege at Khe Sanh, according to a 1999 New York Times article.

"Mr. Babbitt, who was awarded the Purple Heart in a rare prison ceremony [in 
1998], has become a rallying point for Vietnam veterans of all political 
stripes," The Times reported. "They are convinced that Mr. Babbitt - who 
wrapped a leather strap around Ms. Schendel's ankle, reminiscent of the way 
soldiers tagged the dead - attacked her in a flashback, a symptom of 
post-traumatic stress disorder, which was caused by 2 tours of duty in the 
war."

Reports from around the country have found people of color are more likely to 
be sentenced to death when the victim is white.

Babbitt's court-appointed lawyer admitted in court papers that he "failed 
completely in the death penalty phase" of the trial. The lawyer didn't seek out 
dozens of potential witnesses willing to discuss his client's mental condition 
to corroborate his psychiatric defense, The Times reported.

Babbitt's brother Bill reported him to the police with the hope Manny would 
finally receive mental health care. Instead his call to the police led to a 
public attorney.

"We wanted the story to be told from the perspective of someone who's directly 
impacted," co-director Hibbert-Jones told KQED, the San Francisco public 
broadcasting network that aired the documentary on Sunday.

Hibbert-Jones said it was important to her "to show you a perspective that you 
don't usually hear, and you don't usually see, that allows the viewer to walk 
in Bill's shoes," she said, referring to Babbitt's brother who made the call to 
police to report him.

Manny Babbitt died by lethal injection on May 4, 1999, one day after his 50th 
birthday. He chose not to have a "last meal" and asked prison officials to 
donate the $50 allotted for his last meal to homeless Vietnam veterans, the San 
Francisco Chronicle reported.

If Last Day of Freedom makes the final list of nominees it will be announced at 
the Oscar ceremony to some 37 million viewers. They'll momentarily learn about 
Manny Babbitt's story and a criminal justice system that didn't seriously 
consider the mental health issues he developed after fighting in the Vietnam 
War.

The 88th Oscars ceremony will be held on Feb. 28, 2016.

(source: fusion.net)

***********

Silicon Valley donors give early to abolish death penalty


A proposed ballot measure to abolish the death penalty in California has 
attracted some big-dollar help from Silicon Valley.

Anti-capital punishment activist Mike Farrell, a former star of the TV show 
"MASH," filed "The Justice that Works Act" last month. Supporters await 
clearance from the attorney general's office to begin collecting the 585,407 
valid voter signatures to qualify for the November 2016 ballot.

Already, though, some deep-pocketed donors are lining up behind the proposal. 
Taxpayers for Sentencing Reform, proponents' campaign committee, late last week 
reported a $150,000 donation from Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings, 
$150,000 from Stanford computer science professor Nicholas McKeown, and $10,000 
from Integrated Archive Systems, a company led by prominent Democratic donor 
Amy Rao.

The last person executed in California was Clarence Ray Allen in 2006.

Both Hastings and McKeown donated last year, $250,000 and $437,500, 
respectively, to the successful campaign to pass Proposition 47, the November 
2014 measure that reduced penalties for some drug and property crimes.

Any 2016 initiative to end the death penalty, though, could face competition 
from a proposal meant to put more people to death in California, which hasn't 
executed an inmate in almost a decade.

Last week, death-penalty supporters filed the "Death Penalty Reform and Savings 
Act of 2016." The measure's proponent is Kermit Alexander, whose mother, sister 
and 2 young nephews were murdered in 1984, and whose killer is on death row.

Among the measure's proposed changes, it would put the California Supreme Court 
in charge of overseeing an expedited death-penalty appeals process. Execution 
drugs would be easier to get and doctors couldn't be punished for administering 
them. In addition, able-bodied inmates facing death would have to work and pay 
restitution to victims' families.

(source: Sacramento Bee)

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

California Supreme Court upholds death penalty in 1979 murder of San Pablo girl


The murder conviction and death sentence of a man who raped and strangled an 
8-year-old San Pablo girl in 1979 were unanimously upheld Monday by the 
California Supreme Court in San Francisco.

Joseph Seferino Cordova, 71, was arrested in 2002 after a so-called "cold hit" 
DNA match in a national database linked his DNA to evidence found in the body 
of Cannie Bullock 23 years earlier.

Cordova was convicted of the murder and sentenced to death in Contra Costa 
County Superior Court in 2007.

Cannie's body was found early on the morning of Aug. 25, 1979, in the backyard 
of the house where she lived with her mother, Linda Bullock.

Bullock had gone out to a bar the previous evening with a woman friend who was 
visiting and had locked the doors and windows and told Cannie not to let anyone 
in.

At the time of the murder, Cordova was living in San Pablo. He later moved to 
Colorado and was convicted in that state of attempted sexual assault on a child 
in 1992 and sexual assault on a child in 1997.

Among other claims, Cordova contended in his appeal of the murder conviction 
that there was an unfair delay in prosecution because authorities allegedly 
should have suspected him sooner.

The California high court rejected that argument, saying that prosecutors 
established that the investigators possessed no evidence connecting Cordova 
with the crime until the cold hit in 2002.

"Indeed ... defendant was wholly unknown to the investigators until 2002," 
Justice Ming Chin wrote in the court's opinion.

Neither Bullock nor her friend, Debbie Fisher, mentioned Cordova to 
investigators in 1979, the court noted. At the 2007 trial, Bullock testified 
she did not remember Cordova, while Fisher testified that she had met Cordova 
at Bullock's house a couple of times.

The panel also turned down challenges by Cordova to the use of the DNA 
evidence.

"The basic science behind DNA testing has long been accepted in court," Chin 
wrote.

Monday's ruling was made in Cordova's direct appeal from the trial court 
judgment. He can continue constitutional challenges to his conviction in the 
federal court system.

There are currently 747 inmates on death row in California, according to the 
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. No one has been 
executed in the state since 2006 as a result of federal and state lawsuits 
challenging capital punishment procedures in California.

(source: Bay City News)

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

Arraignment postponed for trio suspected in Marin, San Francisco killings


3 young transients accused of robbing and killing 2 people in Northern 
California appeared in court Monday on murder charges, but did not enter pleas.

The 3 were scheduled to enter pleas to murder charges, but that arraignment was 
postponed because one of the suspects has not been formally appointed a lawyer. 
They were returned to jail in Marin County and ordered back to court Thursday.

Prosecutors allege that Morrison Haze Lampley, 23, shot and killed a 
23-year-old Canadian backpacker in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. The 
backpacker's body was found on Oct.3.

Lampley is also accused of using the same stolen gun to shoot and kill a 
67-year-old tantra yoga instructor 2 days later in Marin County.

Prosecutors have also charged Lila Scott Alligood, 18, and Sean Michael Angold, 
24, with murder for allegedly participating in the robberies and killings. The 
3 were arrested in Portland, Oregon, and were found in possession of the tantra 
teacher's car. Police also found the backpacker's camping gear in the car.

All 3 face the death penalty, though the district attorney has not decided what 
sentence to pursue.

The judge also is contemplating a gag order barring defense attorneys and 
prosecutors from discussing the case with the media and others outside court. 
The lawyers agreed to refrain from discussing the case publicly until the judge 
decides on whether to issue a formal gag order Thursday.

(source: Press Democrat)

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

Victim of home-invasion shooting was compassionate, jury told----During the 
penalty phase of trial in a 2011 Moreno Valley murder, family members talk 
about what the loss of the victim means to them


The jury weighing whether defendant Deontray Robinson deserves the death 
penalty for the 2011 home invasion shooting death of Jerry Mitchell Jr. heard 
testimony Monday, Oct. 26, contrasting the upbringings of the 2 men - 1 seated 
at the defense table and the other only present in photos, family memories and 
in the presence of the victim's father in the audience daily.

Most of the day was spent hearing from Mitchell Jr.'s family and a longtime 
friend, before the prosecution rested its case. The defense called its 1st 
witness, Robinson's sister.

The victim was described as charismatic, compassionate, the first boy to break 
the ice and ask a girl to dance at a junior high social, the one who took 
siblings and cousins on adventures to places like the zoo, and becoming a 
leader for the next generation in the tight-knit family. Get-togethers included 
family barbecues, dart games, camping trips and an annual trip to the family's 
rustic cabin in Montana for fly fishing.

During the penalty phase of the trial, testimony is allowed about the impact of 
a death on survivors, and the defendant's background as the jury considers 
aggravating and mitigating factors in recommending a penalty.

Last week, the Riverside County Superior Court jury in Riverside found 
Robinson, 25, of Palm Desert, guilty of murder, robbery and sentencing 
enhancement charges that make him eligible for a sentence of either the death 
penalty or life in prison without parole in the Moreno Valley case.

Although his parents divorced when he was in elementary school, Mitchell Jr.'s 
father testified he spent every minute he could with his son that included 
competitive baseball and football in his youth, and every other weekend and 
summers. "I raised my son from a distance as best I could. He turned out 
great." The family gathered last week for what would have been the younger 
Mitchell's birthday. He was 29 when he died.

Younger brother Eriksen Mitchell looked up to him as a hero. "There was no 
possibility in my mind he was ever going to die," he said, and hearing that he 
had been slain was "surreal."

A sister, Larhonda Mitchell, described how the killing left her with 
nightmares, anxiety and "just the fear of someone coming into your personal 
space and violating you. It's scary."

Mitchell Jr. was a care giver and ran errands for a cousin who was blind.

In her testimony, Robinson's sister, Mersades Meedley, Robinson, his sister and 
other half-siblings moved around a lot in childhood. Unless they were living 
with grandparents, they saw drug use and gang activity, and they witnessed 
their mother stab the man who fathered some of her other children and wind up 
in prison.

Their mother, identified as Nikita Arnold, has attended part of the trial and 
may testify.

(source: The Press-Enterprise)

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

Appeals court backs new trial for former Vanden star convicted of killing 
couple


A former Vanden High School sports great who has been on death row at San 
Quentin prison for 26 years had the reversal of his 1989 conviction and death 
sentence affirmed Monday by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The split decision, with a blistering dissent from 1 of the 3 justices on the 
appellate panel, upheld the 2013 decision of U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. 
Mueller ordering a new trial for Steven E. Crittenden.

Crittenden was sentenced to death 3 years after he helped propel the Vikings 
boys basketball team to a state championship. More than 16 years of appeals 
court wrangling has followed the jury's ruling for the death penalty. 
Crittenden, now 50, was a freshman on a football scholarship at California 
State University, Chico, in Butte County when an elderly couple was tortured 
and slaughtered in their home in early 1987. Joseph and Katherine Chiapella had 
both been bound, gagged, beaten and stabbed to death in their Chico home. The 
day after their killings, Crittenden, who had done yard work for the couple, 
cashed a $3,000 check signed by Katherine Chiapella.

Before his trial, Crittenden escaped from the Butte County jail and was 
recaptured after kidnapping a man and forcing him to drive him to Sacramento.

During Crittenden's lengthy 1988 and 1989 trial, Vanden basketball coaches and 
a former teammate testified about how sportsmanlike, polite and respectful he 
had been when he played for the Vikings.

At the start of the trial, during jury selection, the prosecutor excused a 
potential juror, a woman who was the only African-American in a jury pool of 
more than 60 potential jurors.

More than 14 years after the jury trial, the prosecutor, Gerald E. Flanagan, 
said he had no memory of why he excused the African-American woman from the 
jury panel. Crittenden is also African-American. Flanagan told the judge during 
the trial that he removed the woman from the jury pool because of her negative 
views on the death penalty.

The California Supreme Court in 1994 upheld Crittenden's conviction and the 
death penalty.

Crittenden's lawyers got a federal judge in 2000 to order a hearing to review 
issues about the trial. More than a decade later, in 2005, the federal district 
court turned down all of Crittenden's legal claims. His lawyers appealed to the 
9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard arguments in 2007 and ordered the 
case back to the District Court.

The Attorney General's Office challenged Mueller's 2013 decision and oral 
arguments in the dispute were held last year.

Monday's ruling, which can be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, said that 
Mueller's analysis was correct that the challenge of the African-American juror 
was substantially motivated by race.

In her dissent of the ruling, Justice M. Margaret McKeowyn labeled the 
rationale for overturning Crittenden's conviction and death sentence as "folly" 
and "mental gymnastics . . . taking place decades after the trial." McKeowyn 
inferred the ruling "stack(ed) inference upon inference" and imputed motive 
when none was demonstrated or used new evidence to conduct a hypothetical 
record that never existed.

McKeowyn's dissent harkened her fellow jurists to show deference to the trial 
court judge's firsthand observations in 1989 that had characterized the 
potential juror as "indecisive" and noted that she "could not decide whether or 
not she would be able to follow the law."

"In a case such as this, we should be especially wary of overreading isolated 
snippets of a voluminous (jury selection) transcript," McKeowyn said. 
"Prosecutors must act on instinct: they don???t have the hindsight-laden 
benefit of a leisurely review of a complete transcript. The prosecutor's 
actions here fit well within (the) band of discretion, so far as the cold 
record reveals."

(source: The Daily Republic)






OREGON:

Women who escaped serial killer Dayton Leroy Rogers describe encounters in 
resentencing trial


Several former prostitutes who survived sadistic encounters with serial killer 
Dayton Leroy Rogers took the stand Monday in his resentencing trial.

Rogers was convicted of killing 7 women, and in 1989 he was sentenced to death. 
The Oregon Supreme Court overturned his sentence 3 times on technicalities, 
most recently in 2012.

A Clackamas County jury will decide whether Rogers, 62, will get the death 
penalty, a true life sentence or might one day qualify for parole.

Rogers hired prostitutes in Portland, drank alcohol with them and, after he 
gained their confidence, took them into the woods outside of Molalla. There, he 
tied them up and tortured them.

In 1987, Clackamas County detectives found 6 female bodies dumped in the 
forested area about 10 miles southeast of Molalla.

Some of the women were repeatedly stabbed with a kitchen knife; some had their 
feet sawed off; one woman was gutted from her sternum to her pelvis.

Rogers, a foot and bondage fetishist, targeted young women who were heroin 
addicts.

About a dozen women survived meetings with Rogers, and many have told similar 
tales of being hog-tied then beaten, bitten or cut with a knife.

Many survivors have died since testifying against him in 1989. Stand-ins read 
their testimony.

On Monday, a Clackamas County prosecutor read the testimony of Carol E. Dundom, 
who is among the deceased. Dundom said she went out with Rogers 3 times, and he 
became more aggressive each time.

The 3rd time, she said she considered Rogers to be a ''regular."

''It was easy for me to say, 'Yeah, you can tie me up,' because he hadn't hurt 
me the 1st time,'' Dundom said.

Dundom said Rogers again took her to a rural area outside Molalla where he 
bound her hands and feet. Then he began punching her in the face and called her 
a slut.

''I was scared, I was crying,'' she said. ''The more fear I showed, the more 
aggressive he got.''

Dundom said she fled Rogers' truck naked and flagged down an older man who 
drove by. He took her to a friend's house in Tigard, she said.

Another former prostitute, Laura A. Rodia, testified that she went on a date 
with Rogers near Portland's Westmoreland Park, where he tied her up and bit her 
breasts, buttocks and feet.

Despite her violent assault, Rodia went on another date with Rogers.

"I was really, really high," Rodia said. "He was much rougher."

He bound her, slammed her face into the floor, repeatedly bit her feet, 
buttocks and threatened to kill her.

"I screamed and I cried. Eventually I withdrew into myself," Rodia said.

When she saw Roger's face on television after his arrest, "I broke down," Rodia 
said.

She called the police. "I was angry at being hurt," she said.

"It was the scariest thing that ever happened to me," she said of the hours she 
spent with Rogers.

The trial is expected to last 2 more weeks.

(source: The Oregonian)






USA----death penalty-related

Aging Supreme Court energizes Republicans more than Democrats in 2016 race


Wedged between the Republican and Democratic national conventions next July 
will fall an event of greater long-term significance for the future of the 
republic: Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's 80th birthday.

Barring unforeseen events, Kennedy will become the 3rd sitting octogenarian on 
the court - Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 82, and Justice Antonin Scalia turns 
80 in March. That will mark the 1st time since George H.W. Bush entered the 
White House more than a quarter century ago that a president has inherited 3 
justices that old. At 78 by then, Justice Stephen Breyer will be close behind.

Of all the reasons why the high court will loom large in the presidential 
election - from a docket brimming with hot-button issues to intensive lobbying 
campaigns on the right and left - none looms as large as simple arithmetic and 
actuarial tables. The average age for Supreme Court retirements is just shy of 
79. Since 1900, the average age of those who died while still serving was 69.

With the court narrowly divided, whoever wins the White House next November 
might enjoy the best chance to recast the high court in his or her image since 
Franklin Roosevelt did from 1937-43, when he named 8 new justices. A Democrat 
such as Hillary Clinton might get to replace Kennedy or Scalia, both named to 
the court by President Ronald Reagan. A Republican such as Jeb Bush might get 
to replace Ginsburg or Breyer, President Bill Clinton's nominees.

In recent years and during the current presidential primary campaigns, 
Republicans and conservatives act as if they have the most at stake, while 
Democrats and liberals appear more sanguine - even though the court remains 
largely conservative. There are several reasons:

-- Republican presidents have made 12 of the last 16 high court nominations 
but have yet to win a reliable majority, a record that motivates conservatives. 
For more than 50 years, Democratic nominees have behaved on the bench as they 
were expected to behave, causing less consternation on the left.

-- After 7 years of the Obama administration - and 15 of 23 years with a 
Democrat in the White House - Republicans have a laundry list of grievances. 
They want to block or reverse President Obama's health care, environmental and 
immigration initiatives. They want the high court to overturn rulings by 
federal appeals courts now dominated by Democrats' nominees.

-- Because she already is 82, there is a perception that Ginsburg will be the 
next to leave the court. Her refusal to do so while Obama is president gives 
conservatives hope that they can increase their majority on the court under a 
Republican president.

-- No seat is as important as Kennedy's, who sits to Chief Justice John 
Roberts' left, both literally and figuratively. Conservatives rue the day 
Reagan nominated him in 1988 after 2 preferred candidates ran into roadblocks, 
and they want to ensure a Republican president replaces him. Control of the 
court will hang in the balance.

"Kennedy was a compromise vote that has haunted the Republican Party for 30 
years," says Josh Blackman, a constitutional law professor at South Texas 
College of Law.

Not since 1991 has a Supreme Court seat changed hands ideologically, when 
Justice Clarence Thomas replaced Thurgood Marshall. Since then, only 
conservative Justice Samuel Alito's replacement of the more moderate Sandra Day 
O'Connor in 2006 affected the balance on the court. The last time a Democratic 
president was handed such an opportunity was in 1962.

These days, it wouldn't be easy for a president to replace a liberal with a 
conservative, or vice versa. While Senate Democrats in 2013 changed the 
chamber's rules so that judicial nominees could not be blocked by 
minority-party filibusters, they didn't include the Supreme Court. That means 
41 senators can block a nomination - though even Thomas, confirmed by a bare 
52-48 margin, wasn't blocked.

Many experts foresee 3 scenarios for the next Supreme Court nomination battle: 
Either a Senate controlled by the president's party confirms the nominee by 
doing away with rules allowing the minority to filibuster, or a Senate ruled by 
the opposition forces the president to name a moderate or blocks any 
appointment until the next election. That last scenario could leave the court 
with only eight members for a protracted period.

"It's very likely that that seat just stays vacant until there's unified 
control" of the White House and Senate, says Ian Millhiser, senior fellow at 
the liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund. Blackman, a conservative, 
agrees. "We should be prepared to consider leaving a seat vacant," he says.

The stakes with 4 aging justices are huge: If a Democrat wins the White House 
and outlasts Kennedy or Scalia, the result could be a liberal court for decades 
to come, with an impact on issues such as abortion, campaign financing, 
political redistricting and voting rights.

Those stakes "are higher than most people appreciate," says Eric Segall, a 
professor of law at Georgia State University and liberal blogger. When the 
ideological balance on the high court shifts, as it did when Thomas replaced 
Marshall, he says, "everything is different."

Similarly, conservative watchdog groups have been seeking to prod GOP 
candidates on the issue, going so far as to run television ads in Iowa and New 
Hampshire denouncing even Chief Justice John Roberts as a turncoat for his 
votes upholding Obama's health care law.

"Republicans realize from hard experience that you need to know more than just 
how to mouth the right incantations over your judges," says Carrie Severino, 
chief counsel at the Judicial Crisis Network, which sponsored the ads.

Many Republican candidates have answered the call. Sen. Ted Cruz has suggested 
justices face retention elections to keep their jobs, as some lower court 
judges do. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee wants term limits. Jeb Bush 
has gone so far as to question his brother George W. Bush's choice of Roberts, 
a fairly reliable conservative. Sen. Marco Rubio has called for "more Scalias 
and less Sotomayors."

Democrats have reason to be satisfied with their recent nominees, so their 
wrath has been aimed more at the rulings of the Roberts Court. Hillary Clinton 
recently called its Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision in 
2010 upholding unlimited political spending by corporations "a grave error," 
adding, "I will do everything I can to appoint Supreme Court justices who will 
protect the right to vote and not the right of billionaires to buy elections."

If she wins the White House, she'll likely have that chance. Even if no one 
retires, actuarial tables alone are catching up with the justices. To outlast a 
2-term presidency, Ginsburg and Breyer would have to reach 91 and 86; Scalia 
and Kennedy, 88.

While retired justice John Paul Stevens stayed on the court until he turned 90 
and remains vigorous at 95, former chief justice William Rehnquist was the 
oldest in more than a century to die in office - at 80.

(source: USA Today)

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

FDA Agrees To Hear From Texas, Arizona On Seized Execution Drugs


The federal government has agreed to hear arguments from Texas and Arizona 
prison officials after agents seized drugs that both states were trying to 
import for use in executions.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Monday that it would evaluate the 
states' responses and notify the prison systems once the evaluation is 
complete.

Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark said Monday that the 
state was appealing the FDA's impounding of a shipment of sodium thiopental.

The state hasn't used the sedative in recent years as part of its lethal 
injections. But Clarks says the state wants to "explore all options."

Arizona officials say they also plan to appeal.

Death-penalty states have been struggling to acquire execution drugs after 
traditional manufacturers refused to provide their drugs for executions.

(source: Associated Press)

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

The Case Against the Death Penalty


Richard Glossip was scheduled to die at 3 p.m. on Sept. 30, 2015. After that 
hour passed without event, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin issued a stay of 
execution, delaying Glossip's execution until the Nov. 6. For the 4th time 
since October 2014, the state of Oklahoma stayed Richard Glossip's execution.

On Jan. 7, 1997, Barry Van Treese, owner of the Oklahoma City Best Budget Inn, 
was found beaten to death inside his motel. Richard Glossip, the manager of the 
Best Budget Inn, was convicted of hiring Justin Sneed, a motel maintenance 
worker, to kill his boss. On June 18, 1998, Sneed was sentenced to life in a 
maximum-security prison for killing Van Treese. On Aug. 14, 1998, Glossip was 
sentenced to death on the charge of murder-for-hire.

Despite 2 trials and 2 convictions, there exists serious doubt about Glossip's 
guilt. Sneed had strong incentives to implicate Glossip. Transcripts suggest 
that officers fed him the theory that Glossip had orchestrated the killing, 
promising a better outcome for Sneed if he testified against Glossip. Sneed was 
reputedly "terrified of the death penalty," and framing Glossip allowed him to 
stay off death row. An inmate in Sneed's prison even reported that while 
talking on a prison phone, Sneed laughed about framing Glossip.

Regardless of Sneed's honesty, under Oklahoma law the testimony of an 
accomplice is not sufficient basis to sentence to death someone convicted of 
murder-for-hire. The killer's claims must be corroborated by physical evidence 
linking the defendant to the crime. Such a provision is necessary to guard 
against wrongful implication, of which many accuse Justin Sneed. Yet Richard 
Glossip still received the death sentence despite no physical evidence tying 
him to the murder.

Execution is irreparable. Such a verdict should not be decided by an 
interrogator's theory or a prosecutor's agenda. There is something viscerally 
barbaric in the death penalty, be it under the gun or the needle. There is 
something terrifying in the execution of an innocent man, something from which 
we should recoil.

Equally ruthless is the agony induced by repeated stays of execution, something 
Richard Glossip described as "pure torture." In his Foster v. Florida dissent, 
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer recognised that such "immense mental 
anxiety [amounted] to a great increase of the offender's punishment." The 
torture of repeated stays forms the basis of an argument, albeit by proxy, 
against the death penalty as contrary to the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of 
cruel and unusual punishment.

Stays are a necessary procedure to guard against executing the innocent - any 
'sensible' death penalty system must allow for the delaying of execution dates 
if new evidence is found. Those given life sentences can be released. Those 
given death sentences cannot. We owe anyone sentenced to death the utmost 
candour and respect before we irreversibly condemn them.

Alongside this responsibility, we must ensure that the convicted is not 
punished twice or thrice for their crimes - a retribution both cruel and 
unusual - through life behind bars and torturous anxiety in addition to the 
final confiscation of life. While stays and appeals are integral to a just 
system, extraneous delays are poisonous. On average, California death row 
inmates wait 10 to 12 years for the state to appoint them a post-conviction 
attorney. Richard Glossip's latest stay was issued more than an hour after his 
scheduled execution time. Both of these delays are the fault of the state. Mock 
execution is alive and well in the land of the free.

Justice and humanity are not synonymous, nor are they mutually exclusive. 
Striking the balance between a legal system that guards against executing 
innocent people and one that cuts time spent in line for the needle is an 
unenviable task. Yet our desire to maintain the death penalty mandates that we 
do so. How we treat those who have done the worst is the true measure of our 
society.

I urge you to look into the case of Richard Glossip and the evidence supporting 
his innocence. Proof beyond reasonable doubt is all the more important when a 
life is at stake. While Oklahoma has indefinitely delayed 3 scheduled 
executions, including Glossip's, the move has been motivated by concerns over 
the drugs to be used, not the innocence of the convicted. Let us not mistake it 
for the reform needed.

We as a society must address the corruption that impels the guilty to testify 
against the innocent and inures us to the suffering of those on death row. In 
the words of anti-death penalty activist Sister Helen Prejean, we must examine 
"the soil in which this tree produces such terrible fruit." We call ourselves a 
civilized society, yet how can we be civilized when our justice system 
routinely infringes upon our fellow humans' rights? Are we truly civilized, or 
just more sophisticated at hiding our base nature?

(source: Alex Davies is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences----The 
Cornell (Univ.) Daily Sun)

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

Prosecutors will not seek death penalty in 'Shrimp Boy' trial


Federal prosecutors say they will not seek the death penalty against alleged 
Chinatown gangster Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow.

The U.S. Attorney's Office indicated in a court filing on Monday that it won't 
seek the death penalty against Chow even though it had argued forcefully in 
court to the contrary.

Chow, who has pleaded not guilty, was already facing racketeering and money 
laundering charges when prosecutors earlier this month charged him with murder 
in aid of racketeering, which carries a potential sentence of death.

Chow is accused of arranging the 2006 shooting death of Allen Leung, who 
preceded Chow as leader of the Chinese fraternal group Ghee Kung Tong.

U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer severed the charges against Chow that 
had possible capital punishment after prosecutors made their failed attempt to 
include those charges in the racketeering case against Chow.

The Killing

Chow became the Dragonhead of the Ghee Kung Tong after Leung was killed.

But before Leung's death, Chow had reportedly asked another fraternal 
organization, the Hop Sing Tong - of which Leung was a member - for $120,000 
for a youth group.

The request was denied, then someone fired shots into the Hop Sing Tong's front 
door.

Then Leung, who aided the FBI case looking into the shooting, was killed.

Chow alone wore white at Leung's funeral, which some thought was a sign of 
disrespect. His attorneys said otherwise.

The defense also argues an FBI informant provided information about Leung's 
killing and helped exonerate Chow. Despite this "the FBI has never missed an 
opportunity to try to paint Chow guilty for this murder," Chow's attorneys said 
in a filing.

They argue that evidence for Leung's death points to another man.

"All evidence pointed at the now deceased Jim Tat Kong," noted a recent defense 
filing. "Jim Tat Kong was attempting to take control of the Hop Sing Tong."

Kong was found dead along with his wife Oct. 17, 2013, in Fort Bragg, in 
Mendocino County.

(source: San Francisco Examiner)