[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----VA., S.C., GA., FLA., LA., OHIO

[Rick Halperin]

April 12




VIRGINIA:

Governor says 'death penalty will come to an end' in Virginia unless bill 
amendments are passed


Gov. Terry McAuliffe does not want to use the electric chair for executions, if 
the state runs out of lethal injection drugs.

Virginia is running extremely low on these lethal injection drugs. Prison 
leaders claim they don't have enough to carry out executions. The timing of 
this bill is crucial. Its originial version would have made the electric chair 
the default execution choice if these drugs are not available.

Monday, McAuliffe made amendments to the bill. First, instead of using the 
electric chair, he proposes making it easier for the state to get ahold of 
lethal injection drugs. Drug companies have protested the use of their products 
in executions due to legal liability.

He proposes allowing the Department of Corrections to use compounding 
pharmacies to develop the drugs versus buying directly from the drug company. 
The state would keep their identity a secret.

"I've put down what I think is a common sense proposal to allow us to get the 
lethal injection compound," said McAuliffe, "That we can do it just like 
Florida, Texas and Ohio have just done it."

But political analyst Dr. Bob Roberts believes this amendment could be a 
"non-solution." He says states cannot provide these companies annonymity or 
protection from federal lawsuits.

McAuliffe's office confirmed to WHSV that keeping the names a secret serves as 
public relations protection versus litigation.

"A federal court is not going to respect the privacy rights of these 
pharmacies," said Roberts, "So it provides them little to no protection from 
federal lawsuits. It may provide them protection from state lawsuits but these 
cases are never brought up under state law, they are always brought up under 
federal law."

The governor says he will veto house bill 815 unless lawmakers approve his 
changes. If that happens, he says, the death penalty in Virginia will end. 
Lawmakers return to work on April 20.

(source: WHSV news)






SOUTH CAROLINA:

Dylann Roof lawyers want more preparation time, seek delay in state trial


Dylann Roof's attorneys have asked a judge to delay his trial in state court so 
they can better prepare his defense against the death penalty.

Circuit Judge J.C. Nicholson last year scheduled the proceeding for July 11, 
even as defense lawyers hinted at an unlikelihood that they would be ready in 
time.

Roof faces execution if convicted of the June 17 killings of 9 parishioners and 
the attempted murders of 3 others at Charleston's Emanuel AME Church.

If the trial happens as scheduled, its eventual result could be jeopardized by 
an appeals court's review, his defense team said in a filing late last week. 
The attorneys did not suggest a new date but asked for "additional time for 
adequate preparation."

A hearing on the issue is set for 10 a.m. Wednesday. An attempt Monday to reach 
9th Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson, who is prosecuting the state case, was 
not successful.

Considering the expansive defense investigation required ahead of such trials, 
it's not a surprise that Roof's lawyers made the move, said Chris Adams, a 
Charleston attorney who has handled several capital cases. Death penalty 
findings have been overturned because lawyers missed only one document, he 
noted.

"You can't choose shortcuts," Adams said. "You have to do everything."

Wilson has briefed surviving victims and family members of the situation, 
attorney Andy Savage, who represents several of them, said Monday. They will 
not 2nd-guess any decision by the judge to approve a delay, he said.

"Every victim I represent is focused on the importance of an error-free trial," 
Savage said. "They want the earliest possible trial date that will not insert 
an unnecessary appellate issue."

The 22-year-old's separate case in federal court, where he faces 33 charges, 
has been postponed repeatedly over the past few months as prosecutors decide 
whether to pursue the death penalty.

The state case, though, has continued with the July date still on the calendar.

But the Eastover resident's lawyers, 9th Circuit Public Defender Ashley 
Pennington and Bill McGuire of the S.C. Commission on Indigent Defense, said in 
the court filing Thursday that picking a jury this spring or summer, "while 
substantial investigation and preparation remains to be done in a case that is 
neither factually simple or straightforward, would deny the defendant the basic 
tools of an adequate defense."

They offered few specifics, though the paperwork indicated that they provided 
the judge with further details.

Appeals courts have ruled that failing to fully investigate a defendant's 
mental capacity has amounted to ineffective lawyering in the death penalty 
phase of some trials, the attorneys noted. They said it would be "fundamentally 
unfair" for a judge to deny their motion for a continuance.

"Under the circumstances here," they said, citing past rulings, "to force the 
defendant to begin defending his life before his case has been adequately 
investigated is an insistence of expeditiousness that would render (his) right 
to defense with counsel an empty formality."

They simply do not have time to gather all this "mitigation" evidence to fight 
the death penalty before the July trial, they said.

Roof is willing to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence, his attorneys 
have said in past hearings. There seems to be little dispute that he was the 
young white man who sat in a church room for an hour of Bible study before 
standing and emptying his .45-caliber Glock several times at the other people 
there. 3 people survived without any physical wounds.

Officials have said it was a hate crime by a white supremacist who posted a 
rambling manifesto before the attack. If jurors were to convict Roof at the 
Charleston County Judicial Center, they would listen to testimony about him 
during penalty phase and recommend whether he should get the death penalty.

(source: The Post and Courier)

**********

Roof's attorneys ask for delay in state trial


Dylann Roof's attorneys have asked a judge to delay his trial in state court.

We're told they're asking for the delay so they can be better prepared for his 
defense against the death penalty.

Circuit Judge J. C. Nicholson scheduled the proceeding for July 11, even as 
defense lawyers hinted at an unlikelihood that they would be ready in time.

Roof faces execution if convicted of the June 17 killings of 9 parishioners and 
the attempted murders of 3 others at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.

(source: WTMA news)






GEORGIA----impending execution


The State Board of Pardons and Paroles has declined to grant clemency for a 
Georgia death row inmate scheduled to die this week.

The parole board held a clemency hearing Monday for Kenneth Fults. As is its 
custom, the board did not give any reason for its denial.

The 47-year-old inmate is set to be executed Tuesday at the state prison in 
Jackson. Georgia executes inmates using an injection of the barbiturate 
pentobarbital.

Fults pleaded guilty to killing 19-year-old Cathy Bounds during a burglary in 
January 1996, and a jury sentenced him to die.

In a clemency petition, Fults' lawyers detailed an extremely tough childhood 
and an intellectual disability that keeps him from acting appropriately. They 
also pointed out flaws in his sentencing trial.

The parole board is the only entity in Georgia authorized to commute a death 
sentence.

(source: Associated Press)






FLORIDA:

Man convicted in 2009 killing seeks new trial----82-year-old Renie Telzer Bain 
beaten to death with hammer in 2009


Lawyers for a Jacksonville man convicted of 1st-degree murder in the 2009 
beating death of 82-year-old Renie Telzer Bain were in court Monday, arguing 
that he should get a new trial.

The Florida Supreme Court upheld Cecil King's conviction and death sentence, 
but he was granted an evidentiary hearing on a motion that his case be retried.

Prosecutors said King, who did lawn maintenance for Bain, broke into her 
Brierwood home and beat her to death with a hammer. The murder weapon, 2 socks, 
nail clippings, hair and fibers on a shirt and blood evidence were presented at 
his trial.

King maintained his innocence, saying the evidence linking him to the crime was 
nothing but a coincidence, but prosecutors said his DNA matched the DNA left on 
a piece of fruit found inside the home. King maintained he never entered Bain's 
house.

He was convicted and sentenced in 2011.

Defense lawyers asked Monday for a specific type of DNA testing of more than 
blood evidence that could show that someone else might have been at the scene 
of Telzer Bain's murder.

Prosecutors argued that the testing and holding another trial would be a waste 
of taxpayer money for a man who has already been convicted by a jury. THey said 
DNA testing on the hammer now would certainly produce a different result.

"It was handled throughout the trial," Assistant State Attorney Bernie de la 
Rionda said. "What are we trying to get now? They're just trying to say, 'Oh, 
now look, somebody else's DNA?' ... Anybody ... all the prosecutors, all the 
police, all the clerks, people, everybody else has their DNA. This could go on 
forever."

Lysa Telzer, the victim's daughter-in-law, said she was stunned to see defense 
lawyers making such requests in a case that's already closed.

"I think this is all about the defendant, and everybody forgets about the 
victim," Telzer said. "This is my wonderful 82-year-old mother-in-law that 
would never hurt a fly, and she was brutally tortured and murdered. I feel she 
just can't rest in peace right now."

Circuit Judge Mallory Cooper made no ruling Monday, but scheduled another 
hearing on the motion next month.

If the case were retried and King were found guilty again, the sentence could 
be different. In the original trial, the jury voted 8-4 to sentence him to 
death. Under new rules passed by the Florida Legislature this year, a 10-2 vote 
is needed for a death sentence.

"The way the statutes are going to change could perhaps be in his favor, and 
I'm resigned to the fact that they may have to redo the death penalty phase of 
the trial," Telzer said. "I'm not worried; it's just painful."

(source: WJXT news)

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

Testimony concludes in sentencing phase of Brevard buried alive trial----Jurors 
expected to deliberate death penalty for man


A jury is expected to begin deliberating Tuesday in the sentencing phase in the 
case of a former beauty queen from the Bahamas buried alive in Brevard County.

10 years after the murder, prosecutors say death is the only appropriate action 
against now twice-convicted killer Vahtiece Kirkman.

Kirkman declined to take the stand Monday, at times appearing teary-eyed as 
prosecutors made a final pitch that he does not deserve to live.

"Vahtiece Kirkman should be sentenced to death. Life without parole in this 
case is not enough," said prosecuting attorney Greg Konieczka.

Kirkman was convicted unanimously Friday of burying alive 22-year-old Darice 
Knowles.

Attorneys Monday revisited graphic, chilling details of Knowles being buried 
alive in the woods, her grave filled with cement.

"She was alive in that grave, breathing," said Konieczka. "The last thing that 
she saw on Earth was Mr. Pratt and Mr. Kirkman throwing her in that grave and 
having dirt packed down on her face."

The county medical examiner later described the suffering Knowles would have 
went through being buried alive.

Dr. Sajid Qaiser said she suffocated while trying to free her tied-up hands and 
legs.

"This person was in a struggle to try and come out or escape from this 
situation," said Dr. Qaiser.

Kirkman's old partner selling drugs, Christopher Pratt, testified last week 
that he actually buried Knowles, but only to avoid being killed with her, as 
Kirkman threatened.

Pratt took a plea deal in 2010 and got 10 years for his involvement in the 
murder.

He says Kirkman plotted to kill Knowles because she went on a date with a Cocoa 
police officer while the gang was trying to lay low related to the murder of 
Willie Parker.

In contrast, the lone witness from the defense, Kirkman's "godsister", 
testified calling Kirkman a "perfect brother."

"It's been hard for us with him being away. We can't deal with him on death 
row," said Risha Ford, making an emotional plea to the jury.

Jurors must now recommend to the judge life or death.

New state law requires 10 out of 12 jurors must decide to recommend the death 
penalty, in order to forward the recommendation to the judge.

A sentence is expected as early as Tuesday when jurors begin deliberating.

(source: clickorlando.com)



LOUISIANA:

These Public Defenders Actually Want to Get Sued----Because the right to a 
lawyer doesn't count for much if nobody's willing to pay for it.


In late November 2015, New Orleans police arrested a man named Joseph Allen for 
attempted murder in relation to one of the bloodiest nights the city had seen 
in years. Shots had broken out at a party in Bunny Friend Park, wounding 17 
people. Allen was the 1st of several suspects to be detained after an 
eyewitness named him as a shooter.

"I think where we would be violating the Constitution and ethics and 
professional standards would be to continue to take on cases we don't have the 
resources to handle."

Except that Allen hadn't been in town at the time. Within a week of his arrest, 
his private attorney had tracked down footage of the 32-year-old shopping for 
baby clothes with his pregnant wife at 3 stores in Houston, Texas, putting him 
far from the crime scene. A week or so later, Allen learned that no charges 
would be filed against him - he was released from jail the next day.

In his office down the street from the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court, 
chief public defender Derwyn Bunton couldn't help but think about what might 
have happened to Allen had he ended up with a public defender. In the wake of a 
budget crisis that had ravaged the Orleans Public Defenders Office several 
years earlier, Allen would've been lucky even to talk with one of the office's 
overworked lawyers - there were 42 at the time - within any reasonable time 
frame. Only then would one of the office's 8 investigators have received a 
request to look into Allen's case.

Bunton suspects his investigators wouldn't have made it to Houston in time to 
obtain the store security footage that exonerated Allen. "I'm not going let 
people believe that everything is okay, that they get assigned a public 
defender and we've got that kind of resources," Bunton told me, adding that 2 
of the 10 Bunny Friend Park co-defendants are being represented by his office. 
"We don't."

This past January, with more budget cuts looming, Bunton's office did something 
drastic: It began turning away clients. The American Civil Liberties Union 
quickly responded with a federal lawsuit against the Orleans Parish defenders 
and the Louisiana Public Defender Board that oversees them. The suit alleges 
that rejecting new cases amounts to leaving people languishing in jail without 
counsel in violation of the Constitution. Late last month, Bunton told the 
Times-Picayune that his office cannot afford to represent itself in the 
lawsuit.

"The lawsuit itself can't change anything," concedes Brandon Buskey, an 
attorney for the ACLU. "The political actors in Louisiana have to step up. The 
lawsuit can put pressure on them. It can point out that the system is 
unconstitutional. But if the state wants a better system, it has to fix it."

In a court filing - and an interview with Mother Jones - Bunton denies that his 
actions were unconstitutional. "Is it better to violate the constitution by 
being incompetent and ineffective?" he says. "I think where we would be 
violating the Constitution and ethics and professional standards would be to 
continue to take on cases we don't have the resources to handle."

"Louisiana is an extreme at this moment. How they got to where they are - that 
tells the story of indigent defense in this country."

Bunton's move was just the latest in a string of decisions since last July 
designed to keep the lights on at the struggling defenders office, which 
represents more than 80 percent of New Orleans' criminal defendants. It has 
been a rough turnabout for an office that as recently as 5 years ago was cited 
by the Southern Center for Human Rights as "an inspiration" for its "vigorous 
client-centered representation." Even then, the office was looking at a 
shortfall for 2012 and had begun to cut back on staff. "Louisiana is an extreme 
at this moment," says Marc Schnidler, executive director of the nonprofit 
Justice Policy Institute. "How they got to where they are - that tells the 
story of indigent defense in this country."

Like many of their peers around the nation, the Orleans Parish public defenders 
are saddled with massive caseloads on a shoestring budget. In 2014, the 
office's 51 attorneys juggled more than 22,000 cases - a whopping 431 per 
lawyer - which included nearly 8,000 felonies and 9 death penalty cases. And 
while rejecting clients was seen as a last resort, Orleans is not the only one 
doing it. 14 of the state's 42 judicial districts have cut back on their 
defender services and 6 have stopped taking certain cases, according to James 
Dixon, chair of the Louisiana Public Defender Board.

The way the state funds defense for its poor is deeply flawed, criminal justice 
experts agree. Louisiana is the only state where public defenders rely heavily 
on income sources that fluctuate significantly. In its 2015-16 fiscal year, 
Orleans Parish got just 40 percent of its budget from the state - which faces a 
new shortfall of at least $800 million for the upcoming fiscal year. The rest 
of the money had to be found locally. Nearly 40 % of the defenders budget 
relied on local court fines and fees. But according to a state Supreme Court 
report, the number of traffic tickets filed in Louisiana courts - already low 
post-Hurricane Katrina - has dropped by 29 % since 2009. This has translated to 
a shortfall for public defenders. "What you have is a local funding crisis," 
Dixon told me.

"We're funding public defenders offices off the backs of folks who can't afford 
a lawyer."

The chief justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court noted in a recent annual 
report to the legislature that numerous defender offices could face insolvency. 
"We're funding public defenders offices off the backs of folks who can't afford 
a lawyer," explains Clarke Beljean, a Plaquimines Parish defender who worked at 
the Orleans Parish office for 6 years. The Defender Board's 2014 report called 
the situation "unstable, unreliable, and untenable."

And this system was supposed to be an improvement.

Prior to Katrina, impoverished defendants in Louisiana didn't even have access 
to full-time public defenders. Instead, parish-level defender boards enlisted 
private lawyers to handle those clients. New Orleans was served by the Orleans 
Indigent Defender Program, which consisted of 54 attorneys with a slim $2 
million budget, working part time out of a room in the courthouse.

The hurricane disrupted everything. In Katrina's wake, according to a 2012 
evaluation, only six attorneys were left to handle more than 6,000 open cases 
in Orleans Parish. The local defender board resigned, a new reform-minded group 
took over, and the Indigent Defender Program became the Orleans Public 
Defenders office. In 2006, it won a $3 million Justice Department grant for 
rebuilding efforts and to fund 40 positions for 2 years. New lawyers were 
recruited, salaries were increased, and the original lawyers were told to give 
up their private practices and focus on public defense. The office, which was 
adorned with donated furniture and equipment, found new digs and shifted its 
philosophy to a client-based model, meaning that public defenders would now be 
connected with defendants within a day of their arrest and stick with them 
throughout their case - instead of being assigned to a courtroom and handling 
whatever cases came through in a given day. In 2007, the legislature 
established the state Public Defender Board to oversee similar district 
offices.

"It's like, you're already trying to keep your head above water while holding 
however many pounds of weight...and then they throw you a baby."

Bunton was named Orleans Parish chief public defender in late 2008. Bolstered 
by grants and city and state funding, the office grew into a 72-attorney shop 
with 20 investigators and a $9 million budget. "If we were a stock, we were 
trending up," Bunton says. But 4 years later, the office was hit with large 
cuts at both the state and local level - including a drop in traffic-ticket 
revenue. Bunton tearfully broke the news to staff: He would have to lay off 27 
people.

The remaining attorneys, who already worked 60- to 80-hour weeks, had to pick 
up the slack. "It's like, you're already trying to keep your head above water 
while holding however many pounds of weight on your back and then they throw 
you a baby. You're like, 'What do I do?'" says former Orleans defender Clarke 
Beljean, who survived the cutbacks that day. "And then they throw you another 
one. And then they throw you a few more, and they're like, 'What do you mean, 
you can't hold these 7 babies above water?' Honestly, that's the feeling."

Bunton's lawyers routinely exceed the maximum recommended caseloads that many 
experts view as excessive. In 2015, the office had 4 attorneys handling roughly 
9,500 misdemeanors - a rate nearly 6 times the recommended limit of 400 per 
lawyer. The offices's 55 felony defenders had 7,705 cases that year, which 
falls within the 150-felony limit, but the office recently lost more lawyers, 
including veterans whose high-level cases had to be redistributed. Three months 
into 2016, the office projects that the 39 remaining felony attorneys are 
already exceeding the 150-case limit, its spokeswoman told me. As of April 3, 
the office had refused 53 cases and put another 56 on a waiting list.

The Orleans public defenders office has about 1/2 as many lawyers as the DA's 
office employs.

A 2009 Department of Justice report noted that, to properly defend 91 % of the 
city's indigent defendants - private attorneys working pro bono would 
presumably handle the rest - the Orleans office would need an $8.2 million 
budget and 70 staff attorneys. In real life, Bunton's office is projected to 
end up with just $5.9 million - $1 million less than it expected. About 30 % of 
the shortfall is expected to come from subpar revenue from fines and fees. 
Meanwhile, the office has 1/3 fewer attorneys than the DOJ recommended, and 
about half as many as the DA's office employs.

In a letter to city and state officials last June, Bunton outlined a 
cost-cutting plan he said would "likely cause serious delays in the courts and 
potentially constitutional crises" for criminal justice in New Orleans. A month 
later, his office imposed a hiring freeze. To make ends meet, the defenders 
office even resorted to crowd-funding. In September, after the comedian John 
Oliver did a segment about the problem on his HBO show, it raised just over 
$86,000 to help the office narrow its budget gap. At a November 20 hearing, 
Bunton asked the courts to stop sending his office new cases. In January, 
hoping to stave off further hardship, the New Orleans City Council shelled out 
$200,000 for the defenders. Jo-Ann Wallace, executive director of the National 
Legal Aid and Defender Association, says that Orleans Parish's decision to turn 
away clients as a last resort is consistent with "their ethical obligation to 
provide zealous representation."

On the state level, the Public Defenders Board is facing cuts that could range 
from 30 % to 62 %, Dixon told me. Under the latter scenario, 2 judges wrote in 
an op-ed, the board could "force the complete elimination of juvenile defense 
services statewide." A final budget is due from the legislature in July.

Bunton is ethically torn about the choices he's been forced to make. "It 
sucks," he says. "I don't do this job to tell people no."

As the Orleans office waits for the ax to fall, Bunton is ethically torn about 
the choices he's been forced to make. "It sucks," he says. "I don't do this job 
to tell people no." In fact, he's embraced the ACLU lawsuit as a way to 
pressure state officials. Indeed, over the past decade, deluged defenders' 
offices in Florida, Missouri, and Montana have turned away clients as a way to 
get legislators' attention. It has worked, too. In 2013, Florida's Supreme 
Court ruled that Miami-Dade County's efforts to turn down cases was justified.

But what to do with those defendants in the meantime? Last week, private 
attorneys assigned to represent seven poor clients in Orleans Parish filed 
court motions requesting compensation - or permission to withdraw from the 
cases. Tulane law processor Pamela Metzger told CityLab that the clients in 
custody should be released: "You can't make lawyers do this for free, or ask 
them to spend out of their own pocket for overhead and costs." Assistant DA 
David Pipes countered, "It is their job to protect the rights and interests of 
their clients in their individual cases...If that means that a private lawyer 
must defend the poor without the certainty of knowing they are going to be 
paid, that is preferable to seeing justice denied, criminals turned loose, or 
victims and defendants languishing in uncertainty."

On April 8, New Orleans Judge Arthur Hunter ordered the release of the seven 
clients, concluding that their rights to an effective attorney should not rest 
on "budget demands, waiting lists, and the failure of the legislature to 
adequately fund indigent defense." He added, "We are now faced with a 
fundamental question, not only in New Orleans, but across Louisiana. What kind 
of criminal justice system do we want? One based on fairness or injustice, 
equality or prejudice, efficiency or chaos, right or wrong?"

"There's no such thing as Cadillac justice and Toyota justice. There's justice, 
and there is injustice," Bunton says. "And we are not going to be complicit in 
any injustice."

(source: motherjones.com)



OHIO:

2016 is the 2nd year without executions in Ohio. But death penalty foes won't 
claim victory yet


This year will be the 2nd in a row in which Ohio will not conduct any 
executions.

Ronald Phillips, convicted in a Summit County murder, is scheduled to die Jan. 
12, 2017.

But until the state can procure more of the drugs, or changes the drugs it uses 
for lethal injection or changes its form of execution, there won't be more 
executions in Ohio.

"We're at a place where for progress to be made, if they're not going to fix it 
then they're going to have to end it," said Abraham Bonowitz, a spokesman for 
Ohioans to Stop Executions.

The group, along with 23 partners, plan to hold a series of events Tuesday at 
the Ohio Statehouse to lobby for their cause. There is a sense opinions are 
changing as the state wrestles with how to carry out executions and as more 
people become critical of the years - sometimes decades - required to carry out 
the sentence.

Here's some things to know about where the death penalty stands in Ohio.

Why did Ohio stop executions?

Ohio has had trouble getting drugs to use for lethal injections in great part 
because pharmaceutical companies don't want their medical products used for 
killing people.

2 years ago European pharmaceutical companies blocked further sales on moral 
and legal grounds. Ohio has looked for other options, but all have obstacles.

First it turned to a previously untried lethal-injection cocktail using drugs 
commonly found in hospitals. But the only time it was used became controversial 
because Dennis McGuire took 25 minutes to die. Other states tried the same 
drugs with more grisly results.

After that, state lawmakers passed a secrecy law hoping to encourage 
small-scale drug manufacturers called compounding pharmacies to make its 
lethal-injection drugs. But so far, none have been willing.

The state then looked to buy drugs from overseas, only to be told by the 
federal government that it would be illegal.

Shifting positions

While all of this has been happening views of the death penalty in Ohio and 
across the country have shifted, Bonowitz argues.

On Tuesday, Ohioans to Stop Executions will present retired Ohio Justice Evelyn 
Lundberg Stratton with the newly created Terry J. Collins Award. To award is to 
be presented annually to a leader in government who once supported the death 
penalty but later reversed positions, as Stratton did, and advocated to end 
executions.

Collins worked three decades in state corrections, including 4 years as 
director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. In February, 
shortly before his death, he wrote a column outlining his opposition to the 
death penalty.

Ohio Justice Paul Pfeifer, who co-authored Ohio's execution law while still in 
the legislature, also has expressed reservations. He testified in 2011 that he 
thought it was just a matter of time before the state would rethink capital 
punishment.

A bi-partisan bill that would abolish the death penalty in Ohio is pending in 
the Ohio House. It was introduced last July by Democratic Rep. Nickie Antonio 
of Lakewood and Republican Rep. Niraj Antani of Miamisburg.

Other states, too, have considered ending executions.

The Republican-dominated Nebraska legislature overrode a veto of that state's 
Republican governor last year on legislation that halted executions. Voters 
have since put in initiative on the November ballot to restore the death 
penalty.

Other issues were pushed in Wyoming, Kentucky, South Dakota, New Hampshire and 
Delaware in 2015, but stalled.

Change in Ohio

Ending use of the death penalty in Ohio wouldn't require changing the 
constitution. The General Assembly could pass legislation. But while some 
Republicans have expressed support for reforms, there's not broad support for 
taking capital punishment off the books, Bonowitz said.

Opponents might find support for reforms, though, such as exempting people with 
mental illness from the execution laws.

Bonowitz argues that the time it takes for a person to be executed will also 
work, ultimately, toward an effort to abolish the death sentence.

Of the 26 people on Ohio's death row with execution dates in 2017 into 2019, 17 
have been on death row for at least 20 years. 5 have been on death row for more 
than 30 years.

The long period involved in the appeals process just stalls a victim's family 
from finding closure, Bonowitz said.

"It's also become pretty clear that the method of execution has become so 
challenging it calls into question whether its worth keeping the death 
penalty," he said.

(source: cleveland.com)

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

Death penalty opponents heading to Columbus


Ohio's death penalty is on hold, but the delay won't prevent more than 100 
local anti-capital punishment activists from boarding buses Tuesday morning for 
a lobby day in Columbus.

Converging on the Statehouse from across Ohio, protesters will meet with 
lawmakers and present a letter signed by 200 faith leaders calling for an end 
to the death penalty.

"We are concerned with the injustices built into the system," said Sister 
Andrea Koverman, a Catholic nun and program manager at Intercommunity Justice 
and Peace Center, Over-the-Rhine. "It is applied unfairly based on race, 
economics and geography."

Hamilton County has historically populated Ohio's death row in disproportionate 
numbers. Of the 139 convicted murders on death row today -- 138 men -- 24 are 
from Hamilton County and 21 from Cuyahoga County. Hamilton County's 0.6 
executions per 100 homicide victims is double the rate of Cuyahoga and nine 
times that of Franklin County, home of metropolitan Columbus.

In October, Ohio delayed all scheduled executions until Jan. 12, 2017, when 
Ronald R. Phillips of Summit County is scheduled to die.

The delay resulted from Ohio's difficulty in obtaining lethal drugs that are 
necessary to carry out executions. The state's corrections department employed 
a combination of a sedative and a painkiller in the January 2014 execution of 
Dennis McGuire, of Preble County. The process took 25 minutes, and witnesses 
said McGuire seized and gasped for 15 minutes. He was convicted for the rape 
and murder of a pregnant woman in 1993.

Ohio has scheduled 25 executions, beginning in January, and 8 of the condemned 
were sentenced in Hamilton County.

Ohio has executed 53 people since resuming capital punishing in 1999. A recent 
University of North Carolina study found that in 65 % of the executions, the 
victim was white, although statewide 43 % of all homicide victims are white. 
Additionally, murderers of white females are 6 times more likely to be executed 
than those people who kill black males.

Supporters of the death penalty in the Ohio General Assembly are determined to 
continue with capital punishment, even as the acquisition of sodium thiopental 
becomes more difficult. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned the Ohio 
Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections that attempts to buy the drug 
internationally would violate federal law.

In December 2014, Ohio Gov. John Kasich signed into law a bill that would 
provide 20-year confidentiality for pharmacies that prepared lethal 
formulations. Some Ohio lawmakers openly discussed the use of firing squads to 
carry out death sentences.

The sense in Columbus is once lethal drugs can be acquired legally that 
executions will resume.

Kasich has not wavered in his support of the death penalty, saying in a 2015 
interview with NBC, "Listen, I review all the cases. And some people I've said 
we will let them stay for life in prison if I wasn't certain of who did what. 
... I support the death penalty and will continue to do that, because a lot of 
times, families want closure and want to see justice done."

Kasich has commuted the death sentences of 5 inmates since 2011.

Family members of a Hamilton County man, Jerome Campbell, who had his death 
sentence commuted in 2003 by then-Gov. Robert Taft, will participate Tuesday in 
the Columbus event. Lisa Davis, 51, of College Hill, will board a bus sponsored 
by Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center, 1 of 3 statewide co-sponsors of the 
event -- along with the Catholic Conference of Ohio and Ohioans to Stop 
Executions.

Campbell, now 54, was sentenced to death in 1989 for the Christmas Eve 1988 
murder and robbery of 78-year-old Henry Turner in his West End apartment. 
Turner's family told The Enquirer in a 2003 interview that they wanted Campbell 
executed.

Yet Campbell's niece, Lisa Davis, 51, of College Hill, said Taft's commutation 
casts doubt over the entire conviction.

"I want to know, 'What are you saying?'" she said Monday. "Are you telling him 
he didn't do it but you are not going to let him out of jail? When your loved 
one has a day to die, it is stressful. It is out of your control. But what you 
can control is never giving up and giving everything you've got to help."

31 states have the death penalty. 7 have abolished capital punishment since 
2007.

(source: cincinnati.com)