[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, ARIZ., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

April 21




OHIO:

Ohio high court upholds death penalty for former Toledoan


The Ohio Supreme Court today upheld the death sentence for a former Toledo man 
who shot a convenience store clerk during a 2008 robbery.

The high court rejected the argument that Anthony Belton, 30, should have been 
allowed to have a jury determine his sentence after he'd already pleaded no 
contest to aggravated murder and 2 counts of aggravated robbery and had a 
3-judge panel consider his case.

"In short, Ohio law does not permit a jury to sentence a capital defendant if 
the defendant has elected to enter a plea of guilty or no contest to capital 
charges," wrote Justice Sharon Kennedy for the 6-1 majority.

The court also disagreed with Belton's argument that not allowing a jury to 
weigh the factors that determine whether a death sentence is appropriate in the 
case violated his Sixth Amendment rights.

"...a defendant is not deprived of his right to present a defense simply 
because he does not present his evidence to a jury...," Justice Kennedy wrote. 
"And Belton does not claim that he was prevented from presenting a full 
mitigation defense to the 3-judge panel."

Belton was convicted of shooting Matthew Dugan, 34, in the back of the head 
during the holdup of the former BP gas station at Dorr Street and Secord Road 
on Aug. 13, 2008. The 3-judge panel that considered his case determined that 
the fact that Belton committed the murder in the course of another felony, 
robbery, was sufficient to outweigh mitigating factors such as Belton's 
troubled childhood.

The Supreme Court's sole dissenting vote belonged to Justice William O'Neill, 
who has previously stated he believes Ohio's death penalty is unconstitutional.

Belton, on death row at Chillicothe Correctional Institution, still has a path 
of federal appeals that he may pursue.

Ohio has not executed an inmate since January, 2014 amid under court and 
gubernatorial moratoriums as the state has struggled to obtain the drugs it 
would prefer to use in lethal injections. The current moratorium will expire at 
the end of this year.

(source: Toledo Blade)






ARIZONA:

7 Mohave County inmates currently on death row


There are 7 inmates from Mohave County who sit on Arizona's death row.

Mohave County has 2 death penalty cases pending in Superior Court. There are 
currently 7 convicted inmates from the county awaiting execution.

Justin James Rector, 26, who faces the death penalty if convicted, is charged 
with 1st-degree murder for the Sept. 2, 2014, death of 8-year-old Isabella 
Grogan-Cannella and leaving her body near her Bullhead City home

Darrell Bryant Ketchner's conviction for 1st-degree murder and burglary was 
overturned in December 2014. He had been sentenced in March 2013 for the July 
4, 2009, murder of Ariel Allison, 18, in Kingman. Ketchner, 57, again faces the 
death penalty if convicted of Allison's murder.

The cases of 3 death row inmates from Mohave County, Brad Lee Nelson, Frank 
Anderson and Charles David Ellison, are on appeal, according to Indigent 
Defense Administrator Blake Schritter.

There are 117 men and 2 women on death row in Arizona. Of the 119 death row 
inmates in the state, 70 are Caucasians, 25 are Mexican-Americans, 16 are 
African-Americans, 1 is a Mexican national, 3 are Native Americans and 2 are 
listed as other.

Daniel Wayne Cook was the last Mohave County inmate to be executed. He was put 
to death in August 2012 for killing a man and a 16-year-old boy in Lake Havasu 
City in July 1987.

Nelson, 45, is the most recent inmate sentenced to death. He was sentenced in 
December 2009 for the June 2006 beating death of 13-year-old Amber Leann Graff 
of Golden Valley.

Ellison, 50, of Lake Havasu City, was sentenced to death in February 2004 for 
killing an elderly Kingman couple in February 1999.

Anderson, 68, was sentenced to death in December 2002 for killing 3 members of 
a Golden Valley family in August 1996. Anderson's co-defendant,

Bobby Poyson, 39, was sentenced to death in September 1998 for his 
participation in the murders.

The oldest inmate, Graham Saunders Henry, 69, was convicted and sentenced in 
February 1995 for kidnapping and killing an elderly Las Vegas man in a remote 
desert about 40 miles north of Kingman in June 1986.

Danny L. Jones, 51, was sentenced to death in December 1993 for the baseball 
bat beating death of a Bullhead City man, his 74-year-old grandmother and his 
7-year-old daughter in March 1992.

Roger W. Murray, 45, was sentenced to death in October 1992 for the May 1991 
shotgun slaying of a Grasshopper Junction couple. His brother, Robert W. 
Murray, was also sentenced to death for the murders but he died in June 2014.

(source: Mohave Valley Daily News)






CALIFORNIA:

Don't Let California Jumpstart Executions


Officials at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) 
are doing everything they can to jumpstart executions after over a decade 
without them - and with the largest death row in the country, they could fast 
track dozens of cases for execution.

That's dozens of humans killed at the hands of the state. We can help stop them 
since the CDCR is required by law to listen to us!

Tell them it's time to end the death penalty once and for all!

In order to resume executions, California needs to pass a new lethal injection 
procedure. That's where you come in: by state law, new procedures must go 
through a Public Comment Period.

That means anyone in the world, in any language, can send in a comment. The 
CDCR is required to READ and RESPOND to every substantive comment. Your action 
can delay California's CDCR from using the death penalty and give time to end 
the death penalty there once and for all.

Let CDCR know there is NO humane way to kill a human being: Take action today.

After more than a decade without executions, Californians have seen that we can 
live without the death penalty. Help make sure CDCR knows it, too.

[see: 
https://act.amnestyusa.org/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1839&ea.campaign.
id=49258&ea.tracking.id=MessagingCategory_DeathPenalty~Country_USA&ac=W1604Blog1&ea.url.id=588390]

(source: James Clark, Amnesty International USA)






USA:

Will US secrecy laws boost the death penalty? ---- Already slowing for several 
years, the number of US executions dropped to 28 in 2015, partly due to 
flagging public support for capital punishment


America stands alone among Western nations for its use of the death penalty, 
but the number of prisoners it executes has slowed to a trickle in recent years 
- partly due to a lack of drugs. Death sentences carried out by lethal 
injection have fallen dramatically since a European export ban stopped 
pharmaceutical companies that produce the drugs from sending them to US 
prisons.

Now some states facing shortages of such substances believe they have found a 
solution: guaranteeing anonymity to pharmaceutical companies that manufacture 
them.

But experts say that strategy comes with risks.

Already slowing for several years, the number of US executions dropped to 28 in 
2015, the lowest since 1991. The drug shortage is one reason for that - 
alongside falling crime rates, flagging public support for capital punishment, 
and its high cost.

Last week, Virginia became the latest state to look to secrecy as a way of 
reviving the pace of executions after Governor Terry McAuliffe suggested 
amending legislation currently under debate.

He recommended officials be allowed to obtain lethal drugs for executions on an 
emergency basis, keeping the identities of companies providing the drugs 
secret.

Arkansas, Missouri and Ohio have already adopted similar measures with mixed 
initial results.

McAuliffe, a Democrat, presented his idea as a "reasonable compromise" that 
would help kill a measure to make the electric chair mandatory when drugs for 
lethal injections are unavailable - a proposal backed by the Republicans who 
control the state legislature.

But anti-death penalty activists criticized the debate for offering a flawed 
choice between 2 means of meting out death.

"The governor's proposal would replace a barbaric practice (the electric chair) 
with a constitutionally suspect one (a veil of secrecy over executions)," a 
Washington Post editorial said.

A number of Republican politicians have welcomed McAuliffe's amendment, 
however, seeing it as an acceptable way out of the current impasse.

It has essentially fallen to the states - which can choose whether or not to 
institute the death penalty - to run the obstacle courses now necessary for 
obtaining the 3 drugs.

The shortages have prompted some of them to quietly turn to companies not 
approved by the Food and Drug Administration, or to violate US federal law by 
finding secret sources abroad.

Just this week the state of Texas - which carries out a majority of all US 
executions - was blocked by the agency for the 2nd time in a year from 
importing the unapproved drug sodium thiopental.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice said it was "reviewing the tentative 
decision by the Food and Drug Administration and exploring its options moving 
forward regarding the lawful importation of drugs used in the lethal injection 
process."

Prisons generally use a cocktail of 3 drugs to execute the condemned, including 
1 that knocks them unconscious, another that paralyzes muscles and a 3rd that 
stops the heart.

Some of the lethal-injection executions carried out since 2014 have been widely 
criticized after they made prisoners die slowly in agony, gasping, groaning and 
wracked by convulsions.

The Constitution's Eighth Amendment bans "cruel and unusual punishment" and 
defense lawyers have not hesitated to launch last-minute appeals questioning 
the effectiveness of various drugs, often successfully.

Experts say the moves toward secrecy will provide more grounds for challenging 
scheduled executions, while news media will probably demand to know drug 
manufacturers' identities, relying on the First Amendment right to freedom of 
the press.

"State execution secrecy laws also raise questions about obstructing 
enforcement of federal drug laws against illegal compounding activities," says 
Robert Dunham, director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

Legal action against the murkiness surrounding pharmaceutical companies 
providing drugs for lethal injections has been quick to start.

In Arkansas, where the authorities want to resume putting prisoners to death 
after a decade's hiatus, a judge in October halted the executions of 8 
death-row inmates who demanded to know what products would be injected into 
them. Last week, the state???s Supreme Court said it would take up the case.

In Ohio and Missouri, death row also appears to lead to courtrooms more 
frequently than execution chambers.

The future for secrecy laws is far from clear.

"It is hard to predict how the different state courts will rule," says Dale 
Baich, a lawyer who specializes in the death penalty. "Some have ordered the 
information to be released and others have upheld secrecy."

Since secrecy statutes are state laws, the Supreme Court is unlikely to weigh 
in, he adds, meaning each state will continue grappling with a punishment 
that's increasingly coming under fire.

(source: Agence France-Presse)

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

Defense in death penalty case says secret jury unfair to defendant


Increasing security measures for jurors in the death penalty trial of the 
reputed founder of a violent Newark street gang would "poison the atmosphere" 
and hinder his right to a fair trial, Farad Roland's defense lawyers argued in 
a recent court brief.

Federal prosecutors have asked U.S. District Judge Esther Salas to shield the 
names, addresses and work places of jurors in Roland's trial - not only from 
the parties, but their attorneys and the public. Prosecutors also want jurors 
to be sequestered during lunch breaks and recesses, and that they be required 
to meet at a remote site and bused to and from the courthouse.

Other trials involving gang members have had incidents of jury tampering, the 
prosecution said.

Roland, the alleged co-founder of the South Side Cartel, an arm of the Bloods 
street gang, faces the death penalty for violations of the Racketeer Influenced 
Corrupt Organizations Act, including conspiring in seven murders, and 
robberies, carjackings and drug deals. Roland's case is only the 2nd federal 
death penalty case in New Jersey since it was reinstituted nearly 30 years ago.

At least one of those alleged murders involved another gang member who Roland 
feared would "snitch" on him, prosecutors said in their motion. Prosecutors 
allege Roland, 31, executed 19-year-old Fuquan Billings so that he would not 
report Roland's involvement in other alleged crimes to authorities, the 
government's motion says.

Feds want stiff penalties for alleged kingpin

But requiring "drastic" measures to hide the jurors' identities would create 
the impression in jurors' minds that Roland is "guilty, dangerous and 
warranting of the death penalty" even before the trial begins, the defense 
brief says.

"Worse still, adding the government's proposed heightened security measures 
(often referred to as partial sequestration) on top of jury anonymity would 
cast a shadow of fear over every moment of the jury's participation in this 
trial," said the defense team of Michael K. Bachrach, Richard Jasper and 
Stephen Turano.

Roland's right to a public trial is protected by the Sixth Amendment and the 
public shares that right in the First Amendment, the brief says.

The brief also noted the ongoing trial of members of another violent street 
gang, La Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, which involves murders and witnesses 
testifying that they are afraid of the gang. Yet there are no extraordinary 
security measures in that courtroom, it said.

The defense also said the Third Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected the 
argument of additional juror protection because friends or enemies of the 
defendant might attempt to influence them. Such reasoning "would justify 
anonymity in virtually every trial," they wrote.

Indeed, the brief says, all of the members of the South Side Cartel are "either 
dead, in custody or cooperating with the government."

Additionally, by keeping jurors' identities secret, the court would hamper the 
defense's ability to remove potentially biased individuals during jury 
selection, the brief says.

As an alternative, the defense suggested keeping jurors' names from the public 
record as a way to reduce the news media's "biasing effect," it said. That at 
least would allow the defense to scrutinize individuals during jury selection.

Providing full information to the defense, thorough jury selection and 
appropriate jury instructions would be the best way to protect Roland's 
constitutional rights, they said.

The 2 sides will meet again in court May 5, when they will discuss, among other 
things, whether Roland is intellectually capable of understanding the case.

(source: nj.com)

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

Work of Supreme Court continues while 1 justice short


While the political process concerning the selection of the person who will 
fill the seat held by the late Justice Antonin Scalia goes on, the business of 
the Supreme Court continues. Since the start of the October 2015 term, 82 cases 
have been granted review, consolidated into 70 arguments. Consolidation avoids 
the need for separate briefs to be filed and oral arguments held to resolve 
identical or closely related issues in multiple jurisdictions. The court's 
session begins on the 1st Monday in October each year and ends on June 30. We 
will begin with a look at some of the cases that have already been decided and 
those that are still pending.

Some cases are likely to never come to the attention of the general public 
while others will make the headlines all around the country, and some, around 
the world. In the former category, this year has cases dealing with the setting 
of electrical rates, the Hobbs Act (robbery or extortion in interstate 
commerce), and technical aspects of patent and copyright law. These cases are 
very important to the parties and provide clarity to laws whose interpretation 
has varied around the country. Among the topics that will draw public interest 
are affirmative action in college admissions, abortion rights as they relate to 
the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), public employee unions, arbitration 
clauses in contracts, and capital punishment; those are the ones we will 
discuss in the next few columns. Some have been argued and decided and others 
await decision.

The topic of capital punishment has been before the court many times over the 
years and there were a half-dozen accepted for review this year. Kansas v. Carr 
involved 3 cases arising out of 2 murder cases (the two Carr brothers were 
charged in the so-called "Wichita Massacre" case) and the main issue involved 
how courts should charge juries about what level of evidence defendants must 
introduce to mitigate the likelihood of the death penalty being imposed. In an 
8-1 decision written by Justice Scalia, his last majority decision, the court 
held that an error in instructions did not make the process fundamentally 
unfair. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the decision is that it was 
joined in by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, 2 critics of the 
death penalty in general. The unusual alignment of justices, with only Justice 
Sonia Sotomayor dissenting, also gives lie to the idea that on certain 
controversial issues there is always a split along ideological lines. In 
another 8-1 decision (Justice Samuel Alito dissenting), the court found that a 
procedure allowing a judge (rather than the jury) to do the final fact finding 
in determining whether or not to impose the death penalty violated the Sixth 
Amendment right to a jury trial. Again, a consensus of liberal and conservative 
justices came together to interpret and apply the Constitution to a real-world 
situation.

Next time we'll look at some of the other issues facing the court this term.

(source: Ronald Goldfarb is a professor in the Business, Accounting and Legal 
Studies Department at Middlesex County College----mycentraljersey.com)