[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----N.Y., PENN., N.C., FLA., MISS.

[Rick Halperin]

April 23




NEW YORK:

The death penalty is a necessary punishment


EDITOR: Recently in today's society there has been an increase in crime. The 
criminals who participate in these horrible acts have been getting a sentence 
that doesn't fit the crime that they committed. Sentences that are handed out 
in the current legal system today are too lenient. With this being said, I 
believe that the State of New York should reinstate the death penalty.

The 1st reason why New York should reinstate the death penalty is because the 
death penalty actually deters crime. If a future criminal realizes that they 
could be put to death for what they might do, they would be petrified with 
fear, not wanting to be executed.

The 2nd reason why New York State should reinstate the death penalty is because 
it gives closure to the families of the victims. Having the criminal executed 
gives them the closer of knowing that their son's or daughter's death was 
justified.

The final reason why the death penalty should be reestablished in New York is 
because there is no form of rehabilitation for criminals. If they commit a 
horrendous crime, they will most likely do it again.

It may cost taxpayers some money to keep it running, but in the end reinstating 
the death penalty would be worth it. Knowing that our legal system has taken 
great steps in improving the way we seek justice.

Marissa Colantonio

Batavia

(source: Letter to the Editor, New York Daiy News)






PENNSYLVANIA:

Court denies Duquesne man's motion to examine DNA program in homicide trial


The Pennsylvania Superior Court has denied defense attorneys a look under the 
hood of the computer program used to link their client's DNA to a death-penalty 
double-murder case.

Kenneth Haber, representing Michael Robinson, 29, of Duquesne wanted Superior 
Court to compel Oakland-based Cybergenetics to release the source code for its 
"TrueAllele" program, which is used to calculate the probability that a 
particular person contributed to a mixed sample of DNA. Prosecutors say 
Robinson's DNA was found on a bandana connecting him to the murder of Tyrone 
Coleman and Lawrence Short in Duquesne in 2013.

The District Attorney's Office, which hires Cybergenetics to assist on cases 
where the Allegheny County Medical Examiner's Office is unable to sort out 
mixed samples of DNA, is seeking the death penalty if Robinson is convicted of 
1st-degree murder.

Common Pleas Judge Jill E. Rangos denied the defense access to the TrueAllele 
source code in February, in part because she said revealing it could expose 
Cybergenetics to copying by competing firms.

Haber appealed her decision to Superior Court in March, which denied it in a 
ruling issued late Thursday.

Another judge denied the same source code in the case of East Liberty 
double-murder suspect Allen Wade, but his attorneys dropped their appeal with 
the intention to try again if he is convicted. Wade's trial begins May 2.

Haber was not available to comment Friday about whether he intended to appeal 
the Superior Court decision to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Robinson is 
scheduled for a jury trial June 6.

(source: triblive.com)






NORTH CAROLINA:

These days, NC's death row inmates die of natural causes ---- 9 have died of 
natural causes since the state's last execution in 2006


When Jerry Cummings died last week at age 76, he became the ninth death row 
inmate in North Carolina to die of natural causes since 2006, when the state's 
last execution took place. And he won't be the last.

With executions essentially on hold in North Carolina, the state's death row 
population is aging. Of the 152 inmates on death row, 66 are age 50 or older. 
The oldest, Blanche Moore, who was convicted in Forsyth County in 1990 of 
murdering her longtime boyfriend with arsenic, is 83.

The prison population overall is getting older. At the end of 2015, there were 
1,963 prisoners age 60 or older, more than 3 times as many as in 2005, 
according to the state Division of Prisons. Nearly 1 in 5 of the state's 37,000 
prisoners is now age 50 or older.

The graying of the prison population is a long-standing national trend. In 
2006, the state commissioned a study to document its aging prison population 
and to help plan for it. The study noted that longer prison sentences combined 
with the overall aging of the U.S. population had made the elderly the 
fastest-growing portion of prison inmates.

The report also noted that the National Institute of Corrections defines 
elderly inmates as those age 50 or older, because as a group they show the 
effects of drug and alcohol abuse and poor health care.

"Our medical staff would tell you that many of the inmates who come to prison 
have generally had poorer access to health care throughout their lives and on 
average they present with conditions consistent with being about a decade older 
than their actual age," said state prisons spokesman Keith Acree. "In other 
words, people 60 years old in prison present with medical conditions more like 
the average 70-year-old in the community."

The state has not executed anyone since Samuel R. Flippen was killed by lethal 
injection in August 2006 for 1st-degree murder in Forsyth County. Since 
Flippen's death, a series of lawsuits filed in state courts questioning the 
fairness and humanity of capital punishment have created a de facto moratorium 
on executions.

At the same time, courts are sentencing fewer people to death in North 
Carolina, mirroring a national trend away from capital punishment. Of the 152 
people on death row, 18 were sentenced since Flippen's execution a decade ago; 
98 of them were sentenced in the 1990s.

As a result, death row skews older than the rest of the prison population, with 
an average age of 48 compared with 37 overall.

Most people leave death row alive, usually because their death sentences have 
been vacated and they were resentenced to life in prison. One death row inmate, 
Henry McCollum, was declared innocent by a judge and freed in 2014 when DNA 
evidence implicated another man in the 1983 rape and murder of an 11-year-old 
Robeson County girl.

Cummings, who died last week, was sentenced to death twice for the murder of 
Jesse Ward in Robeson County. He was first sentenced in 1987. That was later 
overturned, but not the conviction, and another jury sentenced him to death a 
second time in 1997.

(source: News & Observer)

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

Alleged shooter facing death penalty


The state will seek the death penalty in the shooting death of 2 people at a 
McDonald's in Hickory.

The case against Eric Terril Yount, 22, of Granite Falls, will proceed as a 
capital matter, according to a press release from the office of District 
Attorney David Learner.

As reported in a previous article in The News Herald, Hickory Police were 
called to the McDonald's on U.S. Highway 321 around 6 p.m. on March 2. When 
they arrived, officers found 2 victims with gunshot wounds. Richelle Scott 
Lail, 22, of Hudson, died on the scene from her injuries, according to a press 
release from the Hickory Police Department.

The other victim, Cody William Watts, 28, of Hickory, was transported from the 
scene to Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, said police 
spokeswoman Chrystal Dieter. Watts died the following Friday.

Both victims worked at the McDonald's and met at the restaurant, according to 
information from the D.A's office. Yount allegedly rammed Watt's parked car, 
and an argument arose began between Lail and Yount. Yount allegedly shot Lail 
then fired into Watt's truck.

When previously asked by The News Herald if the death penalty would be sought 
in the case, Learner said it would depend upon all of the available evidence.

"It's an issue we will review very, very carefully," he said.

The most recent release from the D.A.'s office reiterated that pursuing the 
case as a capital offense does not imply guilt.

"The defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty in a court 
of law," the release said.

Victoria Jayne has been appointed to represent Yount.

His next court date is scheduled for July 11.

(source: morganton.com)






FLORIDA:

Death penalty sought in boater's murder


Local officials announced Friday that a Milton man will be charged with murder 
in the death and disappearance of an Alabama boater.

In a press conference, Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan said that 
investigators would be serving a homicide warrant to 36-year-old Michael Paul 
Rodgers, who is jailed in Louisiana on fraud and theft charges. Rodgers was 
arrested in Jefferson Parrish, Louisiana, after allegedly trying to assume the 
identity of a missing Gulf Shores man, 62-year-old James Gunther.

Morgan said Rodgers was charged based on that connection and other evidence. 
State Attorney Bill Eddins said that his office would seek the death penalty 
based on Rodgers' criminal history, which includes rape and robbery 
convictions.

Because the charges Rodgers faces in Escambia County are more serious than the 
ones he faces in Jefferson Parrish, Eddins said that his office would be 
working with Louisiana prosecutors to have Rodgers tried in Escambia County 
first.

"If he waives extradition, we'll go get him," Eddins said. "If he doesn't, 
we'll contact our governor and obtain an extradition warrant. If he does not 
waive extradition, it will take several weeks or months before he is returned 
here."

Eddins and Morgan declined to go into the specifics of what evidence linked 
Rodgers to the case, how Gunther died or what took place on his boat, but said 
they were confident in the case they have built against Rodgers.

"It was some actions on the part of Mr. Rodgers, activities both over the 
computer and the use of credit cards, that led us to believe he was our 
person," Morgan said during the press conference.

The sheriff said investigators still were working to determine whether Rodgers 
and Gunther knew each before the killing took place.

"We are actively pursuing that in all avenues across the board," Morgan said. 
"Any known associates the 2 of them may have had, Craigslist, etc., we're 
turning over about every rock we can to show any corollary or correlation 
between those 2."

Gunther was reported missing April 1 after dropping out of contact with his 
family during an annual boating trip from Gulf Shores to Port St. Joe. The 
Escambia County Sheriff's Office became involved in the search April 5, and 
Gunther's boat was found anchored and abandoned near Fort McCree shortly 
afterward. A small white dinghy associated with the boat was missing, but 
officials declined to comment on whether it was located.

According to Rodgers' Louisiana arrest report, the ECSO contacted the Parrish 
County Sheriff's Office, whose investigators confirmed Rodgers had checked into 
a hotel using Gunther's credit card and tried to obtain a Louisiana driver's 
license using his passport. He was arrested April 9 in Harvell, Louisiana, 
according to the report. Morgan said Rodgers had driven to the area.

Milton man found with missing boater's ID

In the meantime, officials from the ECSO, the Florida Fish and Wildlife 
Conservation Commission, the U.S. Coast Guard and other agencies continued the 
search for Gunther. Morgan said his deputies were not able to cross the 
jurisdictional line onto Pensacola Naval Air Station, but that Gunther's family 
successfully conducted their own search in the area.

"What had been discovered by the family ... they noticed a shovel standing up, 
but again, this was on the federal reserve so our search had ended at that 
line," the sheriff said. "Once that was reported, we contacted the Navy 
authorities, and we entered the reserve with the Navy and the discovery was 
made of the remains."

Morgan said his agency already had been searching for Rodgers because he had 
failed to comply with sex offender reporting regulations. According to court 
records, as a juvenile Rodgers pleaded no contest to sexual battery, armed 
burglary with battery and robbery with a firearm. In 1998, he was sentenced to 
almost 9 years in prison. Local court records indicate his only offenses 
between his release in 2005 and the recent homicide investigation were traffic 
related.

(source: Pensacola News Journal)






MISSISSIPPI:

'Prior Restraint' Removed from Execution Team Secrecy Bill


On Wednesday the Senate sent the execution team bill that protects the 
identities of the execution team and any Mississippi supplier of lethal 
injection chemicals and keeps them exempt from disclosure under the state's 
Public Records Act.

Sen. Sean Tindell, R-Gulfport, told the Senate that all the prior-restraint 
language was removed from the bill, however. Previous versions of the bill 
allowed a person whose identity was disclosed, such as by a media outlet, the 
right to sue for damages, but those sections of the bill were taken out in 
conference.

Also gone is the amendment added on the House floor to make execution by firing 
squad a viable backup if lethal injection drugs were not available.

When asked if Tindell had gotten a response from the media about the bill, he 
told the Senate that "they dislike it less than they did before."

The bill also provides immunity for state workers on the execution team if they 
get sued for carrying out the duties and business of the state.

The ACLU of Mississippi is opposed to the bill and the death penalty in general 
and is asking Gov. Phil Bryant to veto it. ACLU of Mississippi Executive 
Director Jennifer Riley-Collins said in a statement: "We oppose the death 
penalty altogether. However, as long as Mississippi continues to sentence 
people to death, executions must remain transparent and our state government 
must remain accountable."

(source: Jackson Free Press)