[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----DEL., N.C., GA., OHIO, NEB., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 1



DELAWARE:

Delaware capital murder trials and hearings halted while state justices mull 
death penalty law


A Superior Court judge has halted all trials and penalty hearings in capital 
murder cases while Delaware's Supreme Court mulls the constitutionality of the 
state's death penalty law.

The order was issued Monday President Judge Jan Jurden, head of the Superior 
Court system.

Last week, the Supreme Court accepted several questions submitted by a Superior 
Court judge regarding the roles of judges and juries in Delaware death penalty 
cases. Those questions were prompted by a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

The U.S. Supreme Court said Florida's death sentencing scheme was 
unconstitutional because a jury, not a judge, must find each fact necessary to 
impose a death sentence.

Delaware's sentencing scheme is similar to Florida's.

Meanwhile, a bill to abolish Delaware's death penalty was defeated in the state 
House last week.

(source: Associated Press)

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

First State freezes all death penalty cases


Superior Court President Judge Jan Jurden is halting all 39 of Delaware's 
pending death penalty cases as the state's highest court weighs the system's 
constitutionality.

The official stay from Jurden comes just days after another Superior Court 
judge asked the Delaware Supreme Court to rule on the legality of the state's 
capital punishment program.

Part of the First State's system resembles Florida's, which the U.S. Supreme 
Court struck down as unconstitutional last month.

In Delaware, juries have to unanimously find at least 1 aggravating factor to 
recommend a death sentence. Then, a judge weighs all relevant information that 
came out at trial before either sentencing that person to die or giving them 
life in prison.

All but 1 Supreme Court justice found putting more power in the hands of judges 
unconstitutional in their recent ruling.

State lawmakers in the House rejected a bill that would overturn capital 
punishment in Delaware altogether last week.

The Public Defender's Office and the state will file arguments to the Delaware 
Supreme Court in the coming weeks, with a ruling expected before the summer.

(source: Delaware Public Media)






NORTH CAROLINA:

Shawn Legrand pleading guilty to 3 murders


Shawn Lee Legrand halted his death penalty trial today by pleading guilty to 
the November 2011 murders of Krystle Price Papile, Gregory Steven Fitzgerald 
and victim Ardell Paige Jr.

Jury selection in Cumberland County Superior Court had been scheduled to start 
today, but the 49-year-old Legrand this afternoon decided to plead guilty.

By doing so, Legrand avoids the death sentence. Instead, he is to get 3 
sentences of life in prison without parole, District Attorney Billy West said.

West said Legrand's offer to plead guilty came as a surprise to prosecutors.

Legrand stabbed to death Papile and Fitzgerald, and shot to death Paige. He 
also shot Bennie Darwin King and Stephanie Lashaun Croom, but they survived. 
The violence was in a residence on Ingram Street in Fayetteville on Nov. 26, 
2011. He was arrested following a car chase and shoot-out with two Fayetteville 
police officers.

The officers severely injured Legrand. In court today, he appeared in a 
wheelchair.

(source: Fayetteville Observer)






GEORGIA----impending execution

Lawyers: Death row inmate sentence excessive in murder case


Lawyers for a Georgia death row inmate set to die this week asked the state's 
highest court on Monday to throw out his sentence, arguing that it's 
disproportionate to his crime.

Brandon Astor Jones was convicted in the 1979 killing of a convenience store 
manager and is scheduled to be put to death Tuesday. At the time of his 
conviction, a death sentence for a murder committed during a robbery at a 
business was rare, and it has become even more unusual recently, with none 
imposed in any such case in Georgia in the past 20 years, Jones' lawyers argue 
in their filing with the state's Supreme Court.

The state and federal constitutions "prohibit a criminal sentence that is 
excessive, or that is arbitrarily or rarely imposed," the lawyers wrote.

Jones' lawyers say they reviewed other cases of murders committed during armed 
robberies in Georgia, including some that were more brutal or involved more 
victims. Dozens of those defendants served their sentences and have been 
released on parole, the lawyers wrote.

The "community conscience is now, and has been for at least twenty years, that 
a spontaneous murder committed while carrying out the armed robbery of a retail 
establishment - while extremely serious and deserving of serious punishment - 
is not among the 'worst of the worst' offenses for which the death penalty is 
constitutionally reserved," the lawyers wrote.

Additionally, the state's evidence doesn't prove that Jones shot store manager 
Roger Tackett, and Jones has consistently denied firing at him, the lawyers 
wrote. They argue that the other man convicted in the killing, Van Roosevelt 
Solomon, fired all of the shots that hit Tackett. Solomon also was convicted 
and was executed in Georgia's electric chair in 1985.

A lower court judge last week denied Jones' request to have his execution 
halted and his death sentence tossed out. The judge ruled that Jones has made 
many of the arguments previously and that they are, therefore, procedurally 
barred. There has been no change in the facts or law and Jones has failed to 
establish a miscarriage of justice, Towaliga Circuit Chief Judge Thomas Wilson 
wrote.

Jones has another appeal challenging the constitutionality of the state's 
execution secrecy law pending before 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The 
law classifies as a confidential state secret the identity of any person or 
entity involved in an execution, including the drug producer.

Jones was convicted in October 1979. A federal judge in February 1989 ordered a 
new sentencing hearing because jurors had improperly been allowed to bring a 
Bible into the deliberation room. Jones was resentenced to death in 1997. The 
11th Circuit last week rejected another appeal that challenged the 
effectiveness of Jones' attorneys during the 2nd sentencing trial.

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles - the only entity in Georgia 
authorized to commute a death sentence - held a clemency hearing for Jones on 
Monday but did not immediately release its decision. At age 72, Jones is the 
state's oldest death row inmate.

(source: Associated Press)






OHIO:

Ohio man faces death penalty for slaying of police officer


An Ohio man accused of shooting and killing a police officer could face the 
death penalty after a grand jury on Monday returned aggravated murder charges 
against him, county prosecutors said.

A Knox County grand jury handed up a 10-count indictment that included 
aggravated murder, grand theft auto and tampering with evidence against 
Herschel R. Jones III for the murder of Danville Police Officer Thomas Cottrell 
in January.

Knox County Prosecutor Mitch McConville said his office plans to seek the death 
penalty for the Jan. 17 shooting.

Cottrell was found shot dead behind a municipal building in the central Ohio 
village of Danville, about 60 miles northeast of Columbus, less than 30 minutes 
after police received a call from a woman warning her ex-boyfriend, "had left 
with weapons and was looking to kill an officer."

Cottrell was found shot in the head, and his gun and police cruiser were 
missing.

2 hours later, officers spotted Jones, 32, running from a home, officials said. 
After a short foot chase, he was captured.

Jones, who has been held in police custody on a parole violation, attempted to 
burn Cottrell???s clothing and dispose of his gun and police cruiser after the 
shooting, prosecutors charged.

Jones was also charged with aggravated burglary, kidnapping and assault 
stemming from a separate incident in November.

A judge has not yet been assigned to try the case.

(source: Reuters)






NEBRASKA:

Judge dismisses suit challenging death-penalty question going to voters


A Lancaster County judge has rejected a lawsuit challenging the death-penalty 
question going to Nebraska voters in November, but refused to allow a 
pro-death-penalty group to be part of a 2nd suit challenging the ballot 
wording.

Lancaster County District Judge Lori Maret issued orders late Friday afternoon 
dismissing the case brought by death penalty opponents Christy and Richard 
Hargesheimer and dismissing a motion by the Nebraskans for the Death Penalty to 
intervene in another suit filed by Lyle Koenig.

The Hargesheimers had contended that the petition process should be deemed 
invalid because it failed to disclose Gov. Pete Ricketts as a sponsor. Their 
suit sought an injunction to keep Secretary of State John Gale from placing the 
question on the ballot Nov. 8.

Koenig's issue with the language, drafted by Attorney General Doug Peterson, is 
the title and explanatory statement Gale chose to appear on the ballot.

At a hearing in November, the argument in the Hargesheimers' case came down, 
largely, to who qualifies as a "sponsor" of a petition, which is not defined in 
statutes.

No one disputed that Ricketts and his father contributed 1/3 of the $913,000 
raised by Nebraskans for the Death Penalty. Ricketts raised money for the 
campaign, and his close allies took roles to promote it.

Attorney Alan Peterson, who represents the Hargesheimers, argued that Ricketts 
should be included because Nebraska law requires a sworn list of every person 
sponsoring a referendum.

He stopped short of suggesting a definition of "sponsor" but suggested that the 
governor was "in actuality the primary initiating force" behind the referendum, 
which was a good start toward a reasonable definition.

On the other side, Omaha attorney Steven Grasz, who represents Nebraskans for 
the Death Penalty and Judy Glasburner, Aimee Melton and Bob Evnen, who are 
listed as petition sponsors, argued that to construe the statute to encompass 
all supporters, contributors and political leaders would put petition drives in 
a state of perpetual uncertainty.

"Sponsor," he said, refers to those who assume statutory responsibility for the 
referendum once the petition begins.

In an 11-page order, Maret said she was persuaded by the argument that because 
Glasburner, Melton and Evnen identified themselves as willing to assume the 
statutory responsibilities once the petition process commenced that Ricketts 
was not required to be listed as a sponsor.

"The court agrees," she wrote, citing then-Chief Justice John Hendry's 
reasoning in a concurring opinion in a similar case before the Nebraska Supreme 
Court in 2003.

Maret said the Legislature long ago removed the financial contribution 
reporting requirement to the process and now requires that ballot committees 
disclose financial contributors, like Ricketts, in a report to the Nebraska 
Accountability and Disclosure Commission.

She said a strict reading of "every person ... sponsoring the petition," as it 
says in the statute, could have a potentially chilling effect on people lending 
support of a referendum effort and "would hinder, rather than facilitate, the 
people's referendum rights."

Maret called it a fatal defect in the complaint and dismissed it.

"We do expect to file an appeal," Alan Peterson said Monday.

The attorney who represents the Hargesheimers said the primary authority Maret 
relied on in her opinion was a single judge's opinion, "which is inconsistent, 
we think, with the majority opinion."

He said he hopes the appeal is expedited. "If we're going to win this case 
we're running out of time," Peterson said.

Maret also dismissed a request by the Nebraskans for the Death Penalty to be 
allowed to intervene in the Koenig case, which seeks to change a single word to 
the title when it goes before voters.

It challenges the Attorney General's proposed ballot language, which describes 
life in prison as the "maximum" sentence, when in fact it is the only sentence.

Maret found that the pro-death penalty group didn't file within the time 
allowed to challenge the decision on the wording or provide an alternative. In 
fact, the group admitted it wasn???t dissatisfied with the proposed title.

The group's "desire to assert its opinion on this issue is not a sufficient 
direct and legal interest that would require intervention??? under the statute, 
she wrote.

(source: Lincoln Journal Star)

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

Judge dismisses lawsuit claiming death penalty voter petition drive is invalid


A ballot referendum to restore Nebraska's death penalty has survived a legal 
challenge brought by foes of capital punishment.

Lancaster County District Judge Lori Maret dismissed the lawsuit filed last 
fall by death penalty opponents who argued the voter petition drive was invalid 
because it failed to list Gov. Pete Ricketts as a sponsor.

In her ruling, the judge said the lawsuit was "predicated on an erroneous 
interpretation" of the law regarding voter petition drives and "is defective as 
a matter of law."

Lawyers for death penalty opponents argued that citizens should know the full 
extent of the governor's involvement in an initiative petition he helped fund. 
They also argued the law requires the listing of all sponsors so voters can be 
fully informed before deciding whether to sign.

Nebraskans for the Death Penalty, the group that gathered the signatures to put 
the question on the November general election ballot, argued they properly 
listed 3 sponsors when submitting official paperwork for the petition. 
Ricketts' political and financial support of the petition drive did not 
constitute sponsorship, they said.

Death penalty supporters collected about 143,000 valid signatures to put the 
question on the ballot. The number also was enough to put the repeal on hold 
until the vote.

Last May, state senators abolished capital punishment over the governor's veto. 
In the months that followed, Ricketts solicited contributions for the 
referendum drive and gave $200,000 toward the $1.36 million effort. His father, 
Joe Ricketts, contributed an additional $100,000.

(source: Omaha World-Herald)






CALIFORNIA:

The Case Against The Death Penalty


5 judges have already said he's innocent, but 57-year-old Kevin Cooper is 
nevertheless scheduled to be the next prisoner executed in the state of 
California. Cooper received a death sentence in 1985 for allegedly slaying a 
family of three and another child in a suburb of Los Angeles, the Daily Mail 
reports.

Neither the one survivor of the attack, an 8-year-old boy, nor 2 witnesses who 
said they saw three men driving away from the house in a station wagon after 
the murder, implicated Cooper in the attack.

But local law enforcement became fixated on Cooper because he had recently 
escaped from prison and was staying in a nearby house, Daily Mail reports. In 
2004, the Ninth District Court ruled much of the evidence used to prosecute 
Cooper was illegal a few hours after then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger 
refused Cooper's request for clemency.

The case is just one of many which shows that overzealous prosecutors have 
often been inept in their investigations, which has resulted in massive wastes 
of taxpayer money in addition to the loss of innocent human lives.

156 people have been exonerated from death row since 1976, according to the 
Death Penalty Information Center. Some of them often within hours of execution, 
or in some cases, after the execution has already taken place.

In one case, a Texas man was executed for allegedly setting his house on fire 
and killing his children, but multiple investigations later showed the fire was 
most likely caused by faulty wiring, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reports. 
The prosecutor in that case was later found guilty of misconduct for 
withholding evidence from the accused man's attorneys.

Additionally, it is often argued that the death penalty is cheaper to 
administer than life in prison without parole. This is false; housing costs for 
death row inmates are over $3 million higher per inmate. 44 executions in 
Florida between 1976 and 2000 cost an average of $24 million per execution, the 
News-Journal reports.

Finally, as the Journal points out, the death penalty is incredibly inefficient 
at actually doing what it is meant to do; execute prisoners on death row. In 
Florida alone, 92 inmates have been executed since 1972, but there are 
currently 389 inmates currently on death row.

Ultimately, saying the death penalty should be reserved for only "the worst 
cases" is problematic, because prosecutors have not exactly shown themselves to 
be impartial arbiters of justice in the time capital punishment has been in 
place; they are people, and like all people, they make mistakes. Unfortunately, 
when those mistakes cost both innocent human lives and millions of wasted 
taxpayer dollars, it means we need to seriously reconsider the death penalty as 
a viable punishment for serious offenders.

(source: opposingviews.com)






USA:

Death penalty: A uniquely unjust form of justice


Capital punishment is still with us as a stain upon mankind passed down from 
the dark pages of history. It is an unjust and loveless measure left over from 
a more barbaric past. Over the centuries, the peoples of the world have 
witnessed killings at the hands of states, princes, kings, pharaohs and the 
priests of the Inquisition. In the 21st century, however, the time has now come 
for modern legal institutions to abandon this irreversible sanction.

Today, death penalty has been abolished by 102 U.N. member countries. Seven 
countries still apply death penalty only for crimes committed in wartime, while 
another 50 have abandoned it in practice for at least 10 years. 37 countries 
still use it both in law and practice. Of these 37, only the U.S., Japan, 
Taiwan and Singapore are industrialized countries. Apart from Belarus, no 
European country applies death penalty.

In 2014, there were 1,652 executions across the world, more than 1,000 of which 
were committed by communist China. 500 prisoners were executed in Iran, Iraq, 
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen or North Korea.

One significant country with no proper place in this sinister picture is the 
U.S. 31 American states still carry out death penalty, principally Texas, 
Oklahoma and Georgia. Over the last 40 years, 1,422 people have been put to 
death in the U.S. as a whole while another 3,000 are still waiting on death 
row. The U.S., the leader of the modern Western world in so many areas, must 
treat its people with greater affection.

American history is full of shameful episodes on this subject. Twenty thousand 
people have been executed since the country was founded. The new states that 
came into being following the expansion of the U.S. towards the west in 
particular applied capital punishment on a wide scale. Due to a period of 
lawlessness in the Wild West, death penalty was enforced for many crimes, such 
as robbery, rape, murder and plunder. As the lawlessness increased, judges 
became ever more ruthless. Death penalty became used, not to provide justice, 
but simply to ensure order in those towns. At the same time, lynchings were a 
part of daily life in southern states as well. Between 1882 and 1920, 4,742 
people were hanged or lynched without trial. Of these, 3,345 were African 
Americans hanged, burned or beaten to death in appalling acts of violence after 
the Civil War.

By now, the 21st century, this lynch-mob mentality should long since have come 
to an end. Punishment should no longer be a vehicle for revenge to bring people 
to heel, but should be aimed at ensuring justice and rehabilitating criminals, 
rather than killing them.

In addition, capital punishment has varied depending on the time, the 
communities and cultures involved, and socioeconomic status. Many crimes that 
used to be punished by death have long since disappeared in modern society. It 
is therefore improper to claim that any crime deserves to be punished by death. 
The courts of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages condemned tens of thousands of 
people to be burned to death on the basis of false confessions extracted 
through torture. Even in more recent times, just 300 years ago, 24 people were 
condemned to death for witchcraft in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. Yet such 
crimes are no longer covered by the penal law at all.

Court proceedings are also generally complex and intended to reach a given 
conclusion. Many convictions are based on debatable and equivocal evidence and 
techniques of judicial review change over time. The FBI has determined that the 
results of its own inquiries were false in 90% of 3,000 cases dating back 
before 2000 that it re-investigated. The jury system is another aspect that is 
quite liable to error. Death sentences awarded may be relative and vary 
depending on the personal prejudices of the members of the jury, the way they 
are brought up, ethnic identities, gender and age.

Death sentences are also becoming increasingly racist in the U.S. Although 
African Americans make up only 12% of the population, they represent 41% of 
those on death row. Statistics show that death penalty is more easily enforced 
if the condemned person is black. Death penalty is also enforced in an unjust 
manner against the poor, minorities and members of ethnic and religious 
communities.

This unjust punishment, that allows no scope for "repentance" or 
"self-education," is not something for which amends can be made by saying, "We 
have made a terrible mistake." 156 condemned to death have subsequently been 
found to be innocent and released since 1973. The majority of these people 
spent decades in prison for no reason. It is barbaric for the state to murder 
an innocent man. It puts the state on a moral par with murderers.

The idea that capital punishment lowers crime rates is also completely false. 
There has been no rise in the homicide rate in states in which death penalty 
has been abolished. In a poll of criminologists in 2009, 88% of respondents 
said that they did not think that death penalty actually prevented killings.

It is believed that about 5% of convicts in the U.S. are entirely innocent. 
This means that 10,000 people are wrongly convicted every year. Another piece 
of research shows that 4.1% of people condemned to death are innocent. That 
same research shows that 340 innocent people have been put to death since 1973.

The "Innocence Project" instituted in 1992 has to date secured the release of 
329 wrongly convicted people. 18 of those were on death row. 28 of those 
released had pleaded guilty in order to avoid a harsher sentence. Putting 
people on death row due to judicial or technical errors clearly results in 
irreversible errors and injustice. Obviously, death penalty cannot be rectified 
at a later date when the person concerned is deceased.

The decrease in the enforcement of the death penalty in the U.S. has made some 
segments of society uneasy. While 98 people were put to death in the U.S. in 
1999, that figure fell to only 19 in 2014. Nonetheless, governors who do not 
put death sentences on their agenda are often harshly criticized for being 
"soft on crime," and officials responsible for the death chambers complain 
about the way they are increasingly being used less. 70 % of the public still 
approves of capital punishment.

Yet the U.S. should be a role model to the world in terms of efforts to abolish 
capital punishment. Politicians and judicial institutions must act responsibly, 
and capital punishment must cease to be an institutionally recognized measure. 
The death penalty is no way to seek retribution. Since people are prone to make 
mistakes it is inherently impossible to completely eliminate the possibility of 
innocent people being put to death. The execution of a single innocent person 
is nothing less than state-sanctioned homicide.

(source: Harun Yahya; pravdareport.com)