[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., ARK., MO., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 8



NORTH CAROLINA:

Jurors to be scrutinized on death penalty


The trial of Antwan Andre Anthony is set to begin today, but it could be a 
month before prosecutors begin calling witnesses to testify.

Anthony, 33, is charged with 3 counts of 1st-degree murder in the deaths of 3 
cousins who were working together at their family's convenience store outside 
of Farmville.

He is accused of robbing, kidnapping and murdering Mokbel Mohamed Almujanahi, 
16; Nabil Nasser Saeed Al'mogannahi, 26; and Gaber Alawi, 24, on April 1, 2012, 
as they were closing the Hustle Mart-3 convenience store on N.C. 121 north of 
Farmville.

(source: Daily Reflector)






ARKANSAS:

Lawyer's own view of 'train wreck' performance doesn't justify resentencing, 
top state court says


An Arkansas judge should not have granted a new sentencing hearing for a 
death-row inmate based on his lawyer's concession that his performance in the 
trial's last phase was "a train wreck," the Arkansas Supreme Court has ruled.

The court said the judge considering the ineffective assistance claim by 
convicted murderer Brandon Lacy should have relied on an objective assessment 
of his lawyer's performance, rather than the lawyer's self-assessment, report 
the Times Record Online and the Associated Press. The court's Feb. 4 decision 
(PDF) remanded for a new hearing on ineffective assistance in the penalty phase 
of trial.

Lacy's lead lawyer, Steve Harper, had said his closing argument at the end of 
the trial's sentencing phase was "one of the worst I've ever given." He 
explained his work in the sentencing phase way:

"By the time that portion of the trial came around, I'd had to adopt a lot of 
the burdens of every portion of the trial and it was - it was a train wreck. By 
the time it came around I was physically, mentally, emotionally exhausted. I 
was beat dead, and I didn't give a good closing. ... Could have been a lot 
better."

Lacy's family members had testified in the sentencing phase that he had a 
difficult and abusive childhood, and he was drinking heavily beginning at an 
early age. Harper's opening and closing arguments in this phase were "very 
brief," the supreme court said.

Lacy had also contended his lawyers were deficient because they failed to 
present an affirmative defense of mental disease or defect during the guilt 
phase of the trial. The supreme court upheld the judge's determination that 
Lacy was not entitled to relief on that ground, citing findings by 3 
psychologists that Lacy had no such impairment.

(source: ABA Jounral)





MISSOURI:

Missouri Senate to debate death penalty repeal this week


A Republican-sponsored proposal to repeal the death penalty is likely to come 
up for debate early this week in the state Senate.

Director of the State Public Defender System Michael Barrett supports a repeal. 
He says the death penalty is not an effective deterrent to murders and says the 
money spent arguing resulting cases could be better spent on more effective 
public safety items. He says those cases are far more expensive than the 
typical ones his office deals with.

"2 years ago we represented 74,000 individuals in this state - misdemeanors, 
felonies, sex offenses. You combine all the expenses, personnel, overhead 
costs, we resolved these matters for an average of $345 per case," said 
Barrett. "When you look at the death penalty costs, it's $166-thousand per 
case."

Barrett argues that money could go to other public safety needs.

"We are not eradicating the rape kit backlog. Look at the number of unsolved 
murders we have in the state and we don't have the resources to solve them. 
Look at the active warrants that are out there, where we don't have the 
resources to round up these guys," said Barrett.

Senator Bob Onder (R-Lake Saint Louis) opposes a repeal, and tells Barrett he's 
not convinced 1 would make much difference in those needs.

"You saying we get rid of the death penalty, we put 1 drop into the bucket," 
said Onder.

Onder also disagreed with those that argue for a repeal in light of people 
sentenced to death and later set free.

"I think those are the cases that are few and far between. Those are the rare 
cases that you suggest making bad policy in response to," said Onder.

A repeal is supported by Democrats and some Republicans, but it considered 
unlikely to reach Governor Jay Nixon (D) in a Republican-controlled 
legislature, and Nixon supports the death penalty.

Missouri has always had the death penalty except during a national moratorium 
in the 1970s. The state Corrections Department lists 28 men as being sentenced 
to death.

(source: missourinet.com)

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

Shame and joy behind 149 exonerations


The National Registry of Exonerations reported last week that 2015 was a banner 
year for clearing prisoners wrongfully convicted of major crimes, including 
homicide and rape. Last year, 149 prisoners across the country were excused. 
Good news for them, but awful news for the integrity of the nation's criminal 
justice system.

The fact that 149 people went through the dreadful ordeal of arrest, 
arraignment, prosecution and imprisonment - for crimes they did not commit - is 
shameful. The registry, produced by the University of Michigan Law School, 
underscores the need for significant criminal justice reforms to minimize the 
chances of wrongful prosecution in the future.

Some might dismiss such goals as a liberal utopian ideal, but the fact is that 
criminal justice reform is being embraced nationwide by tea party 
conservatives. Why? Because few things exemplify the overreach of an 
all-too-powerful government than one that yanks away an individual's freedom 
without legal justification.

The GOP-dominated Missouri Legislature needs to get in step. Conservatives in 
the heavily Republican Texas Legislature have embraced some of the most 
far-reaching criminal justice reforms in the country, according to the New 
York-based Innocence Project. And they did so even when Democrats were the 
authors and sponsors of reform bills.

We're talking about such measures as easing prisoners' access to DNA evidence 
in the appeals process, ensuring poor defendants have access to high-quality 
public defenders and radically altering the weight given to eyewitness lineup 
identification. Texas also has dramatically increased the compensation to 
prisoners whose freedom was wrongfully taken away.

1 of the 2 Missouri cases listed in the National Registry in 2015 involved an 
eyewitness who identified the wrong person - Cornell McKay of St. Louis - in an 
armed robbery case. He had faced a sentence of 12 years in prison until St. 
Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce dismissed the charges in May because the 
actual perpetrator had admitted committing the crime, and investigators 
reportedly hid their suspicions that they had the wrong man.

The other was a botched murder conviction that landed Russell Faria, of Troy, 
in prison for life. Exculpatory witness statements and evidence were hidden 
from Faria's attorneys before trial. In Texas, prosecutors who hide exculpatory 
evidence in order to win a conviction now can face disbarment and prosecution.

Connecticut, likewise, has implemented impressive reforms that repealed the 
death penalty and modified sentencing guidelines so that nonviolent drug 
offenders no longer face mandatory prison time.

There's always room for improvement. This state's record on racial disparities 
in the prison population, particularly in the over-representation of African 
Americans from low-income backgrounds, suggests more-than-ample room exists to 
level the playing field through reform. Let conservatives lead the way.

(source: Editorial, St. Louis Post-Dispatch)






CALIFORNIA:

Pull the plug on death penalty in California


It has been more than 10 years since an inmate on California's death row has 
been executed, and California citizens are split about what should be done 
about the state's death penalty law.

According to a recent Field poll, 47 % of Californians favor replacing the 
death penalty with life without the possibility of parole. Support for getting 
rid of the death penalty increased by 7 % points since 2014. The poll also 
found, however, that 48 % of Californians support speeding up the execution 
process by limiting the number of inmates' appeals.

This year, 2 initiatives dealing with those opposing perspectives on the death 
penalty may be on the ballot. The 1st, "The Justice That Works Act of 2016," 
would formally eliminate the death penalty in California and replace all death 
sentences with life without the possibility of parole. "The Death Penalty 
Reform and Savings Act of 2016" would limit the appeals inmates on death row 
may file, which would effectively speed up executions.

Today, there are 746 inmates on California's death row, up from 646 in 2006. 
Although 117 death row inmates have died since 1976, only 13 were executed. The 
overwhelming majority died from natural causes, such as old age, or suicide.

There are so many inmates on death row that California ran out of space to 
house them all. Last year, Gov. Jerry Brown requested over $3 million from the 
Legislature to build more death row cells. It's clear that the current system 
is unsustainable. But would limiting death penalty appeals actually speed up 
the execution process, or "fix" a system that is arguably broken on its face? 
There's little evidence to suggest it would.

Indeed, in 2008, the California Commission on the Fair Administration of 
Justice issued a report that declared the death penalty in California 
"dysfunctional." The commission found it wasn't the lengthy appeals process 
slowing down the execution process, but, rather, the lack of available legal 
representation for inmates on death row - many of whom wait years for the state 
to appoint lawyers to their cases due to their indigent status.

"To reduce the average lapse of time from sentence to execution by 1/2" the 
report said, "[California] will have to spend nearly twice what we are spending 
now."

The death penalty is also expensive to maintain. According to that same 2008 
report, California spends approximately $137 million per year just on the death 
penalty. If it were to expand the number of lawyers appointed to represent 
inmates to clear up the backlog, the state would have to spend another $95 
million, or roughly $232 million per year.

In 2006, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel stopped all executions in California, 
stating that the state's execution process was flawed. In 2014, a federal judge 
declared capital punishment in California unconstitutional, but that decision 
was reversed in 2015 by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

It's up to voters to decide what should be done about the death penalty, but 
evidence has shown capital punishment in California is a bungled, expensive 
mess. Even if it is "fixed" in the ways one of the ballot initiatives proposes, 
it's going to cost California taxpayers twice as much as it does now, with no 
real guarantee that additional executions are carried out.

Replacing this broken system with life without the possibility of parole would 
still ensure that the most heinous criminals die in prison, but would prevent 
taxpayers from spending billions on a system proven to be a complete failure.

(source: Opinion; Lauren Krisai is director of criminal justice reform at 
Reason Foundation----Orange County Register)






USA:

Gary Lee Sampson Case Heading Back To Court


Federal prosecutors and lawyers for a man sentenced to death in the 2001 
carjack killings of 2 Massachusetts men will be in court this week to discuss 
his retrial.

Gary Lee Sampson pleaded guilty and was given the federal death penalty in 2003 
in the killings of 19-year-old Jonathan Rizzo, of Kingston, and 69-year-old 
Philip McCloskey, of Taunton. He also admitted killing a third man, Robert 
Whitney, in New Hampshire during the same weeklong crime rampage and received a 
separate life sentence.

Sampson's death sentence was overturned in 2011 after a judge found that 1 of 
the jurors at his trial had lied.

A new judge recently took over the case and scheduled the retrial to begin in 
September.

A status conference is scheduled Tuesday in U.S. District Court.

(source: Associated Press)