[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MO., KAN., S. DAK., UTAH, USA

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 10



MISSOURI:

Proposed Missouri budget change could allow attempts to defund the death 
penalty


A proposed change in the state budget could allow opponents of the death 
penalty to attempt to pull funding for it.

Members of Missouri's execution team are paid in cash to keep their identities 
hidden, per the law - that includes the doctor that administers a lethal 
injection and a compounding pharmacy that makes the pentobarbital used. That 
money has come out of a fund for expenses and equipment in the Department of 
Corrections' budget, so state lawmakers and others looking at the budget didn't 
know how much was spent on executions.

A House subcommittee approved Representative Jeremy LaFaver's (D-Kansas City) 
proposal to create a specific line in the budget for executions.

"Including it in the budget in this fashion I think is going to allow for a 
little better transparency and tracking of this important task that our state 
does," said LaFaver.

If his action stands, legislators who oppose the death penalty could now see 
where it's funded in the budget and by how much, and could propose pulling that 
money. LaFaver wouldn't say if a proposal to pull the money for executions will 
be offered.

The idea passed a mostly-Republican committee chaired by Representative Kathie 
Conway (R-St. Charles), who says she supports the need for transparency as long 
as no identities of execution team members are released. Conway also said there 
is little chance an effort to defund executions would clear the Republican 
legislature.

"From what I heard happened in the Senate [Monday], yes I think that most 
Republicans are [in favor of the death penalty]. Personally, I am," said 
Conway.

On Monday the state Senate debated a proposed repeal of the death penalty. Most 
Republicans spoke against it and the issue was tabled.

The line LaFaver's action created includes a proposed amount of half-a-million 
dollars. Conway expressed concern about tying up that much money with the 
expectation that few executions will be scheduled during the 12 months it 
covers, beginning July 1.

LaFaver agreed to offer an amendment to reduce that amount to more closely 
reflect the execution-related expenses the Corrections Department expects, but 
he also wants additional money to cover potential federal fines. He referred to 
the Corrections Department Director, George Lombardi, last week telling the 
budget committee that the state has not issued federal tax reporting forms, or 
1099s, to members of its execution team going back to the mid 1980s.

LaFaver said money in that line beyond the projected costs of executions, 
"would also allow for the payment of any penalties that would be assessed to 
the state from the IRS for not complying with the federal tax law requirements 
of issuing a 1099."

LaFaver said he will work to come up with a figure more reflective of potential 
execution costs and IRS penalties to propose to the full budget committee when 
it considers the corrections budget.

The full budget committee is the next stop for that bill.

(source: missourinet.com)

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

Bill to abolish death penalty in Missouri presumed dead in the Missouri Senate


A bill that would have abolished Missouri's death penalty has unofficially 
become the first bill to die during the 2016 legislative session.

Paul Wieland, R-Imperial, is Senate Bill 816's sponsor. He told reporters he 
knows there aren't enough votes in the Senate to abolish the death penalty, but 
calls Monday's debate on the floor a victory in itself.

"I was glad to see a lot of senators talking about (how) they felt about the 
bill," Wieland said. "As I said on the floor, everyone has a different 
conscience ... just ask yourself the question: Is the way we're implementing 
(capital punishment) here in the state of Missouri good public policy?"

Less than an hour into Monday's debate, Wieland officially had the bill placed 
on the Senate's informal calendar, where bills that are hotly debated or 
blocked via filibuster often end up. Although bills can be removed from the 
informal calendar for further debate or passage, they often sit inactive until 
they die on the final day of the legislative session.

Wieland said that he has no plans to revive the bill because he knows there 
aren't enough votes to get it passed and because the Senate needs to spend time 
on other issues.

Several senators from both parties spoke in support of Wieland's bill. From Rob 
Schaaf, R-St. Joseph:

"We know for a fact that there are innocent people who have been convicted and 
executed. We know that that's true, and yet we continue just blindly moving 
forward. We know that there are people who receive inadequate legal 
representation ... This is a very good reason to think about whether or not we 
should have the death penalty."

>From Maria Chappelle-Nadal, D-University City:

"If you are African American, and you're the victim, and you're shot, and the 
person who shoots you is white, the likelihood of (him) going to death row is 
very slim. If you are African American and you kill someone who is white, nine 
times out of 10 you're going to be on death row ... that's inconsistent."

After Wieland laid the bill aside, fellow Republican Mike Parson of Bolivar 
took the floor and spoke in opposition to the death penalty abolition bill. 
Parson noted that all of the "debate" that took place up to that point was in 
support of the proposal.

"Mainly what I've heard up here is (that) it's almost as though we're talking 
about victims, but what we're really talking about is killers," Parson said.

Parson, a former county sheriff, spent several minutes recounting murder cases 
that took place in Missouri, which included double murders committed by Steven 
Ray Thacker, who was later executed in Tennessee for another murder.

"There (are) cold-blooded killers out there," Parson said. "I looked (Thacker) 
in the face, and I can tell you today that ... he would (have) hurt somebody, 
he would (have) killed somebody again if (we had) let him out."

Parson is seeking the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor.

Sen. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, also spoke against scrapping the death penalty. 
The former prosecutor is seeking the Republican nomination for attorney 
general.

While Wieland's bill is for all practical purposes dead, there are 2 bills in 
the Missouri House that would abolish the death penalty, 1 sponsored by a 
Democrat and a Republican. House Bill 1402 is sponsored by Jeanie Kirkton, 
D-Webster Groves, and House Bill 2064 is sponsored by T.J. Berry, R-Kearney. 
Neither bill has been scheduled for a hearing, though.

On the opposite end of the debate are bills that would allow for more methods 
of execution and would speed up the execution process.

(source: St. Louis Public Radio)






KANSAS:

Kyle Flack capital murder case: Jury selection about half done in Franklin 
County District Court----Flack is charged with killing 3 adults, 1 toddler


Jury selection in the capital murder trial of defendant Kyle Trevor Flack, who 
is charged with killing four victims, is about half-way done as of Tuesday.

Beginning Feb. 1, 6 prospective jurors filed into Franklin County District 
Court in Ottawa during the morning court session, then in the afternoon 
session, to be questioned by prosecutors and defense attorneys.

The questioning will continue through Friday this week and is expected to 
continue a day or 2 next week, court administrator John Steelman said Tuesday.

After prosecutors and defense attorneys conduct the process that results in 
choosing 12 jurors and four alternate jurors, the 2 sides will make opening 
statements.

As of Tuesday, opening statements were scheduled for Feb. 17.

The Franklin County District Court mailed a summons to 600 county residents, 
and of that number, about 350 showed up to fill out jury questionnaires, 
Steelman said.

District Judge Eric W. Godderz and prosecution and defense attorneys whittled 
down that number to 136 prospective jurors, Steelman said. Some were eliminated 
because they no longer lived in the judicial district, and some had medical 
issues.

Flack, 30, is charged with capital murder in the slayings of Kaylie Smith 
Bailey, 21, and her daughter, Lana-Leigh Bailey, 18 months; 2 counts of 
premeditated 1st-degree murder of Andrew A. Stout, 30, and Steven White, 31; 
and criminal possession of a firearm by a felon. The 4 were killed between 
April 20 and May 1, 2013.

If convicted of capital murder, Flack could face the death penalty.

In Kansas, juries hearing death penalty cases 1st decide whether to convict or 
acquit the defendant.

If the defendant is convicted, jurors then resume deliberations to decide 
whether to recommend the death penalty or a life sentence without parole to the 
judge.

(source: Topeka Capital-Journal)






SOUTH DAKOTA:

Senate committee set to take up bill to repeal death penalty


A state Senate committee is set to consider a measure that would repeal the 
death penalty in South Dakota.

The Senate State Affairs committee is scheduled to take up the bill on 
Wednesday.

Republican Sen. Arthur Rusch of Vermillion is the measure's main Senate 
sponsor. Rusch, a former judge, says he has personally prosecuted a death 
penalty case.

He says he's seen firsthand how costly and hard it was on jurors and court 
personnel.

The Senate State Affairs committee during the 2015 legislative session voted 
down 2 measures to repeal or limit the death penalty.

(source: Associated Press)






UTAH:

Legislation would abolish Utah's death penalty


There are 9 men on Utah's death row, 3 of whom have been there for almost 30 
years. A bill in the works from Sen. Steve Urquhart, R-St. George, would cap 
that population - abolishing the death penalty in future Utah cases, even 
though he once supported the practice.

"In 2015, you can only be theoretically in support of the death penalty, 
because it is broken," said Urquhart, an attorney. "Even for the most ardent 
supporter of the death penalty, you gotta question it."

Under the bill as it is being drafted, those currently on Utah's death row 
could still be executed, Urquhart explained, but the punishment would be off 
the table in all future prosecutions.

Eight of the death-row inmates were convicted of capital murder and sentenced 
to death before 1999. One was retried in 2015 and again convicted and sentenced 
to die. The most recent death sentence in Utah was given in 2008, when Floyd 
Eugene Maestas was convicted of the stabbing and strangulation death of 
72-year-old Donna Lou Bott during a 2004 break-in and robbery at her Salt Lake 
City home.

The last time Utah carried out the death penalty was June 18, 2010, when Ronnie 
Lee Gardner was executed by firing squad, an event that made international 
headlines.

Abolishing capital punishment might be an uphill climb. The practice has 
historically been supported by conservative Utahns and the Republican-dominated 
Legislature, even as its use nationally is on the decline and polls show the 
majority of Americans now prefer the alternative punishment of life in prison 
without the possibility of parole for the most serious crimes.

Some 69 % of Utahns approve of the death penalty, according to a recent poll 
conducted by SurveyUSA for The Salt Lake Tribune and the Hinckley Institute of 
Politics at the University of Utah.

Fewer than 1 in 5 (19 %) of those surveyed disapprove of the punishment and 12 
% were undecided, according to the data collected Jan. 6-13 from 989 registered 
Utah voters.

The overall poll question had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 % points.

More Republicans supported the practice than Democrats - 82 % to 53 % - 
although 62 % of independents also backed it. Support from men also outnumbers 
that of women, 72 % to 66 %, according to poll data.

Urquhart seems undeterred by the results, even though he said he knows he may 
face similarly vigorous opposition from his legislative colleagues.

Utah's conservative, sometime libertarian-leaning politics may actually help 
pass a bill, he said. Conservatives don't believe that government does many 
things well and certainly not perfectly, he said.

"And yet we arrogate to ourselves the power over life and death," he said. 
"There's a serious disconnect there."

Other red states have already grappled with the issue and changed course, 
including Nebraska, which last year voted to repeal the death penalty, although 
a petition drive to reverse the vote has blocked the decision from taking 
effect until after the 2016 election.

Other states, including Montana and Ohio, have imposed moratoriums on capital 
punishment in the past year after they were unable to obtain the drugs used for 
lethal injection. Oklahoma has suspended the practice after the investigation 
into a botched execution found it has used the wrong drug.

That is not necessarily an issue in Utah, which last year reinstated the firing 
squad as the method of execution in the event that lethal injection is not 
available. Urquhart voted for the bill.

Additionally, the risk of false conviction - an estimated 4 % of those on death 
row nationally are believed to be innocent - and the high cost of prosecution 
and appeals has also been a factor in many states.

In Utah, a 2012 study by legislative fiscal analysts found that, when compared 
to a sentence of life without the possibility of parole, the costs associated 
with capital punishment are significantly higher.

According to the report, from trial to execution - a period averaging 20 years 
- state and local governments spent more than $1.6 million per death-row 
inmate. Counties bear the brunt of that financial burden at about $1.1 million, 
the state report showed.

Cost is an issue to consider, Urquhart said, but it's not his only concern.

"There is no deterrence in the death penalty right now if you execute someone 
decades after the crime," he said. "So you're left with good old-fashioned 
vengeance. That standing alone is not adequate justification. That is the 
reality of what we are doing right now. It just doesn't make any sense."

Utah House Speaker Greg Hughes, R-Draper, shares Urquhart's concern for 
missteps by government that have left some wrongly executed and said he doesn't 
understand why some defendants are sentenced to death while others avoid the 
penalty.

"I probably have said this more quietly than publicly, but I don't support the 
death penalty," said Hughes, who expressed discomfort with a sentencing process 
that pits the families of victims against those of the accused. "How do you 
have a guy who may have killed his wife and unborn child and put her in a 
mattress and not have the death penalty and have other circumstances where 
crimes have been committed and you have sentenced them to death. There's an 
arbitrary feel to it."

Data from the Utah courts show the outcomes in these cases are mixed, with 
prosecutors who charged a capital crime often trading the punishment away in 
exchange for a plea that resolved the case.

Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clinton, who has sponsored most of the recent legislation to 
increase the number and type of death penalty-eligible crimes in Utah, 
disagrees with those numbers.

According to Ray, the calculation doesn't consider the number of appeals filed 
by inmates sentenced to life without the possibility of a parole, nor factor in 
the cost of medical care used by aging inmates nearing the end of life.

"I think the costs kind of even out," he said, "when you factor in those types 
of situations."

And then, Ray said, there is the matter of justice.

"I don't now how you put a price tag on justice," he said. "[The death penalty] 
is not really a deterrent to murder ... but it is justice and you need to have 
that form of justice available for certain individuals."

Ray said he believes Utah is one of the few states that gets the death penalty 
right, because the standards for prosecution are high and the punishment is 
used sparingly.

But, he said, he understands that individuals have strong personal 
philosophical differences on the issue.

"I'm open to the discussion," he said. "It's a fair discussion to have."

The Utah Justice Coalition, the Utah chapter of the American Civil Liberties 
Union, the Libertas Institute, the Utah Association of Criminal Defense 
Attorneys all support Urquhart's effort.

Paul Boyden, director of Utah's Statewide Association of Prosecutors, said he 
could not comment on the bill because he has not yet seen it.

(source: Salt Lake Tribune)

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

Trial date scheduled in Smith murder case


A new trial date has been scheduled for a St. George murder suspect whose case 
has worked its way through court proceedings for more than 5 years.

Brandon Perry Smith, 34, will receive a 10-day jury trial scheduled to begin 
Oct. 17 in 5th District Court.

Smith is accused of killing a 20-year-old Leeds resident during a violent 
after-midnight incident at a downtown St. George home that also resulted in the 
shooting death of a 27-year-old St. George resident and the shooting injury of 
a male acquaintance on Dec. 11, 2010.

Smith's codefendant, Paul Clifford Ashton, who turns 37 later this month, is 
already serving a life without parole sentence for his role in the shootings.

Smith was previously scheduled to receive a trial last year, but his attorneys 
asked the court to postpone the trial while they pursued a failed attempt to 
appeal the judge's ruling that Smith's Miranda warning rights were not violated 
by St. George police investigators.

Unlike Ashton, Smith faced the prospect of a death penalty ruling if he is 
found guilty at trial, but the prosecution announced last week that it was 
dropping the bid for capital punishment in an effort to help move the case 
toward a swifter resolution.

"The state is taking this action at the request of the family of the victim in 
an effort to avoid delays associated with litigating a capital homicide case 
and to focus on bringing the case to trial as soon as possible," Deputy County 
Ryan Shaum said Feb. 3. "This was something we had spent a lot of time thinking 
about. ... In looking at what our end goal is in this case, we thought that we 
could still obtain justice and get the case resolved short of seeking the death 
penalty."

Although the death penalty is no longer being considered, the prosecution is 
continuing to pursue a first-degree felony charge of aggravated homicide 
against Smith, which could lead to a life in prison without parole sentence or 
at least a minimum of 25 years behind bars if he is found guilty.

(source: The Spectrum)






USA:

Repeal of the death penalty is a step toward peace


Antonyms for "peace" could be any of the following: War, disagreement, hate, 
discord, agitation, disharmony, distress, frustration, upset, worry, 
disturbance. We can add the "death penalty" as an antonym to "peace."

The American death penalty is the tip of the sword that is emblematic of the 
violent nature that continues to exist in much of our land.

The United States has a history of violence from its very beginnings. The 
decimation of the native peoples and a land that was built to a great degree 
with the labor of slaves are all parts of our national heritage that are 
shameful and should be left in the past.

As a country, as a citizen of the modern world, we should have matured enough 
that our moral fiber strains toward peace, not war, hate, or retribution. The 
continued use of the death penalty violates efforts toward peace, by hanging 
onto the acceptance of violent vengeance as a part of our identification as a 
nation.

National polls still shows a majority of those polled favor a death penalty - 
the bad news. The good news is that majority has been declining steadily for 
the past 2 decades. In 2015 there were fewer executions (28) than in the past 
25 years, carried out by only 6 states. Also, there were fewer death sentences 
(49) handed down, a drop of 84.4 % since the 315 executions in 1996.

While the use of the death penalty and executions falls, it also narrows in its 
use to the southern states, those same "Bible Belt" states that supported 
slavery, that resisted civil rights, and many people continue to cling to the 
retributive citations from the Bible to justify this act of violence 
perpetrated by the government.

Retribution is a step away from peace. Retribution only adds to the level of 
violence. There are alternatives to execution in terms of imprisonment to keep 
the public safe.

While only 6 southern states carried out executions in 2015, 31 states still 
have it on the books as the law. The death penalty is a hollow icon for being 
"tough on crime."

The alternative is being "smart on crime," working to deter crime. Being "smart 
on crime" is using taxpayers' resources to rehabilitate the addicted, provide 
services to the mentally disabled, intervene into abusive households, enhance 
early childhood education and provide greater support for community policing. 
The death penalty is a failed public policy. The nation-wide repeal of the 
death penalty would be a step toward peace.

The "evolving standard of decency" is the judicial theory that led the United 
States Supreme Court, in 2002, to declare execution of those with "mental 
retardation" as unconstitutional. Then in 2005 the Court declared 
unconstitutional the execution of juveniles. It is time for the application of 
the "evolving standard of decency" to apply to all government executions and 
allow us to take a giant step toward peace in our land.

(source: Guest Column; Ron Steiner is a Board of Directors member of 
.Oregonians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, http://oadp.org/. Editor's 
note: Oregon is among the states that still has the death penalty law and has 
34 people on death row awaiting execution. Since the death penalty was 
reinstated in a 1984 vote, 2 people have been executed and both had waived 
their rights to appeal----Herald and News)