[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----COLO., UTAH, ARIZ., NEV., CALIF., WASH., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 25



COLORADO:

Suspected Park County shooter opposed death penalty as "idiotic 
hypocrisy"----Martin T. Wirth was an Occupy Denver leader and former Green 
Party candidate for the Colorado legislature


Martin T. Wirth, the suspected shooter of three Park County deputies Wednesday, 
said as a Green Party candidate in 2014 that he opposed the death penalty as 
"idiotic hypocrisy," supported gun ownership and TABOR and railed against 
government's use of eminent domain.

"Killing people to show that killing people is wrong is a piece of idiotic 
hypocrisy. It turns our justice system into a circus sideshow without 
addressing the causes behind violence in the least bit," Wirth wrote in the 
2014 Denver Post Voter Guide during his unsuccessful run against state Sen. 
Kevin Grantham.

"Abolition would rid us of the sideshow and save our justice system a little 
bit of money," Wirth wrote.

1 deputy was killed and 2 wounded in the Wednesday shooting. The suspected 
shooter also is dead. Authorities identified Wirth as the gunman.

A prominent force in the Occupy Denver movement, Wirth also railed against 
corporate welfare, big banks, the Democratic and Republican parties and 
government use of eminent domain.

On the death penalty, Wirth also wrote: "Interest in this question suggests 
fear towards addressing the root causes of violence in our society. Poverty is 
a form of violence that leads to malnutrition, homelessness, and hopelessness. 
The destruction of our sense of community, and treating people like disposable 
commodities opens the gate to deeply anti-social and violent thinking. This is 
itself the result of unconscionable thinking within the ranks of our political 
class.

Our governments on all levels are using violence as a method of early resort. 
Governmental violence is often applied to force unwilling people to comply with 
regimes that never earned their informed consent."

Wirth also addressed gun ownership, though the voter guide didn't specifically 
asked about the Second Amendment.

"I see no need to take firearms away from people but I respect the rights of 
certain institutions and private companies to bar weapons from their places of 
business and their sanctuaries," he wrote.

(source: Denver Post)






UTAH:

Republican Lawmakers In Utah Just Voted To Repeal The Death Penalty


Nearly 1 year after Utah reauthorized the use of firing squads to execute death 
row inmates, Republicans lawmakers there are now trying to end the death 
penalty altogether. On Tuesday night, a Republican-led Senate committee passed 
a bill to take capital punishment off the table for people convicted for 
homicide.

The Utah Senate Judiciary, Law Enforcement, and Criminal Justice Committee 
passed S.B. 189, which was sponsored by Sen. Stephen Urquhart (R), by a vote of 
5-2. 3 Republicans and 2 Democrats supported the bill.

According to Urquhart, who previously voted in favor of reinstating the firing 
squad, death penalty cases are riddled with errors, and wrongful convictions 
happen all of the time. The appeals process also comes with a high price tag 
for the state.

"Government shouldn't be in the business of killing. It's not our place. It's 
wrong for us to assume that because we aren't infallible," he told the 
Associated Press.

Sen. Mark Madsen (R) shared that sentiment. "If I knew they were guilty, I have 
no moral compunction whatsoever pulling the trigger, pulling the switch, 
whatever it is, but I don't have that level of confidence in government," he 
said, noting that deadly errors cannot be reversed.

The 2 Republicans who voted against the bill believe capital punishment is just 
punishment for murder. They also say it should stay on the table out of 
consideration for victims' loved ones.

Urquhart doesn't expect the bill to pass in the Republican-led Senate. If it 
does, there's no guarantee that Gov. Gary Herbert will sign it into law. Last 
October, in response to a judiciary committee hearing about repealing the death 
penalty, he said the punishment should be an option "for the most heinous of 
crimes."

But the recent committee vote is another sign that support for the death 
penalty is dying out. The practice was banned in Nebraska last year, and many 
states have put it on hold. National support for the death penalty has 
plummeted, with opponents citing faith, high costs, and the unreliable evidence 
used to convict people. That evidence has resulted in wrongful convictions and 
the executions of innocent people.

(source: thinkprogress.org)






ARIZONA:

Death row inmates: Executions shouldn't go viral


The state of Arizona shot back at its death row inmates who challenged the 
state's use of paralytics in executions and are arguing that people have a 
constitutional right to see what's actually going on when someone is executed, 
Buzzfeed News reported Wednesday.

The state's method includes a 3-drug protocol that is supposed to sedate and 
paralyze the person before killing them.

Death row inmates and a coalition of First Amendment organizations are arguing 
that the paralytic agent only prevents people from seeing the pain the inmates 
may experience and effectively undermines the purpose of witnesses.

"The press, the prisoners and the people of Arizona have a right to know 
whether Arizona's execution process subjects prisoners to intense physical 
pain, and the use of a paralytic agent is just as effective in preventing the 
disclosure of that fact as if the execution occurred without any public witness 
at all."

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich's office said last week that the First 
Amendment does not protect the right of the inmate to "die in what they 
speculate will be pain and distress, as long as people can watch."

"The First Amendment does not protect the right to create a spectacle and go 
viral," the statement said.

He said inmates were trying to create "a spectacle with the objective of 
swaying public opinion and ultimately abolishing the death penalty."

Attorney David Weinzweig, who wrote the response for the state, said the 
department has been "forced" to change the drug protocols it uses in response 
to opponents of the death penalty. The response said people "wage guerilla 
warfare" to stop the state from "acquiring court-approved chemicals."

Arizona was forced to stop using its 2-drug protocol after the killing of an 
inmate in 2014 took nearly 2 hours.

(source: thehill.com)






NEVADA:

Suspect: No memory of 2 women's shooting deaths at Strip parking lot


An ex-convict facing murder charges in a car-to-car shooting that killed 2 
California women and critically wounded a man near the Las Vegas Strip told 
police he was drunk and high on marijuana and doesn't remember what happened, 
according to an arrest report made public Wednesday.

Omar Jamal Talley, 30, also told detectives he didn't shoot anyone, and a gun 
he was seen brandishing after a fistfight with the male victim in a casino 
parking garage was a BB gun, according to the report. He didn't tell police 
where the gun was.

Talley told a judge Wednesday he needs time to hire a lawyer to represent him 
on felony murder, attempted murder and weapon charges in the early Friday 
shooting.

Justice of the Peace Joseph Sciscento rescheduled his arraignment for March 2. 
The lawyer Talley named didn't immediately respond to messages.

Talley, who was arrested Saturday, told police he recalled being at the Miracle 
Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood, and said he joined a fight in the parking lot 
to help the man who was losing. He said he was drunk at the time and had smoked 
marijuana, and didn't recall leaving the parking garage.

"He walked up to the driver's side of the Hyundai ... produced a handgun and 
pointed it at the driver but did not shoot at that time," the arrest report 
said, citing surveillance video that police said showed the 3 victims in a 
Hyundai sedan and Talley driving a Toyota Camry.

"The Hyundai sped away. Talley returned to the Camry and ... sped off chasing 
the Hyundai," the report states.

Police were called moments later to a report of shots fired on Harmon Avenue, a 
short distance west of Las Vegas Boulevard and the parking garage.

The driver, Melissa Yvette Mendoza, 27, and passenger Jennifer Margarita 
Chicas, 27, both of the San Francisco Bay Area, each died of gunshots to the 
chest, according to police and coroner reports.

Passenger Jerraud Jackson, 29, was wounded in the lower torso and was 
recovering after surgery at University Medical Center in Las Vegas, a hospital 
spokeswoman said.

Talley was being held without bail at the Clark County jail in Las Vegas. He 
faces 2 murder charges, along with attempted murder and firing a weapon counts.

Prosecutor Peter Thunell said Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson will 
decide in coming weeks whether Tally will face the death penalty.

Thunell won felony pandering of a child and child abuse convictions against 
Talley in 2010. He said evidence at that trial showed Talley has a background 
as a pimp. The jury in that case acquitted Talley of kidnapping.

Records show that Talley was sentenced to 3 1/2 to 10 years in Nevada state 
prison. He was paroled last year.

(source: Las Vegas Sun)






CALIFORNIA:

Death penalty verdict returned in bakery murder


A Superior Court jury is recommending the death penalty for a man convicted of 
raping a woman and strangling her at a Fontana bakery.

The panel returned its verdict against Gilbert Sanchez on Wednesday.

Sanchez, who lived just a few blocks from the bakery, was accused of breaking 
into the bakery one night in 2001 and killing Sylvia Galindo. The 30-year-old 
employee at Maria's Panaderia was working alone.

The investigation went 'cold' for 5-years until a DNA match linked Sanchez to 
the murder. At the time, Sanchez was serving prison time in another case when 
he was charged.

Sanchez faces sentencing May 27th.

(source: Inland News Today)






WASHINGTON:

Case could end death penalty in Washington


Washington state's relationship with the death penalty over the past few 
decades has been so tenuous that even mass killers, serial killers and a cop 
killer have escaped it.

Only 5 people have been executed in the past 35 years. Gov. Jay Inslee, a 
one-time supporter of capital punishment, has said no executions will take 
place while he's in office. And the state prosecutors association has called 
for a referendum on whether to bother keeping it on the books.

Now, the state's high court, which came within 1 vote of striking down the 
death penalty a decade ago, is re-examining it. Dozens of former Washington 
judges have taken the unusual step of urging the court to find it 
unconstitutional this time - including former Justice Faith Ireland, who sided 
with the narrow majority in upholding capital punishment back in 2006.

Arguments are scheduled today in the case of Allen Eugene Gregory, who was 
convicted of raping, robbing and killing Geneine Harshfield, a 43-year-old 
cocktail waitress who lived near his grandmother, in 1996.

His lawyers are challenging his conviction and sentence, including procedural 
issues and statements made by a prosecutor during the trial. But they also 
insist that the death penalty is arbitrarily applied and that it is not applied 
proportionally, as the state Constitution requires. Certain counties - 
especially Pierce, where Gregory was convicted - have been aggressive about 
seeking execution, while others have said a death-penalty case would quickly 
bankrupt them, making the location of the crime a key factor in whether someone 
might be sentenced to death.


"Mr. Gregory is by no stretch of the imagination 1 of the worst offenders," 
attorneys Neil Fox and Lila Silverstein wrote. "Indeed, Washington's worst are 
serving life sentences. Meanwhile, Allen Gregory is on death row for killing a 
single victim when he was only 24 years old and he has committed no other 
violent felonies."

The Washington Supreme Court has heard - and rejected - such arguments before. 
In 2006, the court issued a 5-4 decision upholding the death penalty for Dayva 
Cross, who argued that since the state's worst serial killer, Gary Ridgway, 
avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty to 48 aggravated murder counts and 
agreeing to help investigators locate the remains of his victims, it would be 
unfair to execute him.

Robert Yates, another serial killer, was sentenced to life in prison, as were 
the perpetrators of Washington's worst mass killing, the 1983 Wah Mee 
restaurant massacre in Seattle, which left 13 people dead. Juries in King 
County recently declined to issue death sentences for Christopher Monfort, who 
killed a Seattle police officer, or Joseph McEnroe, who killed 6 members of his 
ex-girlfriend's family, including children, on Christmas Eve 2007.

Cross, who killed his wife and her 2 daughters, is 1 of 9 people on 
Washington's death row.

The majority in his case ruled that outliers such as Ridgway don't render the 
law unconstitutional. But the court's makeup now might be more hostile to 
capital punishment. Four of the justices remain from 2006, 3 of whom were in 
the minority: Charles Johnson, Barbara Madsen and Susan Owens.

One of the newer justices, Charles Wiggins, has expressed concerns over 
indications blacks are statistically more likely to be sentenced to death in 
Washington than whites, while another, Sheryl Gordon McCloud, represented 
defendants who had been sentenced to death - and criticized the way the death 
penalty is applied - during her previous career as an appellate lawyer.

In its brief, the Pierce County Prosecutor's Office urged the court to uphold 
the punishment, which is allowed by the federal government and 32 states. It 
argued the court has repeatedly upheld capital punishment, that those rulings 
should stand, and that Gregory shouldn't be allowed to make his constitutional 
arguments because he did not properly preserve those issues for appeal.

"Since death penalty abolitionists are unable to convince large numbers of 
Washingtonians to abolish the death penalty, defendant turns to this court in 
hopes that he can convince 5 of the court???s members that abolishing the death 
penalty is reflective of current public opinion," deputy prosecutor Kathleen 
Proctor wrote. "Essentially, defendant asks this court to become a legislative 
entity and to override the desire of the people of this state to have the death 
penalty as an available sanction for certain homicides."

In joining 55 other ex-judges who signed a brief filed by the American Civil 
Liberties Union of Washington urging an end to capital punishment, Ireland, who 
served a single term on the Supreme Court, was particularly concerned about 
geographical disparities in death sentences - an issue that the majority held 
was not squarely before the court in 2006.

"We can't call the death penalty anything but arbitrary when it depends on 
whether you kill someone in a rich county or one that can't afford such a 
trial," she wrote in an email to The Associated Press. "That could be fixed in 
my opinion by having death penalty prosecutions and defenses funded at the 
state level."

(source: Yakima Herald)

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

State Supreme Court could overhaul death penalty


A Washington Supreme Court could overhaul the death penalty in our state.

For KIRO 7 News at 6 p.m., Essex Porter is following the case of a death row 
inmate whose case the court will hear Thursday.

Depending on the ruling in the inmate's case, the death penalty in Washington 
could change.

The Washington ACLU is urging the court to abolish to the death penalty 
altogether.

In 2014, Gov. Jay Inslee announced he was suspending the use of the death 
penalty in Washington state, in a move that he hoped would enable officials to 
"join a growing national conversation about capital punishment."

But Inslee's moratorium means that if a death-penalty case comes to his desk, 
he will issue a reprieve, which would allow inmates to stay in prison rather 
than face execution. Individuals on death row are still subject to execution if 
one of Inslee's successors lifts the moratorium.

2 methods of execution are legal in Washington: lethal injection and hanging.

Since 1904, 78 persons have been executed in Washington, none of whom was a 
woman.

(source: KIRO news)

**********

Dozens of judges ask Washington high court to ban death penalty


Washington state's relationship with the death penalty over the past few 
decades has been so tenuous that even mass killers, serial killers and a cop 
killer have escaped it.

Only 5 people have been executed in the past 35 years. Gov. Jay Inslee, a 
1-time supporter of capital punishment, has said no executions will take place 
while he's in office. And the state prosecutors association has called for a 
referendum on whether to bother keeping it on the books.

Now, the state's high court, which came within 1 vote of striking down the 
death penalty a decade ago, is re-examining it. Dozens of former Washington 
judges have taken the unusual step of urging the court to find it 
unconstitutional this time - including former Justice Faith Ireland, who sided 
with the narrow majority in upholding capital punishment back in 2006.

Arguments are scheduled for Thursday in the case of Allen Eugene Gregory, who 
was convicted of raping, robbing and killing Geneine Harshfield, a 43-year-old 
cocktail waitress who lived near his grandmother, in 1996.

His lawyers are challenging his conviction and sentence, including procedural 
issues and statements made by a prosecutor during the trial. But they also 
insist that the death penalty is arbitrarily applied and that it is not applied 
proportionally, as the state Constitution requires. Certain counties - 
especially Pierce, where Gregory was convicted - have been aggressive about 
seeking execution, while others have said a death-penalty case would quickly 
bankrupt them, making the location of the crime a key factor in whether someone 
might be sentenced to death.

"Mr. Gregory is by no stretch of the imagination one of the worst offenders," 
attorneys Neil Fox and Lila Silverstein wrote. "Indeed, Washington's worst are 
serving life sentences. Meanwhile, Allen Gregory is on death row for killing a 
single victim when he was only 24 years old and he has committed no other 
violent felonies."

The Washington Supreme Court has heard - and rejected - such arguments before. 
In 2006, the court issued a 5-4 decision upholding the death penalty for Dayva 
Cross, who argued that since the state's worst serial killer, Gary Ridgway, 
avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty to 48 aggravated murder counts and 
agreeing to help investigators locate the remains of his victims, it would be 
unfair to execute him.

Robert Yates, another serial killer, was sentenced to life in prison, as were 
the perpetrators of Washington's worst mass killing, the 1983 Wah Mee 
restaurant massacre in Seattle, which left 13 people dead. Juries in King 
County recently declined to issue death sentences for Christopher Monfort, who 
killed a Seattle police officer, or Joseph McEnroe, who killed six members of 
his ex-girlfriends family, including children, on Christmas Eve 2007.

Cross, who killed his wife and her 2 daughters, is 1 of 9 people on 
Washington's death row.

The majority in his case ruled that outliers such as Ridgway don't render the 
law unconstitutional. But the court's make-up now might be more hostile to 
capital punishment. Four of the justices remain from 2006, three of whom were 
in the minority: Charles Johnson, Barbara Madsen and Susan Owens.

One of the newer justices, Charles Wiggins, has expressed concerns over 
indications blacks are statistically more likely to be sentenced to death in 
Washington than whites, while another, Sheryl Gordon McCloud, represented 
defendants who had been sentenced to death - and criticized the way the death 
penalty is applied - during her previous career as an appellate lawyer.

In its brief, the Pierce County Prosecutor's Office urged the court to uphold 
the punishment, which is allowed by the federal government and 32 states. It 
argued the court has repeatedly upheld capital punishment, that those rulings 
should stand, and that Gregory shouldn't be allowed to make his constitutional 
arguments because he did not properly preserve those issues for appeal.

"Since death penalty abolitionists are unable to convince large numbers of 
Washingtonians to abolish the death penalty, defendant turns to this court in 
hopes that he can convince five of the court's members that abolishing the 
death penalty is reflective of current public opinion," deputy prosecutor 
Kathleen Proctor wrote. "Essentially, defendant asks this court to become a 
legislative entity and to override the desire of the people of this state to 
have the death penalty as an available sanction for certain homicides."

In joining 55 other ex-judges who signed a brief filed by the American Civil 
Liberties Union of Washington urging an end to capital punishment, Ireland, who 
served a single term on the Supreme Court, was particularly concerned about 
geographical disparities in death sentences - an issue that the majority held 
was not squarely before the court in 2006.

"We can't call the death penalty anything but arbitrary when it depends on 
whether you kill someone in a rich county or one that can't afford such a 
trial," she wrote in an email to The Associated Press. "That could be fixed in 
my opinion by having death penalty prosecutions and defenses funded at the 
state level."

(source: KOMO news)






USA:

see: 
http://visitor.r20.constantcontact.com/manage/optinv=001C5QOjSvqJgyoQKAfKFRVu7GZjQLbHxhMattecZIbC 
tlj5J9KXBgyXoPytsO5I1pzHF8w9Q0I3OkJs18Rdal57_yLXYUrrfpA7jDcf4rkFZn7ktJKWcnBJtkldE-e96tvesXy-xYVX9Wy31V9G1rgw%3D%3D&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ncadp&utm_content=2+-+you+can+optin+and+receive+these+emails+b&utm_campaign=EXECA&source= 
EXECA

(source: NCADP)

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

On the Road to Abolition: Capital Punishment and Its Uncertain Future in the 
United States


Capital punishment in this country has a long and storied history. In the early 
years, the colonies regularly executed criminal offenders for a variety of 
crimes, including arson, piracy, and sodomy. These executions were often public 
in nature. As our country continued to grow and progress, executions continued 
but became much rarer in practice. The rarity with which executions were 
imposed perhaps ironically created a constitutional problem. Because being 
sentenced to death was like being "struck by lightning," imposition of capital 
punishment was arbitrary and capricious, which amounted to it being 
unconstitutional. As a result of this and other concerns, in 1972, the US 
Supreme Court struck down the death penalty as it was being applied in the 
states. Despite this difficulty, many states clung to the extreme punishment, 
and, just 4 years later, the Court upheld Georgia's new and revised capital 
punishment statute, which set the standard for the additional thirty-seven 
states that reinvested in the death penalty.

Since 1976, the number of states embracing capital punishment has generally 
hovered around thirty-eight. In recent years, though, several states have 
explicitly or effectively walked away from the punishment. Since 2004, seven 
states have abolished the death penalty either through statute or case law: New 
York (2004), New Jersey (2007), New Mexico (2009), Illinois (2011), Connecticut 
(2013), Maryland (2013), and Nebraska (2015). This amounts to a change from 76% 
to 62% of states supporting capital punishment. This shift is significant for a 
couple of reasons.

First, it suggests that much of the public is changing its views on the issue 
of capital punishment. This is probably a reaction to the realization that well 
over 1,500 Americans have been wrongfully convicted in this country. It is also 
likely a result of greater understanding that imposing capital punishment on an 
individual is vastly more expensive than feeding, housing, and medicating an 
inmate for the rest of his life. For example, a recent study put the costs 
associated with an aggravated 1st-degree murder case in which the death penalty 
was sought at north of $3 million in the state of Washington, whereas the costs 
associated with an aggravated 1st-degree murder case in which the death penalty 
was not sought was around $2 million in the state.

The 2nd and related reason that the shift in support for capital punishment is 
significant is that it raises questions about the constitutionality of the 
punishment. As early as 1958, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that the Eighth 
Amendment's prohibition on "cruel and unusual punishments" "must draw its 
meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a 
maturing society." (Actually, this statement in support of the Court's decision 
did not have precedential effect, but the Court has repeatedly adopted it as 
binding law in its subsequent opinions.) This approach to the Eighth Amendment 
indicates that our interpretation of it may change with time as society 
evolves. This is despite the fact that U.S. Supreme Court Justices, as well as 
legal practitioners and scholars, still debate more broadly whether we should 
take an originalist or living constitutionalist approach to interpreting the 
Bill of Rights. But this evolving understanding of the Eighth Amendment means 
that a practice that was once considered constitutional may later become 
unconstitutional even if the Court does not overrule its prior opinion on the 
matter. In Atkins v. Virginia, for example, the Court determined that it is 
unconstitutional to execute intellectually disabled persons even though the 
Court had - just 13 years earlier - concluded that this practice was not 
unconstitutional. Similarly, in Roper v. Simmons, the Court determined that it 
is unconstitutional to execute juvenile offenders even though the Court had 
previously concluded that this practice was not unconstitutional. Importantly, 
the Court reached these contrary conclusions in the later cases of Atkins and 
Roper without overruling the prior decisions. Instead, the Court concluded that 
the facts had changed over time - and society's values had changed???forcing a 
new, updated meaning of the Eighth Amendment. With this living, evolving 
understanding of the Eighth Amendment, there is room for even the death penalty 
to become unconstitutional over time.

In determining whether a punishment practice has become unconstitutional as 
society has evolved, the Court has looked primarily at whether various 
jurisdictions have adopted or rejected the practice. This, the Court has 
explained, is the "clearest and most reliable objective evidence of 
contemporary values." The Court has also occasionally examined whether the 
punishment is actually imposed in practice and whether professional groups or 
the international community oppose the practice. In Atkins, it took 16 states 
withdrawing support from the practice of executing intellectually disabled 
individuals for the practice to move from constitutional to unconstitutional 
within a period of thirteen years. These 16 states were added to the 3 
jurisdictions already prohibiting the practice, as well as to the 14 states 
rejecting capital punishment altogether. The Atkins Court also stressed that it 
is not so much the number of states withdrawing their support for the practice 
that matters, but it is "the consistency of the direction of change" that is 
important. In comparison, while just 7 states have withdrawn support for 
capital punishment altogether, the consistency of the direction of change 
within a short period of time has been remarkable on this issue. No non-death 
penalty state has adopted capital punishment since 1995. This trend is even 
more impressive when compared to Roper. In that case, it took just 6 states to 
newly abandon the practice for the Court to find it unconstitutional. These 6 
states were added to the twelve states that already prohibited juvenile 
offender executions, as well as the 12 states that had rejected the death 
penalty altogether.

The Roper Court did rely on additional considerations, however. The Court was 
also concerned about factors such as the infrequency which with the practice 
was employed and juveniles' general lack of maturity, underdeveloped sense of 
responsibility, and lesser culpability than adults. Still, when comparing the 
shift in states' rejection of executing juvenile offenders with the recent 
shift in states rejecting capital punishment altogether, the latter is more 
overwhelming. While a change in just 6 states' laws pushed the Court to find 
unconstitutionality in Roper, we have recently had seven states abandon the 
death penalty in its entirety. That puts us at 19 states rejecting capital 
punishment. In Atkins, that same number of states - 19 - specifically rejected 
executing intellectually disabled offenders, and in Roper, just 18 states 
specifically rejected the practice of executing juvenile offenders. Employing 
this method of state-counting, which the Court has emphasized, provides the 
"clearest and most reliable objective evidence of contemporary values," it 
seems that we have reached the territory of possible unconstitutionality of 
capital punishment.

There remains the issue that capital punishment, unlike the practices of 
executing intellectually disabled persons or juvenile offenders, is 
specifically mentioned in the Bill of Rights. How could a punishment 
contemplated by the Constitution be unconstitutional? First, although the 
Constitution mentions capital punishment, it does not specifically indicate its 
constitutionality. It suggests that, if capital punishment is to be employed, 
there are limits on its use - specifically that "[n]o person shall be held to 
answer for a capital ... crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a 
grand jury" (except in particular circumstances); that no one shall "be subject 
for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life"; and that no person 
shall "be deprived of life ... without due process of law." Perhaps more 
importantly, because the Court has explicitly adopted an evolving meaning 
interpretation of the Eighth Amendment, a punishment that was once 
constitutional can become unconstitutional over time. This is what happened in 
Atkins and Roper, and this evolving approach does not provide exceptions for 
punishments mentioned in the Bill of Rights.

There are a number of reasons why one might argue that capital punishment is 
unconstitutional. Indeed, the petitioner in Walter v. Pennsylvania suggested 
that the rarity with which the punishment is employed, and the fact that its 
imposition is laced with racial bias, means that capital punishment should be 
found unconstitutional. Perhaps the best argument for unconstitutionality here, 
though, is based upon the number of states that have rejected the practice. 
Just as many states have rejected the death penalty as rejected executing 
intellectually disabled offenders and executing juvenile offenders - numbers 
that convinced the Court to find these practices unconstitutional. If the trend 
of abolition continues as it has over the past decade, the death penalty should 
be something that cannot withstand constitutional challenge. As the Court 
indicated in Atkins, the direction and consistency of rejecting the punishment 
will be overwhelming.

(source: Meghan J. Ryan is an Associate Professor at Southern Methodist 
University Dedman School of Law. She teaches, writes and researches at the 
intersection of Criminal Law and Procedure, Torts, and Law and Science.

Suggested citation: Meghan J. Ryan, On the Road to Abolition: Capital 
Punishment and Its Uncertain Future in the United States, JURIST - Academic 
Commentary, Feb. 24, 2016, 
http://jurist.org/forum/2016/02/meghan-ryan-capital-punishment.php-----The 
Jurist)

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

Hang 'em High, or Not At All


Capital punishment rarely shows its face anymore. In 1972 the U.S. Supreme 
Court abolished the death penalty, only to reverse its decision four years 
later in Gregg v. Georgia 1976, on the condition that states which legalize it 
comply with the 8th Amendment ban on "cruel and unusual punishment". Since 
then, states have abandoned such primitive forms of execution as hanging, 
firing squad, and the electric chair, and have instead taken to the new and 
enlightened method of lethal injection. Today less than half of all U.S. states 
have outlawed capital punishment. Though many republican audiences still coo 
when a governor announces his number of kills, the death penalty's federal 
permission has become a non issue in the states where it is illegal.

Casual opponents of the death penalty, however, find themselves chomping at the 
bit when forced to evaluate their stance. "Better to err on the side of not 
taking life. The teaching of the Catholic Church, to which I belong, seems 
right to me: The state has the legitimate authority to execute criminals, but 
it should refrain if it has other means of protecting people from them," said 
Ramesh Ponnuru in a 2014 article for Bloombergview. "Still," he went on, "when 
I hear about an especially gruesome crime, like the one the Oklahoma killer 
committed, I can't help rooting for the death penalty." Ignoring the 
implications of basing the government's "legitimate authority" on what may or 
may not be Church doctrine, I shift your attention to the 2nd part of that 
quote, to those "especially" horrible criminals who elicit that special craving 
for revenge.

The Oklahoma killer to whom Ponnuru was referring was a man named Clayton 
Lockett, who shot and buried alive a witness to his robbery. Lockett's story 
made headlines in 2014 after his botched execution. The hours leading up to 
Lockett's death are detailed in an article by Jeffrey St. Clair:

Lockett was supposed to be executed along with Charles Warner in a 2 night 
political show by Governor Mary Warner who, incidentally, "is usually adorned 
by a necklace with a dangling golden cross." Lockett was tasered out of his 
cell in the middle of the night after stabbing himself in the wrist with a 
homemade shank. After 10 hours shackled in a holding cell, he was brought by 
the prison warden to the execution chamber where the phlebotomist, most likely 
licensed through online courses, spent about an hour trying to find a vein. The 
phlebotomist stuck the needle in under Lockett's groin, and put a blanket over 
it (to keep everything tasteful for the witnesses behind the walls, one 
supposes). The drug that was supposed to knock him out failed, and Locket woke 
up screaming while the other 2 drugs meant to kill him were being pumped into 
his groin. The execution was canceled, and Lockett slowly died over the course 
of the next half hour.

This publication of this gruesome display didn't do much for Governor Fallin's 
career, but mercilessness as Governor has been and often still is a form of 
currency in gubernatorial and even presidential races. In the 1992 presidential 
race, Bill Clinton made this clear when he refused clemency to Ricky Ray 
Rector, a man so mentally empty that as the guards came to take him away he 
told them he would save his last slice of pecan pie for later. In his 1st 
2-year term as governor, Clinton commuted the sentences of 70 inmates. In 1980, 
he lost his bid for reelection to an opponent who accused him of being soft on 
crime. Following his successful reelection in 1983, Clinton 9 (having learned 
his lesson) commuted a grand total of 7 sentences over his next 4 terms. The 
idea that this champion Democrat used the execution of a mentally retarded 
black man as political capital is not easily swallowed by today's progressives, 
but it is nonetheless typical of the cynicism and general scumbaggery that 
characterizes Bill Clinton and his breed of politician.

In states south of the Mason Dixon, and west of the Mississippi, this kind of 
trading in lives of the condemned is neither rare nor surprising. Most people 
have forgotten about last American frontiersman and ever-so-brief star of the 
2016 presidential campaign Rick Perry, but he forges ahead ever stalwart. In 
2012, in the midst of another failing presidential campaign, then 
governor-of-Texas Perry was handed an opportunity to flash his supreme record 
on execution when in a debate he was asked whether or not he worried some of 
those killed may have been innocent. When moderator Brian Williams cited the 
234 inmates executed under his watch, the crowd went wild, and Perry's eyes 
began to glitter as he put on his serious face. Support for the death penalty 
has become an easy way for candidates to grandstand during debates, and to make 
their opponents look weak or even depraved. Michael Dukakis never quite 
recovered from his uncomfortably lifeless response to Bernard Shaw's question 
whether he would support the death penalty if his wife was raped and murdered. 
Still, no was the right answer.

Most people know, or have heard of, the hugely disproportionate number of 
African Americans sentenced to death. Most people know, or have heard of, the 
many innocent people released from death row, some too late. Most people have 
an idea of how nightmarish the criminal justice system can be. But over 40 
years relatively little has changed.

Not too long ago, people like Rick Perry bonded over public hangings. They 
brought blankets and had family picnics. Ancient Rome had it even better. 
Today, all that we usually get are news reports, to which many people - if not 
most - respond with the same "rooting for the death penalty". It is time either 
to entirely outlaw the death penalty or to reinvigorate it. If we're going to 
root for torturing criminals to death, let's make it a public torturing, in 
Aztec style, and find out just how cruel and unusual we all can be.

(source: Ryan Mernin, McGill International Review)

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

Stuntwoman Turned Filmmaker Patty Dillon Takes on Execution From the 
Executioner's Perspective in There Will Be No Stay


A journey of compassion and consequence, through a process shrouded in secrecy, 
two executioner's lives intersect on a path to discovering freedom from their 
own personal prisons.

After a few years of performing stunt work on television shows like Dawson's 
Creek, One Tree Hill, and Eastbound and Down, Patty Dillon had a sudden drive 
to get behind the camera. In 2010, she jumped on the opportunity to move back 
to Omaha to learn from producer/director Dana Altman, Robert Altman's grandson, 
who taught her the fundamentals of movie making.

Execution through the eyes of the executioner... As a first-time documentary 
filmmaker, Dillon had the deep desire to explore a topic never before tackled 
on film. She conceived the idea in 2008, on a call with Dr. Ronald Morton, a 
friend who would later become her debut film's executive producer. They were 
talking about how it's common practice for executioners to sanitize the 
condemned's arm before administering lethal injection. The irony of this 
practice inspired Patty to write a 13-part series about various facets of 
execution, called Dichotomy of Death. While researching the first episode, "To 
Kill the Killer," she began to see an obscure, untold story, and telling the 
story became somewhat of an obsession. "With executioners still wearing hoods 
in Florida, these men were literally shrouded in secrecy and hiding out," she 
says. "They were next to impossible to track down, and the only ones I could 
find had taken their own lives. I assumed there were others out there suffering 
in silence and I had to find them."

Dillon decided to drop the series and pursue "To Kill the Killer" as a 
full-length documentary film, There Will Be No Stay.

As writer/director and producer of There Will Be No Stay, Dillon was completely 
out of her element, and she wanted it that way. One of the first hurdles in 
getting the film made was choosing a crew who was experienced enough to provide 
the kind of support she needed to shoot and produce a successful first film. 
With Jeremy Osbern on board as cinematographer, and Nick Fackler, whom she had 
worked with in the past, as her editor, she was ready to move forward.

Making a movie that exposes the devastating effects of state-sanctioned 
homicide was no easy feat. First off, there was the seemingly impossible task 
of finding an executioner, let alone one who would talk on camera -- a process 
that took just under a year of poring over records, calling, emailing, calling 
again. She set out in search of just one executioner who would let her in, and 
found 2 men whose paths had crossed in their unusual line of work. "The biggest 
challenge was finding my cast," she says. "Ultimately what I wanted to do was 
form an execution team -- warden, chaplain, and executioner. Then I thought it 
would be really powerful to have a victim's family member involved."

After a lot of knocking on doors, Dillon secured interviews with 2 former South 
Carolina executioners, a former Georgia prison warden, and a former Texas 
prison chaplain. "Going into the film, my agenda was really to educate myself, 
but the further I got into it, it became about telling the story of the 
execution team," says Dillon of the human element of her film. "I'd have 
conversations that went on for hours sometimes with the executioners, where I'd 
shut that filmmaker part of me down and just listen to them talk. I found 
myself becoming part of their recovery and wanting to help them heal. It was 
really quite dark at times and there were more than a few nights where I cried 
myself to sleep."

>From concept to cameras rolling, There Will Be No Stay took 4 years to get off 
the ground, and on Oct 15, 2012, Dillon and her team went into production. With 
commitments from investors who were excited about the film's unique approach, 
but no great sum of money to carry out the full project, Patty and her 
co-producer Chevy Kozisek piecemealed the budget, scraping by enough to keep 
the cameras rolling.

Day 1 of shooting involved filming exterior shots at the execution of Eric 
Roberts at South Dakota State Penitentiary, with protestors in full effect. 
Then exterior shots at an execution in Huntsville, Texas. Polarity is an 
ever-present theme in the film, and Dillon does an impressive job of navigating 
a complex topic -- essentially by presenting a bird's eye view while letting 
the audience connect the dots. "Activism in itself can be very violent, a form 
of opposition, and that's something I wanted to capture, too -- the range of 
human emotions around the topic and the contrast between the pro-death penalty 
supporters, the anti-activists, and the families of the condemned," she says.

Another major hurdle was getting footage of a death chamber. Even death 
chambers that were out of use were carefully guarded, which pushed Dillon to be 
even more headstrong in her quest. She came close to getting access into a 
death chamber in Arizona, and another in Nebraska, going so far as to meet with 
Senator Ernie Chambers, but delays and red tape pushed her goal further and 
further away. Dillon denied an invitation to witness a live execution because, 
she says, "I didn't want to exploit the final moments of a man's life. Without 
having any relationship with the condemned or the family, it would have been 
disrespectful."

Finally, her crew was granted permission to roll cameras on a death chamber in 
Oklahoma, less than 36 hours after an execution took place -- the very same 
spot that would become the center of a hot controversy only weeks later. The 
state came under fire after the botched execution of Clayton Lockett leaked 
out, a situation where it took the inmate 4 hours to die as a result of 
experimental lethal injection drugs. CNN was clamoring for footage; they 
couldn't get inside, so Death Row Stories narrator Susan Sarandon suggested 
they call Dillon. Her footage later appeared on an episode of called "Botched," 
along with an interview of Dillon talking about her experience.

Dillon had previously contacted Sarandon in hopes that she might agree to 
narrate the film, but after she delivered a rough cut, Sarandon sent her an 
email encouraging her to do the narration herself. She felt that Dillon's 
connection to the executioners was integral to the story, and that the film 
would be missing something with a 3rd-party voice.

During her journey, there were things that Dillon felt were especially 
hypocritical, things that needed to be made public:

"A former warden I interviewed talked about the shock he felt during his first 
execution when he heard the condemned's nose break after a mask was put on him. 
And because the condemned is clutching the chair so hard, the tie-down team is 
forced to break the condemned's fingers in order to remove the body. When I 
found out the cause of death is listed as homicide, I was just in awe of the 
insanity. Also, people think it's cheaper to execute inmates than to 
incarcerate them for life, but the truth is it costs millions of dollars for 
every execution."

There Will Be No Stay was completed for just under $200,000, after a seven-year 
mission to fund, film, and edit. Dillon debuted the film at Big Sky Documentary 
Film Festival in Missoula, Montana, where it earned award nominations for Best 
Feature Length Documentary and Audience Choice. At Cinequest Film Festival in 
San Jose, the film was nominated for Best Feature Documentary and Audience 
Choice. At the Omaha Film Festival, it earned a nomination for Audience Choice. 
Though the subject matter was ominous, responses to the film were highly 
supportive. After turning down a few distributors who came knocking, Dillon 
said yes to FilmBuff, a New York-based independent distributor with a 
reputation for supporting creative and edgy underdogs. Under contract with 
FilmBuff, There Wlll Be No Stay was released on January 19th on Video on Demand 
and is now available through iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, VUDU, and Xbox.

For Dillon, the rewards of her risky endeavor came in many small but sweet 
victories, like when she showed it to her executive producer for the first 
time: "I paced around the house while he watched it," she says. "He's not an 
excitable guy, but I breathed a sigh of relief when he finally said, 'It's 
good. We made a movie!" For their own personal reasons, the two executioners 
have yet to see the film. Says Dillon, "They've passionately repeated that they 
trust what I've done with their story. There's no pressure; they'll watch it 
when they're ready."

Not one to sit on her hands, Dillon's got a few projects in development now. 
First in the pipeline is grooming her autobiographical series Character Shoes 
for episodic television -- a dark comedy that takes the audience into her 
evenings as an undercover stripper named "Isabelle." Imagine The Office meets 
Orange is the New Black, but the office is a strip club. "I spent many nights 
in a dark corner of the club with a glass of wine, either researching current 
execution events on my phone or taking notes on the colorful story lines 
evolving in front of my face -- for the better part of a year, I was writing 
about either strippers or killers," says Dillon. "If I had a conference call 
for the film, I would take off my stilettos and put on my flip-flops, ask the 
valet to bring my truck around, and take the call in my front seat."

She's also in the early stages of an edgy documentary that follows adults who 
were born "sexually ambiguous," a situation where the parents were forced to 
chose their child's gender within a month of birth. The film takes a hard look 
at the grown children and the gender identity issues they are now facing.

As a writer and director, Dillon is extremely gifted at being at the right 
place at the right time, and letting the truth wiggle out through her cast. 
Looking back on her debut venture, she acknowledges that making There Will Be 
No Stay helped her become more human in a way, and solidified her ability to 
bring a vision to life through the art of film.

"At the beginning I felt awake, like I needed to show what we are capable of 
doing to another human being when we forget the collective consciousness, that 
one decision has an unbelievable ripple effect. What my viewer thinks of the 
death penalty is none of my business, but I found myself asking, 'Why are we 
killing people to teach people that killing people is wrong?' It's insanity. 
Isn't it the most premeditated murder of all? Pure insanity. I wanted to find 
out if people knew what really goes on during the carrying out our death 
sentences, if it would make a difference. Ultimately, I just felt this 
tremendous responsibility to do the executioners' stories justice... if I've 
done that, then as far as I'm concerned, the film is successful."

If you'd like more information on the There Will Be No Stay, Dillon can be 
reached at FallGirlProductions at gmail.com.

(source: Lindsey Kesel, Huffington Post)