[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GA., FLA., KAN., NEB., CALIF., US MIL.

[Rick Halperin]

July 21




GEORGIA:

Only airman on military's death row gets new sentencing hearing


A former Georgia-based Air Force enlisted man who killed a married couple will 
get another chance to escape the death penalty for the murders he committed 12 
years ago.

In the latest twist to a violent case that began at Robins Air Force Base, 
about 90 miles east of Columbus, the nation's highest military appeals court on 
Tuesday ordered another sentencing hearing for Andrew Paul Witt.

The new sentencing hearing will effectively be the 4th go-around for Witt, the 
only airman on the military's death row in Leavenworth, Kansas. His revived 
prospects result from a legal error that, while seemingly technical, was also 
deemed worrisome for the military justice system's overall reputation.

"A problem of appearances and public confidence is precisely what we have 
here," Judge Scott W. Stucky wrote.

In the unanimous ruling, the 5-member court concluded that the lower Air Force 
Court of Criminal Appeals acted improperly with its handling of Witt's original 
appeal.

The error in this case resulted in (Witt's) vacated death sentence being 
affirmed. It is difficult to conceive of a more striking example of prejudice 
to (his) substantial rights. Judge Scott W. Stucky, U.S. Court of Appeals for 
the Armed Forces.

A 12-officer panel first imposed the death penalty in 2005. The Air Force court 
struck down the sentence in 2013, citing alleged shortcomings with Witt's legal 
representation. 4 judges recused themselves because they joined the appeals 
court after the oral argument.

The government then asked for reconsideration. The Air Force court reversed 
itself in 2014 and upheld Witt's death sentence, this time with 3 of the 4 
previously recused judges taking part.

"The participation of disqualified judges in the reconsideration process 
produced a significant risk of undermining the public's confidence in the 
judicial process," Stucky wrote in the nine-page decision released Tuesday.

Witt's attorneys declined to comment Wednesday.

A graduate of Wichita State University and Harvard Law School, Stucky himself 
served as an Air Force judge advocate before joining the all-civilian Court of 
Appeals for the Armed Forces. His decision did not elaborate on the underlying 
crime, whose essential details Witt does not contest.

In the summer of 2004, Witt was a senior airman stationed at Robins with the 
116th Air Control Wing. Raised in an allegedly troubled home, he had also been 
in a motorcycle accident in early 2014, an event that later led to questions 
about a possible traumatic brain injury.

Jamie Schliepsiek, the wife of Senior Airman Andrew Schliepsiek, told her 
husband the night of July 4 that Witt had made a sexual advance toward her. Her 
husband then placed multiple post-midnight phone calls to Witt, with the 2 men 
eventually talking at length.

"At some point during the phone call exchanges, (Witt) changed into his battle 
dress uniform," the Air Force appeals court recounted. "He retrieved a knife 
from his closet, placed the knife in the trunk of his car, and drove onto 
Robins Air Force Base."

A 3rd senior airman, Jason King, had joined the Schliepsieks at their home. At 
about 4 a.m., Witt entered the house and got into a scuffle where he stabbed 
both men while Jamie Schliepsiek locked herself in a bedroom. A wounded King 
fled to summon help.

Witt left the house and then returned, breaking through the bedroom door to 
find Jamie Schliepsiek curled in a fetal position. He stabbed her to death, and 
then finished off her wounded husband, who had been paralyzed in the initial 
attack.

"My life has changed dramatically since that night, and I plan to continue to 
make changes," Witt told his court-martial panel during his trial in Macon, 
Georgia. "I want you to know that I am firmly resolved to lead a productive 
life in the service of others and will not wander from this path if given the 
chance."

The new hearing could result in another death sentence, or life terms with or 
without the possibility of parole. The last U.S. military execution occurred in 
1961.

(source: modbee.com)






FLORIDA:

Panel finds probable cause Jacksonville judge used racist, sexist language


A Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission panel has found probable cause to 
charge Circuit Judge Mark Hulsey with using anti-black language and behaving 
improperly as a judge.

The complaint includes charges that Hulsey referred to a woman as a "c--t" and 
said blacks "should go get back on a ship and go back to Africa."

The charges finalized Tuesday include claims that Hulsey, of Jacksonville, used 
staff attorneys to prepare scripts for routine judicial tasks and required one 
attorney to regularly do Hulsey's work for him.

During a death-penalty trial, the charges said, a staff attorney was required 
to provide basic information about capital trial procedures.

At the end of the trial, the charges said, Hulsey blamed the attorney for 
mistakes he had made.

Hulsey was later told by the chief judge to stop overusing staff attorneys, the 
charges said.

Excessive use of one staff attorney meant that attorney was "doing double 
duty," the charges said, working on tasks Hulsey assigned and trying to handle 
her regular assigned work.

Hulsey was a solo-practice attorney for 20 years before being elected in 2010. 
He is up for reelection this year, and is being challenged by Gerald Wilkerson.

(source: firstcoastnews.com)






KANSAS:

Preliminary hearing is set for accused killer of KCK police detective Brad 
Lancaster


As officials gathered Wednesday morning to discuss the latest killing of a 
Kansas City, Kan., police officer, the man accused of killing another KCK 
officer was appearing in court across the street.

Curtis Ayers, 29, is charged with capital murder in the May 9 fatal shooting of 
Kansas City, Kan., police detective Brad Lancaster.

The hearing for Ayers on Wednesday morning in Wyandotte County District Court 
came as officials at City Hall were holding a news conference to discuss 
Tuesday afternoon's fatal shooting of Police Capt. Robert Melton.

Police said Tuesday night that 2 suspects were in custody in connection with 
Melton's killing but that no charges had been filed.

At the hearing for Ayers, District Judge Bill Klapper set a preliminary hearing 
for Nov. 21. The judge said he would set aside 2 or 3 days for the hearing.

The preliminary hearing will be the 1st time that evidence in the case will be 
presented publicly.

Ayers is accused of shooting Lancaster outside Kansas Speedway while fleeing 
from police.

He then allegedly went on a spree of carjacking and robbery that ended in 
Kansas City when police shot him and took him into custody.

He faces a potential death sentence if convicted of capital murder and is being 
represented by lawyers from the Kansas Death Penalty Defense Unit.

Wyandotte County District Attorney Jerome Gorman said he has not yet made a 
decision on whether to seek the death penalty for Ayers.

(source: Kansas City Star)






NEBRASKA:

Families share differing views on death penalty


Speakers from various sides of the death penalty debate shared their stories 
Tuesday evening at the First United Methodist Church, 614 N. Hastings Ave.

Organized by Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, the Journey of 
Hope program started with a story from Bess Klassen-Landis.

Her mother, Helen, was raped, strangled and shot 4 times in their rural home in 
Elkhart, Ind. Bess and her 3 sisters were at school at the time and her father 
was out of town for work.

"Having someone murdered in your family puts you on a spiritual journey," she 
said.

She likened the aftermath of the murder to a tornado. Both are sudden, 
unexpected and violent occurrences that ripple out to affect hundreds of 
people.

Although police identified 7 suspects, there was never a conviction and the 
murderer remained on the loose.

Bess, 13 at the time, didn't feel safe in her home. She suffered from 
post-traumatic stress disorder and created escape plans in her mind every time 
she entered a room.

"Each night, I would be pursued and murdered in my dreams," she said.

Spending so much time in a hyper-vigilant state and always being on high alert 
caused problems with her immune system over time.

Her family didn't know how to deal with the trauma. In an effort to protect 
each other from more pain, they avoided discussing the topic. The family 
drifted apart as each tried to deal with the trauma on his or her own.

Klassen-Landis said her healing started through the grace of God. Peace came as 
she found the ability to forgive. She said forgiveness is something victims 
should do for themselves as a way to move past the pain of loss.

"For me to heal, I needed to be able to see the humanity in my mother's 
murderer," she said.

Klassen-Landis feels the death penalty doesn't bring healing to the judicial 
system. While proponents say the death penalty needs to be reserved for the 
worst of the worst, she contends it is actually used for the poorest of the 
poor.

"We cannot have a non-violent community through violence," she said.

The 2nd speaker was Sandrine Ageorges-Skinner of Paris. She has spent decades 
fighting the death penalty. During her efforts, she became penpals with 3 Texas 
death row inmates, including Hank Skinner in 1996.

Skinner had been arrested for the triple murder of his girlfriend and her 2 
adult sons who lived at his Texas home in 1994. He was convicted and sentenced 
to death in 1995.

Ageorges-Skinner began visiting Skinner in 2000 and the 2 married in 2008.

She described death row from the eyes of a family member, including the anxiety 
of having her husband receive execution dates in 2010 and 2011. In 2010, her 
husband received a stay of execution with just 25 minutes to spare.

Ageorges-Skinner proclaimed her husband's innocence, explaining a witness was 
coerced into testifying against him. The witness later recanted, but a judge 
decided she wasn't a credible witness.

Ageorges-Skinner said it has been a constant struggle trying to get access to 
the evidence in the case and secure DNA testing to exonerate her husband. The 
case is currently postponed until new calculations are received for the mixed 
DNA found at the scene.

After the scheduled speakers answered questions, Vivian Tuttle of Ewing asked 
to share her story.

Tuttle is the mother of Evonne Tuttle, who was killed in a 2002 botched bank 
robbery in Norfolk. Evonne went to cash a $64 check and was 1 of 5 people 
killed within 40 seconds.

4 suspects were convicted in the case. 3 were given death sentences and the 
last was given 5 life sentences.

Tuttle believes she won't be able to have peace until her daughter's killers 
are executed.

She was appalled when senators voted to repeal the death penalty, despite her 
efforts to convince senators to keep the punishment.

Afterward, she helped gather signatures for the petition that eventually added 
the death penalty to the November ballot.

Now, she travels across the state talking to people to convince them to vote 
for repealing the abolishment of the death penalty.

"This is my journey to talk to people and tell people my story," she said.

(source: The Hastings Tribune)






CALIFORNIA:

Man could face death penalty for alleged fatal beating, sexual assault of 
toddler


A 28-year-old man pleaded not guilty in San Mateo County Superior Court this 
week to sexually abusing and murdering his girlfriend's young daughter.

Daniel Contreras of Redwood City could face the death penalty if convicted of 
murder and felony child abuse, among other charges, for the death of the 
17-month-old girl, District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said, who noted the case 
is particularly gruesome.

"It's a shocking set of facts," Wagstaffe said Wednesday of Contreras' alleged 
crimes.

On Aug. 6, 2015, Contreras' girlfriend of 2 months reportedly left her daughter 
in the care of Contreras for the 1st time. Over the course of several hours, 
Contreras repeatedly sexually molested the young girl, prosecutors said.

When the girl wouldn't stop crying, Contreras allegedly beat her to death, then 
called his mother and aunt, lying by saying the girl had fallen off a changing 
table, according to prosecutors.

She was dead by the time police arrived at the apartment in the 400 block of 
Madison Avenue at about 2:30 p.m.

Contreras repeated his story to authorities, but he was arrested 2 days later 
when the investigation revealed that the girl had been beaten to death, 
prosecutors said.

Contreras pleaded not guilty at his superior court arraignment Tuesday, and a 
pretrial conference was scheduled for Dec. 12. He had also pleaded not guilty 
at his initial arraignment last year.

Contreras remains in custody without bail. Wagstaffe said Wednesday he has not 
yet determined whether to seek the death penalty for Contreras.

(source: San Francisco Examiner)

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

California's broken death penalty system can be fixed


In 1978, California enacted today's California death penalty statute, the 
so-called Briggs Initiative. Now, Ron Briggs supports repealing the statute his 
"family wrote," but his argument reads more like a surrender to death penalty 
abolitionists ("Death penalty is destructive to California"; Forum, July 10).

Instead of waving a white flag, Briggs should endorse Proposition 66, the Death 
Penalty Reform and Savings Act of 2016, as a worthy successor to his family's 
work. This initiative deals with the concerns Briggs raises about California's 
death penalty system.

The reason that no executions have occurred in California for 10 years is the 
state's delay in drafting regulations for a method of execution. Otherwise, 
there could have been at least 15 sentences carried out during the past decade. 
It's outrageous that victims??? families were forced to sue the state to draft 
these regulations. Proposition 66 will prevent biased and unsympathetic 
politicians and government bureaucrats from interfering with this process.

Proposition 66 also addresses concerns about how death row inmates occupy their 
time, requiring them to work or lose their privileges. If they owe restitution, 
it will come out of their wages.

The proposal makes other significant reforms as well. It addresses the backlog 
of cases at the state level by expanding the pool of qualified counsel for 
death row inmates. The initiative expedites review of prisoners' complaints by 
returning their cases to the original trial court and prompts the Judicial 
Council to develop standards for the completion of appeals in state court in 5 
years. Victims' families will have the right to sue to force them to meet 
deadlines.

Briggs believes abolition will benefit victims' survivors by closing cases and 
sparing them further "wounds." That is offensive and presumptuous. In our 
experience, most survivors want "justice" for the murderers of their family 
members. Repealing the death penalty will not heal these peoples' wounds; it 
keeps them permanently open.

Briggs naively touts life without parole as a sufficient alternative to the 
death penalty. He forgets that the last murderer executed in California, 
Clarence Ray Allen, was sentenced to death for the murder of 3 people, which he 
planned while already serving a life sentence for murder. Life imprisonment was 
not enough to protect the public from Allen.

Moreover, victims' families will always be haunted by the specter that an 
inmate sentenced to life without parole will suddenly ask the governor to 
reduce a sentence - as happened recently in the case of a Fresno murderer who 
waited 36 years and applied for clemency. As long as an inmate sentenced to 
life without parole lives, the governor could reduce the sentence and a 
murderer may be released on the streets.

Finally, Briggs is dead wrong to assert that the death penalty has been 
conclusively shown not to deter crime. Experience and common sense confirm a 
deterrent effect.

Briggs risks lives on the unproven idea that the death penalty does not deter 
murder and that life sentences will protect public safety. Rather than 
capitulating to abolitionist arguments, he should support his families' legacy 
and endorse Proposition 66.

(source: Opinion; Anne Marie Schubert is the Sacramento County district 
attorney---- Sacramento Bee)






US MILITARY:

New question burdens 9/11 trial: Can death-penalty case proceed without capital 
defender?


War court prosecutors argued for the first time Wednesday that a 9/11 defendant 
could fire his death-penalty defender and go forward with the capital case with 
only a military attorney representing him.

Army Col. James L. Pohl, the judge, appeared to sidestep the question and ruled 
instead that alleged Sept. 11 plot deputy Walid Bin Attash didn't have good 
cause to fire his seasoned criminal defense lawyer, Cheryl Bormann. The 2 
haven't spoken since February.

Marine Brig. Gen. John Baker is chief of the Military Commissions Defense 
Office.

Moreover, Pohl gave Bin Attash a stark choice and a night to sleep on it before 
returning to court Thursday: Keep your 4-lawyer Pentagon-paid defense team or 
elect to represent yourself.

So-called pro-se representation is not certain. If Bin Attash tries to invoke 
the option, Pohl has a 21-page script ready that cautions there are 
"difficulties and dangers of self-representation." The judge would use it to 
question the youngest of the 5 alleged Sept. 11 plotters on whether he is 
competent to serve as his own attorney in a national security setting where an 
accused terrorist cannot see all the evidence against him.

Bin Attash's unhappiness with his attorneys has been, as Pohl put it, 
"festering" for months.

In October, Bin Attash asked how self-representation would work, a question 
that paralyzed the court for a week while the script was written and 
translated. He asked to fire Bormann, a Chicago death penalty defender who dons 
a severe black abaya in court in deference to her client's Muslim 
sensibilities. Pohl met alone with the alleged terrorist and his lawyers, and 
denied the request.

Now Bin Attash also wants to fire another civilian on his team, former Air 
Force Maj. Michael Schwartz. He's been on the case for 4 years. Last year, he 
resigned his commission to stay on it.

In an unusual move, the general in charge of providing resources to the defense 
teams, Marine Brig. Gen. John Baker, filed an amicus brief that argued a 
defendant cannot fire an individual lawyer if Baker decides it's not in the 
captive's best interest. Baker, who represents no detainee but has been meeting 
with Bin Attash, told the judge in court that there was no good cause to get 
rid of any of the 4 lawyers defending Bin Attash.

Both Schwartz and Bormann have been at every hearing since the case's May 5, 
2012 arraignment, which stretched across 13 hours in part because Bin Attash 
refused to waive the reading of the 88-page charge sheet.

Civilian defense attorney Edwin Perry and Army Maj. Matthew Seeger joined about 
a year ago. Wednesday, all 4 sat at the rear of the court, banished by Bin 
Attash from his defense table.

Baker said Bin Attash has 2 choices: "Go either pro se or elect to be 
represented by counsel."

Prosecutor Ed Ryan argued Pohl had a third option: Let Bin Attash fire everyone 
on his team except his lone military defense counsel, Seeger.

Ryan said Bin Attash can waive certain counsel, including the statutorily 
mandated learned counsel, if the judge questions him and concludes that he does 
understand the ramifications. If he can't pick and choose, Ryan said, a 
defendant "can be coerced into representing himself."

"The prosecution do not care who his lawyers are," said Ryan. "But it is 
incorrect and improper to say he has no vote on who his lawyers are."

Bin Attash sits directly behind alleged mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the 
No. 2 position in court among the the 5 men accused of orchestrating, financing 
and training the men who hijacked four aircraft and killed nearly 3,000 people 
at the World Trade Center, Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, 2001. 
They could face military execution if they are convicted.

The judge has set no trial date.

(source: Miami Herald)