[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----LA., ARK., MO., UTAH, NEV., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

June 16



LOUISIANA:

'Dangerously hot': Death row inmates still face health problems from heat years 
after order to cool it down


The state has done "little if anything" to keep the sweltering heat on 
Louisiana's death row below 88 degrees, a Baton Rouge federal judge said 
Wednesday while warning he won't shy away from making a "tough and unpopular" 
decision to protect the health and safety of 3 ailing condemned killers.

It's been 2 1/2 years since Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson ruled the 
state is violating the 3 Louisiana State Penitentiary inmates' constitutional 
right against cruel and unusual punishment and ordered state corrections 
officials to maintain heat indexes on death row at or below 88 degrees.

At a hearing he called Wednesday to determine whether the state's 2nd heat 
remediation plan adequately protects the prisoners from Louisiana's searing 
summer heat and humidity, Jackson said the plan's measures - once-daily cold 
showers, chests filled with ice, an extra ice machine and additional fans - 
have failed to halt heat indexes from topping the 88-degree mark.

Jackson said he won't "sit idly by" while Elzie Ball, Nathaniel Code and James 
Magee continue to suffer, noting that 14 inmates have died in neighboring Texas 
from the heat since 2007.

"Nobody wants that here in Louisiana. That's what this case is about," the 
judge said.

Jackson will rule sometime after both sides file post-hearing briefs, which are 
due July 11.

The state's initial court-ordered heat remediation plan included air 
conditioning, but the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled 
last summer that while the 3 inmates deserve some relief, they aren't entitled 
to air-conditioned quarters.

James Hilburn, an attorney for state corrections officials, argued at 
Wednesday's hearing that the appellate court did not order the 88-degree 
threshold, but an agitated Jackson added the appeals court didn???t undo it 
either.

"It's been proven with scientific certainty that (88-plus degrees) is a hazard 
to their health," the judge said. "I've already ruled. 88 degrees is the 
standard."

Jackson added that just because a remedy is "costly or inconvenient" doesn't 
trump the Constitution.

Nilay Vora, 1 of the inmates' attorneys, asked Jackson to order implementation 
of the state's 1st heat remediation plan. Vora said death row without air 
conditioning exposes Ball, Code and Magee to "serious risk of substantial 
harm."

Hilburn defended the state's latest plan, saying, "This was not a flippant 
plan."

Jackson, who did not rule out ordering "mechanical air" for the inmates, warned 
he could sanction the state if it doesn't remedy the constitutional violations 
that he and the 5th Circuit found - that the high heat indexes violate the 3 
inmates' Eighth Amendment guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment.

"A court can't simply sit on its hands and allow a constitutional violation to 
persist," he said.

Ball, Code and Magee - shackled and dressed in bright orange prison garb - 
testified in the cool confines of Jackson's courtroom and said they continue to 
suffer from dizziness, nausea, headaches and profuse sweating due to the 
unrelenting heat in their cells.

"It ain't got as hot as it's going to get," Ball noted.

Summer doesn't officially begin until Monday.

"It's too hot" on Louisiana's death row, testified Dr. Susi Vassallo, of Texas. 
"It's dangerously hot."

Vassallo, a medical doctor who specializes in heat-related illnesses, said the 
components of the state's 2nd heat remediation plan, either considered 
individually or collectively, do not reduce the substantial risk of serious 
harm to the 3 inmates. She described the plan's components as comfort rather 
than safety when dealing with heat indexes exceeding 88 degrees.

"If we set the bar at death, that is too high," she said.

Colin Clark, an assistant state attorney general, said in court that the 
Louisiana Department of Corrections has not had a single heatstroke incident in 
the last 9 years.

The 5th Circuit last year suggested the state could open the doors to the 
air-conditioned guard pods and divert cool air into the death-row tiers, but 
Jimmy Cruze, the death row warden, testified Wednesday the appeals court's 
suggestion was rejected by the state because it poses a security risk.

"It's a bad security move," he said. "We don't leave doors open."

Mechanical engineer Frank Thompson, who designed death row, testified the 
death-row core is air-conditioned but the death-row tiers are equipped only 
with cross ventilation and a central heating system. Death row, he said, meets 
commercial building standards.

Air conditioning is the only plausible way to stop heat indexes from surpassing 
88 degrees, Thompson added.

Ball is on death row for fatally shooting a beer delivery man during the 1996 
armed robbery of a Gretna lounge.

Magee was condemned to die for the 2007 shotgun murders of his estranged wife 
and their 5-year-old son in a subdivision near Mandeville.

Code received the death penalty for the 1985 murders of 4 people at a house in 
Shreveport.

(source: The Advocate)






ARKANSAS:

Man sentenced to death in Sharp County's 1st death penalty case may get new 
sentence


The Arkansas Supreme Court overturned the death penalty sentence for Steven 
Victor Wertz June 9 on a technicality regarding jury forms. Wertz was finally 
convicted in Sharp County's 1st death penalty case in 2007 for the 1986 shotgun 
and throat slash slayings of Terry and Kathy Watts of Ash Flat as they slept. 
Terry's 11 month old son Joshua was unharmed as he slept between his father's 
legs.

Wertz was free for 20 years before being brought to justice and tried and 
convicted of the killings and sentenced to death by lethal injection by a Sharp 
County jury.

After 9 years behind bars on Arkansas death row, June 9, the Arkansas Supreme 
Court reversed what took investigators 20 years to solve and jurors 2 weeks to 
hear and less than 2 hours to produce a unanimous guilty finding to the capital 
murder charges and death penalty. Wertz could get a new sentence in the 
horrific shotgun murders.

Although Wertz was always the primary suspect in the crimes, because the motive 
for the slayings was determined early on to be a result of the loss of a child 
custody case between Belinda Wertz, who was married to Wertz at the time and 
was Terry Watts' ex-wife. The Wertz's were due to return the female child to 
Terry. In 1987, officials with the Sharp County Sheriff's Department traveled 
to Oklahoma, where Wertz and his wife Belinda were living, but Wertz's alibi 
seemed to check out. The case then went cold.

It was not until the Spring of 2002, under Sharp County Sheriff Dale Weaver, 
investigator David Huffmaster essentially reopened the case in 2001, and over 
the next few years and began conducting interviews with people who had been 
previously interviewed. Belinda, who by that time was divorced from Wertz and 
had married James Guthrie Burr Snyder Jr. of Georgetown, Ken. Snyder was the 
1st person to give viable evidence that would lead to Wertz's arrest. Snyder, 
who was a friend of the family at the time of the murders was the person who 
helped collaborate Wertz's original alibi in 1987, and would later be charged 
as an accomplice to the crimes.

Wertz was arrested and charged with 2 counts of capital murder in April, 2006.

Wertz exhausted 3 Rule 37 hearings, all before Circuit Judge Harold Erwin in 
Oct. 2008, Aug. 2010 and finally, in April, 2012 when Erwin held to the 
original findings, not granting Wertz a new trial on the grounds of ineffective 
council. The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed his convictions on direct appeal.

Wertz, argued the state did not raise the question when only a single set of 
penalty phase verdict forms were submitted following his conviction on 2 
charges.

According to Arkansas Code 5-4-603, requires any jury deliberating a possible 
death penalty sentence to complete 3 forms in addition to the verdict form. The 
first requires the jury to determine whether any statutory aggravating factors 
exist beyond a reasonable doubt. The 2nd form requires jury findings in regard 
to any mitigating factors and the final form requires the jury to determine 
whether any existing aggravating circumstances outweigh any existing mitigating 
circumstances and whether the aggravating circumstances justify a death 
sentence.

In Wertz's case after the sentence was handed down, the jury was only given a 
single set of forms listing the aggravating factors as the commission of the 
capital murder knowingly created a risk to a person other than the victim and 
the purpose of the murders was to prevent an arrest or effect an escape from 
custody. The 2nd form listed no mitigating circumstances. On the final form, 
the jury determined there were aggravating circumstances beyond a reasonable 
doubt outweighed any mitigating circumstances and that the aggravating 
circumstances warranted the death sentence. The verdict form gave all jurors 
the option to select either life in prison, or the death penalty, and the jury 
unanimously voted to hand down the death sentence.

Wertz argues the combining of the penalty phase forms violated the Sixth and 
Fourteenth Amendments by sentencing him to death without unanimously finding 
beyond a reasonable doubt each fact necessary to impose the death penalty. The 
Supreme Court found no merit in the claim.

They however agreed with his 2nd claim, a single set of penalty-phase verdict 
forms on the 2 counts of capital murder constituted a defect or breakdown in 
the appellate process.

The court stated the single submission "makes it impossible to determine 
whether the jury applied the aggravated to Terry's murder, Kathy's murder or 
both murders." The court said the single set of forms was an error that impacts 
the validity of the death sentence. The Supreme Court's Citation states there 
were no objection made to the verdict forms during the trial.

The final ruling in Wertz Motion to Recall Direct Appeal Mandate states, "The 
motion to recall the mandate is granted, the sentence of death is reversed, and 
the matter is remanded for re-sentencing on both capital murder convictions." 3 
judges dissented with that motion.

Justice Paul E. Danielson said "My review of our cases addressing capital 
murder convictions under Section 41-1501(1) (c) reveals that a person charged 
under that statute with causing 2 or more deaths was historically charged with, 
tried for, and convicted of only one count.." He said it is unclear that Wertz 
was actually convicted on both counts. The courts judgement and commitment 
order lists the total counts as 2, but only 1 offense, capital murder, is 
listed below the line. He went on to say, "I would order supplemental briefing 
from the parties on the issue of whether a double-jeopardy violation occurred."

(source: AreaWideNews.com)






MISSOURI:

Sheley wants death penalty off the table


An Illinois man already serving 6 life sentences for murder in that state tried 
to avoid the possibility of getting the death penalty in Missouri today.

Nicholas Sheley killed 6 people during a 2 week spree in Illinois in 2008. He 
is now facing murder charges in connection with the killings of Jill and Tom 
Estes of Sherwood, Arkansas.

Police say the couple was attacked outside a Festus, Missouri hotel after 
leaving a graduation party.

On Tuesday a Jefferson County judge heard 19 motions from Sheley's defense 
attorney, including one that would have declared the death penalty 
unconstitutional.

The judge denied the motion, meaning that if Sheley is found guilty of the 
Estes' murders he could be put to death.

Sheley's next court appearance is in September.

(source: ourquadcities.com)






UTAH:

Death penalty debate on again in Utah Capitol


A debate over whether Utah should abolish the death penalty was renewed at the 
State Capitol on Wednesday, as lawmakers began an interim study focused on the 
costs of its use and the length of time between conviction and execution.

Those issues were front and center earlier this year, when lawmakers came close 
to passing a ban on capital punishment during the 2016 legislative session that 
ended in March.

Then and at Wednesday's Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Interim Committee 
hearing there was plenty of disagreement and questions about the facts: Do 
death penalty cases cost more, or don't they? Would the state save money or pay 
more if the practice ends? And what are the reasons that these cases take - on 
average - 21 years to move from conviction to execution.

A 2012 study by state fiscal analysts found that from trial to execution, Utah 
spends about $1.6 million more on each death row inmate than on those sentenced 
to life without the possibility of parole.

"I'm not sure we should be doing justice based on cost. We should be doing 
justice based on justice," said Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clinton, who challenged the 
numbers. "We're not going to throw out the death penalty to save money."

Analyst Gary Syphus told lawmakers the figure reflects only "direct and 
measurable" costs, but doesn't consider more specific information, such as 
medical care for geriatric inmates or ongoing legal expenses for inmates 
serving life sentences without parole.

The causes of delays seem more clear, according to Assistant Utah Attorney 
General Andrew Peterson, who said many are tied to the filing of abusive and 
repetitive claims by inmates and the snail-like pace of the U.S. District 
Court.

"The federal district court is where most of these cases linger," he said. It's 
unlikely Utah lawmakers could do anything to speed up the process, said 
Peterson, the state's capital case coordinator.

State appeals processes have improved since 2009, Peterson said, after 
legislators passed a law to better define what types of claims can be raised 
and the judiciary enacted new rules for post-conviction.

? But defense attorney Richard Mauro, who represented defendants in 15 capital 
murder cases and is a member of the state's sentencing commission, told 
lawmakers he believes the state would see significant savings in a death 
penalty-free system.

Those reductions could include less spent on mitigation and investigative work, 
a reduced need for expert witnesses and savings in the courts, such as shorter 
trials and fewer overtime hours for court personnel and bailiffs.

Cases resulting in life-without-parole sentences see fewer, if any appeals, 
Mauro said. That's because most are negotiated plea deals that are conditioned 
on giving up the right to appeal.

Mauro said he shares the frustration of lawmakers and others that capital cases 
take so long, but he said defense attorneys are ethically bound to follow every 
thread of a case.

Of the 9 men on Utah's death row, 2 were originally convicted as long ago as 
1985. All but 1 of the rest were convicted before 1999, although 1 case was 
retired last year but resulted in a 2nd capital murder conviction.

All 9 have active, ongoing appeals underway.

Utah last carried out the death penalty in June 2010, when Ronnie Lee Gardner 
was executed by firing squad, drawing international attention to the state.

Data from the Utah State Courts, however, shows prosecutors from Logan to St. 
George are rarely pushing for capital convictions, even as they file the 
1st-degree felony-level aggravated crimes that could include such punishments.

Since 2010, prosecutors have filed aggravated murder charges 58 times.

(source: Salt Lake Tribune)






NEVADA:

DA seeking death penalty in Vegas liquor store clerk killing


Prosecutors in Las Vegas will seek the death penalty against 2 of 3 men charged 
with killing a liquor store clerk who police said couldn't open a store safe 
during a robbery.

Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said Wednesday he's seeking 
capital punishment for 22-year-old Ray Charles Brown and 21-year-old Lee 
Dominic Sykes in the April 18 robbery-slaying of Matthew Christensen.

He says prosecutors won't seek the death penalty for another co-defendant, 
Sykes' 22-year-old brother Lee Murry Sykes.

A judge is expected on July 5 to set a trial date in the case.

Parts of the Lee's Discount Liquor store robbery were captured on security 
video, including images of the 24-year-old Christiansen surrendering with his 
hands raised before he was shot.

Wolfson has characterized the killing as an execution.

(source: Associated Press)






CALIFORNIA:

A Speedier Death: The Battle Over California's Death Penalty


At the stroke of 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday, February 20, 2006, Michael Morales was 
scheduled to die.

After 23 years on California's death row, following his conviction and 
subsequent death sentence for the 1981 rape and murder of 17-year-old Terri 
Winchell, Morales' stay in San Quentin State Prison would end like this: 
Wearing brand new prison denims and an incontinence pad, he would walk into a 
lime-green room with a person-shaped gurney in it. He would climb onto the 
gurney and lie down. After his arms and legs were secured with straps, a needle 
would be stuck into a vein in his arm, where he would receive an injection that 
would shut down his lungs and stop his heart in the name of the People of the 
State of California.

The U.S. Supreme Court had turned down his appeals, and Gov. Arnold 
Schwarzenegger had turned his back on his pleas for clemency. Morales phoned 
his family, ate his last meal - 2 pork chops, a B.L.T., a chocolate milkshake, 
and strawberry shortcake for dessert - and waited for the time to die.But 2 
hours before midnight, 2 court-appointed anesthesiologists, there to oversee 
the procedure and ensure Morales did not wake up or suffer extreme pain during 
the fatal dosing - 2 things that a study in the medical journal The Lancet 
concluded are likely to happen when using the state's 3-drug lethal injection 
"cocktail" - suddenly refused to participate.

California had executed 13 men since 1978, when the state reinstituted capital 
punishment (although it took until 1992 for the first execution to take place, 
after the condemned's lengthy legal remedies had been exhausted). Morales would 
be the 14th - and there were more than 750 on death row waiting behind him.

"Everybody's upset," Winchell's brother, at San Quentin to witness the 
execution, told the Chronicle upon hearing about the delay. "I guess they're 
just going to have to pump him full of poison one way or the other."

The state tried to counter the anesthesiologists' collective conscience with a 
proposal for a single drug injection - a massive dose of sodium pentothal, 
something that had never been tried before - but a subsequent court order said 
that, instead of prison officials, the drug would have to be administered by a 
licensed medical professional, in the same room as Morales, as opposed to 
feeding a tube running from an adjacent room, and wearing "appropriate clothing 
to protect their anonymity."

California rejected that proposal, and meanwhile, the clock went into the next 
day, negating the death warrant.

Morales went back to his cell on death row, where he remains today.

In 2010, the prison unveiled a new lethal injection chamber, with 5 times the 
space and 2 more viewing rooms - now smartly separating victim's family, 
inmate's family, and the press - than the one where Morales was supposed to 
make his exit. The state-of-the-art facility cost taxpayers $850,000, but so 
far, it's never been used.

Whether it stays that way or becomes suddenly very busy in 5 years is up to 
voters.

The messenger is conspicuous - not because of his message, but because of where 
he delivers it.

He's a clean-cut white dude of indiscernible middle age wearing a gray hoodie, 
and he's wielding a clipboard like a landing beacon, guiding those outside the 
sliding glass doors of Berkeley Bowl toward his petition. He advertises it as 
reform of the death penalty, a fix for a broken system, a way to save taxpayers 
millions of dollars.

It's a potent argument, as shown by the number of scrawled signatures he's 
collected. If he and hundreds like him at grocery stores, Starbucks, and bus 
stops around the state get enough of them, the initiative will make it on the 
upcoming November ballot, its fate left for California voters to decide.

What's odd, however, is that he's collecting signatures here, in this bastion 
of liberalism within a generalized progressive region. If he were down in 
Riverside County, where 44 death penalty convictions have been handed down over 
the past decade, okay. But he's in Alameda County, where only 7 people have 
been sentenced to die over that same period. (Across the bay in San Francisco, 
only 2 people have been sentenced to death in the last 40 years, the latter 
back in 1991.)

This initiative - known officially as the Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act 
of 2016 - will fix the system not by ending the death penalty, but by allowing 
the state to execute more prisoners more quickly by removing legal safeguards.

While you can trace the origins of California's use of capital punishment to 
the posses that roamed the West or to the gallows at turn-of-the-century San 
Quentin, the fight over the death penalty is really a judicial struggle, so the 
story begins in 1972.

That April, the California Supreme Court ruled that the state's death penalty 
procedure - at the time, a mixture of electrocution, gas inhalation, and even a 
few lingering hangings - was unconstitutional. But a few months later, voters 
erased that verdict, passing Proposition 17 with 67.5 % of the vote to reverse 
the decision.

Killing prisoners proved popular with the people.

Since the repeal 44 years ago, 13 people have been executed by the state - the 
most recent being 76-year-old Clarence Ray Allen, who was given the shot a few 
months after the most prominent, original gangster Crip-turned-motivational 
speaker and author, Tookie Williams, was executed in December 2005 - while 68 
death row prisoners have died of natural causes. That is, if you are sentenced 
to death, it has become much more likely you'll die in prison before ever 
seeing the execution chamber.

The system had become satire. If the wheels of justice turn slowly, the gears 
of the death penalty rusted solid.

Fast-forward to summer 2008. As the junior senator from Illinois galvanized the 
country around hope and change, a bipartisan committee in California concluded 
four years of investigating the state's death penalty process.

The verdict: one giant shitshow.

"California's death-penalty system is dysfunctional," the intro of the 
California Commission of the Fair Administration of Justice's report states. 
The largest issue was the decades passing between the sentencing to death and 
the actual execution.

"[T]o keep cases moving at this snail's pace, we spend large amounts of 
taxpayers' money each year," the members wrote, coalescing their frustration 
into a number. "By conservative estimates, [we spend] well over one hundred 
million dollars annually."

With those nine figures, the tone of the death penalty fight changed. No longer 
was it centered on Hammurabian concepts of justice, revenge, and an ultimate 
deterrent to protect honest citizens from rampant lawlessness.

It became a more calculating and logical debate, based on the question of 
whether the value derived from throwing the switch - or, in California's case, 
putting the needle in the arm - is worth the exorbitant cost.

That shift got repeal advocates thinking they could finally overturn Prop. 17, 
so they tried.

In 2012, a coalition including L.A's mayor and D.A., the ACLU, the California 
Nurses Association, and Hyatt CEO Nicholas Pritzker introduced Proposition 34, 
which would have commuted the state's death sentences - at the time, 725 - into 
lifetime prison terms, without the possibility of parole.

Less-publicized portions of this effort included additional restitution for 
victims' families and earmarking $100 million for use in homicide and rape 
investigations, showing the role that money had in this new debate. The prop 
failed, but not by a lot: The gap was 52 % to 48, a difference of 500,000 votes 
in a state of 38 million.

The argument - repeal the death penalty, save California money - had legs 4 
years ago.

But this year, the pro-death penalty side is also playing the savings game.

"If we fix the appeals process, that could save tens of millions of dollars," 
says Mike Ramos, the San Bernardino County District Attorney and a leading 
proponent of the Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act. (He has also announced 
his intent to run for California attorney general in 2018, and if successful in 
speeding up executions, could become a conservative standard-bearer.)

The "fix" is in carving away the waste in the process, bit by bit.

One reasonable-sounding argument shifts death row prisoners from San Quentin 
back into "regular state prisons." They will no longer be housed alone - Scott 
Peterson, convicted in a sensational trial of murdering his wife and unborn 
child, would get a cell mate - allowing for fewer correctional officers and, 
thus, cutting costs.

Another puts prisoners "to work" earning money to pay victim restitution, doing 
basic manufacturing gigs under surely heavy security, but the initiative 
doesn't specify beyond saying that prisoners who fail to do so will result "in 
the loss of special privileges," things like phone privileges, time to mingle 
outdoors, or control over the TV remote.

The most straightforward cost-cutting measure is the boldest. It states that 
"[w]ithin five years ... the state courts shall complete the state appeal and 
the initial state habeas corpus review in capital cases."

This means that, once the gavel drops after a death penalty conviction, a timer 
will start ticking. When it dings in 5 years, that prisoner is out of appeals.

While that might sound sensible, experts say it's probably not constitutional.

"To dictate that to the courts takes away their constitutional authority," says 
Elisabeth Semel, founding director of the Berkeley Law Death Penalty Clinic. 
"It's a violation of the separation of powers."

Apart from the arcane arguments over which branch of government does what, 
there's also an issue of simple math. There are currently roughly 300 death 
penalty appeals, each of them essentially in a holding pattern, waiting for an 
oral argument before a judge.

Over the last 5 years, the California Supreme Court has ruled on about 24 death 
penalty cases a year. So, even if the court put every other type of case on 
hold, it would take more than 10 years to get the backlog down to zero. This is 
a non-starter, logistically speaking.

Plus, that length of time - and the fact there isn't a clock ticking down on 
how long the appeal process of the initiative can last - is a feature, not a 
bug. Last year, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard a case, Jones v. 
Davis, that argued the dramatic stretch of time between ruling and execution 
violates the Eighth Amendment's "cruel and unusual punishment" clause.

A lower federal court had decided that locking a human in stir for decades, 
waiting for the legal process to exhaust itself before killing him, was indeed 
cruel and unusual and put a hold on all California executions.

The Ninth Circuit disagreed - in its ruling, the word "dysfunction" appears f5 
times - and revved the machine back up.

"Delay, in large part," they wrote, "is a function of the desire of our courts, 
state and federal, to get it right, to explore exhaustively, or at least 
sufficiently, any argument that might save someone's life." In other words, 
these cases should be lengthy.

But let's close our eyes and picture a world where the court abides by this 
(impossible) deadline. It's time for the next hurdle, the "5 years or more," on 
average, that the condemned have to wait for (almost always court-appointed) 
lawyers to represent them.

As Ramos points out, "Can you imagine sitting on death row, and you don't even 
have an attorney for 5 years?" (Spoiler: The 743 people the People of the State 
of California plan to kill can.)

So out of the goodness of their hearts, the death penalty reformers "solve" 
this by forcing judges to appoint attorneys immediately upon sentencing.

"This is a magical part of the proposal," Semel says. "Where are these lawyers 
going to come from?"

The initiative furnishes a solution for that, too, by expanding the pool of 
attorneys available to argue death penalty cases, so that legal "[e]xperience 
requirements shall not be limited to defense experience."

In other words, give us whoever ya got.

"We have some very competent attorneys out there," Ramos says. "There are more 
than enough component attorneys that can handle these cases."

While it seems there are more California lawyers than palm trees, there are 
fewer "competent" lawyers - in terms of death penalty law, at least - than 
there are Kardashians.

"Stripping qualifications runs smack into the requirement that you have the 
right to not just a lawyer, but a competent lawyer," Semel says.

Know a real estate or personal injury lawyer? Now picture them arguing a death 
penalty case and you may begin to see the issue with expanding the pool. (Not 
to mention the cost from the inevitable appeals that'll come out of those 
botched defenses will only throw more cases onto the docket, which is not 
exactly a path to savings.)

Even if an army of qualified lawyers landed on California's beaches, hankering 
for some sweet death penalty work, it still wouldn't necessarily speed up the 
process, because another piece of business that needs resolution is how we 
execute.

Because, right now, the state has no legal way to do it.

The main reason that Michael Morales' execution was kiboshed in 2006 was that 
two court-appointed anesthesiologists - there to oversee the procedure and 
ensure Morales did not wake up or suffer extreme pain during the fatal dosing - 
refused to participate, citing ethical reasons. No other medical professional 
would step in, for the same reason.

With nobody to oversee an execution as mandated by the courts, no one's been 
executed in the state since.

California's lethal injection cocktail consisted of sodium thiopental, a 
quick-acting general anesthetic known as "truth serum" that knocks people out 
in spy flicks; pancuronium bromide, a muscle relaxant that stops respiratory 
muscles; and potassium chloride, which stops the heart.

Everything is supposed to happen quickly and relatively painlessly, but 
witnesses have described executions as ghastly scenes, full of gagging, 
thrashing, and screams from the dying that their bodies are on fire.

Hence, bids to tweak the cocktail. But every proposed change falls under the 
jurisdiction of the federal Administrative Procedure Act, which forces the 
proposal to a public hearing where anyone can comment.

But - here's the catch - if every comment logged during the hearing isn't 
responded to, the protocol change automatically fails.

"It's a tool to block the use of a single-drug protocol," Ramos says. "The last 
time this came up, there were over 7,000 comments, from a majority of people 
who don't even live in California, a lot from the ACLU. We missed seven 
responses and that terminated the hearing."

Part of the initiative will "solve" this by allowing "[n]o licensing board, 
department, commission, or accreditation agency" to oversee the executions.

The counter to this idea is the fact that between 1982 and 2010, the error rate 
for lethal injections in America was 7.1 %. That is, 7 of 100 lethal injection 
executions went wrong. And they do: Raymond Landry's 1988 execution was 
preceded by a syringe popping out and spraying the cocktail at the witnesses. 
Medics in 2009 gave up trying to find suitable veins in Romell Broom after 2 
excruciating hours, and he remains on death row today. Maybe changes to these 
drug protocols should be overseen.

"Unmasking the process allows us to see why injections go wrong," Semel says. 
"Which drugs were used, are the personnel carrying out the executions 
qualified, are the drugs expired? That [kind of] secrecy allows governments to 
hide their mistakes and missteps."

But the current proposal's biggest deception may be that, even if it can do 
what it says - which, thanks to the courts, and thanks to the legal system, it 
can't - it still won't save the state money.

None of the improvements - the additional lawyers taking on these cases, the 
bailiffs, and court reporters burning the midnight oil to plow through a 
decade's worth of appeals - are free.

"The irony is that it will not save a penny, but cost tens, if not hundreds, of 
millions of dollars," Semel says."The changes cannot be made without the 
infusion of enormous sums of money."

"That's a legitimate argument," Ramos admits. "[The costs] may increase several 
millions of dollars at the beginning when you hire more attorneys. But you're 
going to save tens of millions of dollars."

There's still a dissonance. Combing through the initiative's 16 pages is like 
looking through the first draft of an undergraduate paper. The wording is 
vague, unfocused, and feels tossed off. Yet money from a coalition of district 
attorneys, law enforcement, and victims' families is being spent to gather 
enough signatures so this rushes onto the ballot.

Why the race to put California back in the death business?

"When I read how muddled it was, how impossible some of its key features are, 
it's anyone's guess why they're doing it," says Paula Mitchell, executive 
director of the Project for the Innocent at Loyola Law School. "Other than to 
defeat the repeal measure."

About that repeal measure. It's called the Justice That Works Act of 2016, and 
if passed, it, too, would end the death penalty in California.

Once again, the repeal argument leaves the heartstrings alone and instead tugs 
on wallets. It solves the "dysfunctional" death penalty system with 2 quick 
fixes: Raise the percentage of prison wages that can be garnished toward victim 
restitution from 50 to 60 %, and commute death penalty sentences to life 
without parole. And it, too, claims to save taxpayers an estimated $150 million 
a year.

Although Prop. 34, the last attempt to end the death penalty, was defeated in 
2012, anti-death penalty advocates feel good about their shot this year. A 
recent Field Poll shows support for repeal rising from 40 %, in September of 
2014, to 47 % earlier this year. Meanwhile, those who want to "speed up the 
execution process" dropped from 52 % to 48 % in the same time frame. That 
shift, along with a presidential election bringing in more voters, was enough 
to get the repeal coalition Taxpayers for Sentencing Reform to throw its 
initiative into the ring.

And this points to why Reform and Savings is fighting to get on the ballot 
alongside the repealers.

"It's a political chess game between two factions," says Peter Keane, dean 
emeritus at Golden Gate University Law School. "What [Reform and Savings] is 
mainly looking for is to get more votes than the anti-death penalty 
initiative."

Since both appear headed to the ballot - each snagged the requisite signatures, 
Justice That Works gathering 8,000 more - it means that if both receive 50 % 
"yes" votes, then the fight goes mano a mano. Whichever gets more votes, wins.

The trick to winning that strategy is changing the argument from the death 
penalty being about emotions to one that's about finances.

If both sides are offering the concept of savings - the bold print of Reform 
and Savings promises "tens of millions of dollars" while Justice That Works 
says "$150 million annually" - and not enough people read the fine print, then 
those persuaded by that will vote "yes" on both proposals.

What the Reform and Savings folks need, then, is for a revenge-seeker voting 
bloc to turn out and put them slightly over the edge.

November's voting booth may also be the scene of the other potential strategy, 
wherein voters pull the curtain behind them, plow through the front of the 
ballot, and blow a fuse at the Proposition section.

If there are two measures that seem to be about the same thing, voters will 
vote "no" on both, better safe than sorry.

"It would change the dynamic considerably if there were 2 competing measures on 
the ballot," says Quentin Mecke, the former San Francisco politico now serving 
as spokesperson for Justice That Works.

In this strategy, the role of Reform and Savings is to play defense by dragging 
both proposals down below 50 percent, keeping everything status quo until the 
next inevitable fight over the death penalty in 2020.

When I ask Ramos if either of these is the actual reason for trying to get on 
this year's ballot, he denies it, saying the proposal has been in the works 
since 2012. (Technically, Reform and Savings was submitted to the Secretary of 
State 1 month after Justice That Works, a hastiness that perhaps accounts for 
the sloppy copy.)

"We won [the battle over Prop. 34 in 2012] because we told the public we're 
going to fix the death penalty," Ramos says. But the close call also gave them 
a script to use during this bout.

"We're showing the counterargument of the finances," he says. "They can argue 
one side, and we can argue the other."

But the actual fight's about more than dollars and cents, and everyone knows 
it. At the end of our conversation, Ramos swerves into what he feels it's 
really about.

"All [repeal advocates] can talk about is finances," he concludes. "I would 
say, how can you put a price tag on a little baby girl or boy, on kidnap 
victims brutally murdered. Or a police officer killed in the line of duty. You 
can't put a dollar figure on that. You cannot."

Which takes us back to Berkeley Bowl, where the signature-hunter is doing a 
good job at filling that clipboard.

Snazzy headlines about "reform" sell; who doesn't want things to get better? So 
does the word "savings," especially now that Californians have heard for the 
past eight years about how the death penalty system is hemorrhaging more money 
than a Powerball winner.

He's getting his signatures, despite the proposal being unable to accomplish 
either goal it claims to, despite the viewpoints of the signee probably not 
being ideologically aligned. Because of the linguistic subterfuge, the proposal 
will make its way onto the November ballot, its worth to be judged by the 
general California electorate who are almost evenly split on what to do with 
the death penalty.

According to that Field Poll from earlier this year, 48 % of Californians want 
to speed up the death penalty, and 47 % want to abolish it.

Voters have already decided that the death penalty is broken, but will the fix 
come by ending it or by pushing the process into hyperspeed?

As the moral question is weighed, the gurney in San Quentin's unused death 
chamber collects dust. And the line of those waiting to get strapped on - 743 
and counting - continues to grow.

(source: sfweekl.y.com)

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

Young man accused of killing woman, raping another faces death penalty


The man accused of murdering an elderly woman and raping another in a violent 
home invasion in Del Cerro faces the death penalty.<>P> San Diego Deputy 
District Attorney Marisa DiTillio said 20-year-old Eduardo Torres is not only 
responsible for murder, but for sexually assaulting and torturing his victims.

"Very vicious. This is frankly everyone's worst nightmare," said DiTillio.

Torres, who looked disheveled and worn out as he faced a judge for the 1st time 
at San Diego Superior Court, pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

Torres is accused of holding 2 women captive at their home on Mill Peak Road in 
the Del Cerro neighborhood on Sunday night.

According to Ditillio, Torres was unable to break into a home nearby, then 
broke into a 2nd home with a 56-year-old man, 74-year-old woman and another 
woman in her 50s inside. The man was able to escape. Prosecutors said Torres 
then held the women hostage at knifepoint.

"He proceeded to sexually assault the 50-year-old victim while inflicting 
injuries, lacerations and stab wounds to the elderly woman who ultimately died 
of those injuries," said DiTillio. "He continued to harm the victims while the 
SWAT officers were there trying to save their lives."

San Diego police identified the woman who died as Ut Nguyen of San Diego. The 
surviving woman was visiting from Chicago.

Torres was charged with burglary, torture, rape and murder. If convicted, he 
could face the death penalty.

"The special circumstances that are alleged in this case, the attempted rape, 
the oral copulation, the torture and the residential burglary make him eligible 
for life without parole or the death penalty," DiTillio said.

Torres is being held on no bail. His status hearing is scheduled for June 29.

(source: fox5sandiego.com)

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

Death penalty for alleged arson killer of 5 homeless?


A 21-year-old homeless man could be facing the death penalty after he was 
charged Wednesday with killing 5 people by allegedly setting a fire in a vacant 
office building in the Westlake District.

Johnny Josue Sanchez was charged with 5 counts of murder and 2 counts of 
attempted murder in connection with the blaze, which broke out about 7 p.m. 
Monday in a 14,351-square-foot building at 2411 W. Eighth St. near MacArthur 
Park.

The murder charges include the special circumstance allegations of multiple 
murders and murder during the commission of an arson. Prosecutors will decide 
later whether to seek the death penalty against Sanchez.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Gustavo N. Sztraicher ordered Sanchez to be 
held without bail while awaiting arraignment July 27.

Authorities allege Sanchez, who was taken into custody about 8 p.m. Monday, had 
a dispute with other transients living along with him in the building.

"It was a dispute between Sanchez and other individuals that were residing in 
the building that was the cause of him ultimately lighting the fire," said Los 
Angeles police Lt. William Hayes.

After a male victim was declared dead Monday as a result of the blaze, the 
bodies of 4 more homeless victims - 2 men and 2 women - were found Tuesday in 
the ruins of the 2-story structure.

2 of the victims were identified as Jerry Dean Clemons, 59, and Mary Ann Davis, 
44, according to the District Attorney's Office. The other 3 have yet to be 
identified.

Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Ralph Terrazas said the additional victims 
found Tuesday were located together under debris on the building's 2nd floor.

"It took some digging, but our firefighters we were able to extricate the 
bodies," he said. Crews used a ladder truck to lift the bodies from the 
unstable building.

Cadaver dogs and their handlers discovered the additional victims inside the 
burned-out building, according to fire department spokesman Peter Sanders, who 
said all 5 victims appeared to be transients.

Firefighters used ladders to rescue 3 people from second-story windows during 
the blaze, Sanders said.

"1 of those victims was transported to a local hospital and the other 2 were 
treated and released on scene," he said.

As parts of the structure began to tumble down, firefighters went into a 
defensive posture - meaning they battled the blaze from the exterior - about 20 
minutes into their operation.

Investigators are working to determine exactly how the fire was set.

A total of 147 firefighters fought the fire for 2 hours and 22 minutes, 
bringing it under control at 9:25 p.m. Monday. No firefighters were injured.

The long-vacant building, which had no functional fire sprinklers, had been the 
site of past fires, according to a fire department official.

The fire chief asked the public to assist by informing the Los Angeles 
Department of Building and Safety of any vacant structures by dialing 311 in 
Los Angeles or (213) 473-3231 outside the area. Terrazas said firefighters 
would assess their districts for vacant buildings and work with safety 
officials to secure them.

(source: mynewsla.com)






USA:

Less than 5 months before the federal government's death penalty trial of 
Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof, South Carolina's top federal prosecutor 
is leaving the post


Less than 5 months before the federal government's death penalty trial of 
accused Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof, South Carolina's top federal 
prosecutor announced his immediate departure from the office Wednesday, saying 
he is returning to private law practice.

During an interview with The Associated Press, U.S. Attorney Bill Nettles said 
he had long planned to leave the post, to which he was appointed by President 
Barack Obama in 2010. Nettles said his 6-year tenure made him South Carolina's 
longest-serving U.S. Attorney since the 1960s.

With the election in November, whoever becomes president will make his or her 
own selections for U.S. Attorneys across the country.

Nettles, 54, opposes the death penalty and spent much of his more than 20-year 
private practice career on criminal defense, at times fighting to keep 
defendants off death row. When he took office, Nettles told The Associated 
Press he would "follow the law as it's dictated by Washington," even in 
potential death penalty cases.

"My opinions don't matter when I work for the Department of Justice," Nettles 
told the AP on Wednesday, pointing out that he could put personal opinions 
aside while serving as a prosecutor. He called himself an "unlikely choice" for 
the office in the first place, in part because of that stance, as well as the 
fact he had never worked as a prosecutor prior to his appointment.

Asked about the Charleston case and his personal convictions, Nettles said that 
he had spent hours in conversation with U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch as 
she contemplated whether the federal government would seek the death penalty 
against Roof. The 22-year-old faces federal hate crime and other charges for 
the shooting deaths of nine members of Emanuel AME Church last June during 
Wednesday night Bible study.

"I am deeply grateful to the attorney general," Nettles said of Lynch's 
willingness to hear his point of view on how to handle the case. "It wasn't lip 
service. ... She has been very receptive to letting me speak my mind."

Roof's federal trial has been set to begin in November. He also faces a 
possible death sentence in state court if convicted in a trial scheduled for 
January.

During his 6 years in office, Nettles says he's proud of expanding South 
Carolina's federal prosecutions of white collar and public corruption cases. 
When he came in, Nettles says such cases were less than 25 % of the office's 
work. Now, they represent more than half.

Nettles said he's also proud to have worked on ways to find alternate ways to 
handle cases, like sending low-level drug cases to state court and trying to 
figure out if addiction might be at the root of a defendant's problems, and if 
so, to find help.

"I never viewed my job as putting people in jail," he said. "My job was to make 
South Carolina a better, safer place."

With Nettles' departure, federal prosecutor Beth Drake will serve as acting 
U.S. Attorney until a new choice is confirmed by the U.S. Senate. At his own 
firm, Nettles said he will take a variety of cases and also will pursue setting 
up a mediation practice for false claims cases against the federal government, 
an area on which he's proud to have focused as a prosecutor.

"I'm going to be a lawyer," Nettles said with a smile. "I'm going to be an 
advocate for my client, whoever my client may be. ... I enjoy advocacy, and I 
enjoy the fight."

(source: Associated Press)