[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., GA., LA., ARK., OKLA., ARIZ.

[Rick Halperin]

June 25




TEXAS:

Unexpected career: Stoffregen steps down from public defender's office after 42 
years as lawyer


Jack Stoffregen wanted to teach at a college level. He went to law school 
instead to impress his future in-laws.

"My fiancee's parents hated me," he said. "They didn't like me at all and they 
decided if I were to go to law school and be a lawyer then maybe I was worthy 
of their daughter."

The marriage didn't last but the law career did. Stoffregen turned 66 on 
Thursday and retired Friday after 42 years as a lawyer, with the last 9 as the 
1st chief public defender of the Texas Regional Public Defender's Office, which 
exclusively handles capital murder cases.

Ray Keith, the assistant chief public defender, was appointed as Stoffregen's 
successor.

Stoffregen was born in Nebraska in 1950. However, his family moved around a lot 
because of his father's job as an engineer for a natural gas company. 
Stoffregen graduated high school in 1968 in Dumas and earned an undergraduate 
degree in government from Texas Tech.

After earning his law degree, he began working for the Lubbock County District 
Attorney's Office in 1974. He said the television show "The Defenders," which 
he watched as a boy, inspired him to practice criminal law. After a year as a 
prosecutor, he entered private practice.

"I wanted to make more money. That was a real motivator at the time," he said.

He was 33 years old when he first took on a capital murder case, defending 
Clarence Allen Lackey, who was accused of the abduction, rape and slaying of 
Toni Diane Kumpf in 1977.

Stoffregen was appointed to handle Lackey's appeal and successfully obtain a 
new trial, which he also tried. Lackey was convicted again and sentenced to 
death. He was executed in 1997.

"To hear the judge pronounce death was devastating," Stoffregen said. "At that 
point in my life I was surprised I went and did other capital cases."

Trying capital cases was making him a better lawyer, he said. He went on to 
defend more than 20 capital murder defendants in West Texas before he was 
appointed to lead the public defender's office,

In his time as a capital defense lawyer, he's seen improvements in the 
resources available to defendants.

"If the state has an expert, the defense is generally going to get one," he 
said.

In the early part of his career, counties gave indigent defendants a $500 limit 
to pay for their defense.

"I think the courts and judges are cognizant that they need to give us 
resources to make sure that if the state gets a death sentence that it's as 
close to 100 % as you can get," he said.

The quality of defense attorneys has also improved, he said.

Stoffregen said defending people charged with capital murder is a high-stress 
job with an 85 $ chance a jury will hand down a death sentence if that 
punishment is an option.

"The odds are really stacked in favor of the state in these types of cases," he 
said. "Every day I have to make decisions that may have a direct impact on 
whether somebody lives or dies."

The bulk of capital murder defense strategy is mitigation, he said.

"The act is generally so bad and so horrible that it's easy to paint the 
picture of the guy as a monster, and our job is to show he or she's not a 
monster, that they're a human being," he said.

Stoffregen said he used to be ambivalent about the death penalty. But his 
stance has changed since leading the public defender's office. However, he 
declined to specify how it's changed.

"I don't think I've ever had a client that I wasn't able to find something good 
in, something there that reminded me that he or she is a human and has parents 
and siblings and something has happened to that person, something's been done 
to that person that put him in the circumstances he's in today," he said. "A 
lot of people just do it to themselves. But something has happened to them 
always and it???s our job to dig and try to find that."

Matt Powell, Lubbock County's criminal district attorney, described Stoffregen 
as an honorable opponent in the courtroom.

"Jack is one of those guys that he will zealously advocate for his client and 
he'll fight you tooth and nail under the guides of the law," he said. "But 
he'll do it with character and with integrity, doesn't hide the ball, is honest 
with you. I've always respected Jack and thought he did a great job."

The Regional Public Defender's Office began in 2007 as a pilot program in 
Lubbock aimed at providing defense attorneys to indigent defendants facing the 
death penalty. With Stoffregen at the helm, the program quickly grew to include 
more than 160 counties, with 8 offices around Texas. The office has about 46 
full-time employees with room in its budget for at least 10 more. Eligible 
counties must have a population of less than 300,000.

"He's just done a tremendous job," said Bill McCay a Lubbock County 
commissioner who was on the oversight board that hired Stoffregen. "He just 
doesn't have quit in him. And I don't know where he gets the energy but no 
matter how complex the problem or issue it just never seemed to bother him, he 
just seemed to take it with a grain of salt and figure out a solution and solve 
the problem."

As chief public defender, Stoffregen has trained and mentored attorneys joining 
his office, which has fulfilled his desire to teach.

"I really enjoy that, working with other lawyers that are trying to be better 
lawyers," he said.

He's also been proud of the honors his office has received, including 
achievement awards from the National Association of Counties.

The American Bar Association has also noted the office???s creation as a 
"significant step forward in the improvement of the quality of representation 
available to Texas' indigent defendants and inmates in death penalty cases."

"I'm really proud of that, that we've come through and received those high 
marks from a nationwide organization," Stoffregen said.

In 2000 Stoffregen defended Joe Franco Garza for his 2nd punishment trial. 
Garza was convicted in the 1998 strangling death of 71-year-old Silbiano Rangel 
and successfully appealed for a new punishment trial.

Jurors again sentenced Garza to death and Stoffregen thought he was through 
with capital murder cases.

"No one was more surprised as I was, that here I'm going to finish my career 
out handling exclusively capital cases," he said.

Stoffregen said he plans to spend his time in retirement in Lubbock, keeping 
his mind sharp by taking classes at Tech's Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

"They have cooking classes that I want to get involved in and some wine-tasting 
classes," he said.

A family history of Alzheimer's and Lewy Body Dementia has motivated him to 
keep learning.

"That's in the back of my mind," he said. "That may be the direction I'm 
headed. So I want to do what I can to stay sharp. I want to get back to going 
to the gym on a regular basis."

But mostly, he plans to enjoy his free time.

"I want to try living a life where I don't have to be somewhere at a particular 
time," he said. "I've always got to be busy, I know that. And I'll find busy 
work to do but I'm going to do it on my schedule instead of somebody else's."

(source: Lubbock Avalanche-Journal)






PENNSYLVANIA:

exoneree to speak at Pitt-Bradford


Anthony Ray Hinton, a man falsely accused and convicted for murder who spent 30 
years on death row in Alabama before being exonerated and released last year, 
will speak this fall at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford.

Hinton's story was featured on the television show "60 Minutes" and in attorney 
Bryan Stevenson's book "Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption," which 
will be at the center of freshman seminar, writing, criminal justice and even 
some economics classes at Pitt-Bradford this fall. In addition, "Just Mercy" 
has been chosen by the Bradford Area Public Library's One Book Bradford 
selection.

Events on campus and in the community will explore racial bias in the justice 
system in the weeks leading up to Hinton's talk at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 4 in the 
Bromeley Family Theater of Blaisdell Hall. The talk will be free and open to 
the public.

Organizers said they chose the work to help the community explore important, 
and sometimes uncomfortable, topics surrounding the fairness and humanity of 
the justice system.

"We really have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable," said Kristin 
Asinger, director freshman seminar.

Pat Shinaberger, president of One Book Bradford, said the book is a departure 
from the group's previous lighter fare, but one that the committee supported.

"It's in the news, and it's something we need to know about," she said. "We all 
need to be educated about what's going on. We could have easily escaped paying 
attention to it, but we decided to get involved."

Creative writing, journalism and composition courses will study Stevenson's 
writing, the issues it raises and the tradition of activist writing, explained 
Dr. Nancy McCabe, professor of writing who is coordinating the events. In 
criminal justice and economics courses, the book will provoke discussions about 
race, class, identity and justice. The economic courses will be taught by Dr. 
Shailendra Gajanan, professor of economics.

Dr. Tony Gaskew, associate professor of criminal justice and founding director 
of the Pitt-Bradford Prison Education Program, will teach a special topics 
course with the book as the text. Gaskew will teach incarcerated students and 
traditional students alongside incarcerated educators at the Federal 
Correctional Institution-McKean.

Events leading up to Hinton's visit will be a book group discussion led by Dr. 
Walter Rhinehart, a former psychologist with the Bureau of Prisons, at 10:30 
a.m. Sept. 10 at the Bradford Area Public Library.

Gaskew will also lead a discussion on inequity within the criminal justice 
system, highlighting the work of the Innocence Project and the Equal Justice 
Initiative at 7 p.m. Sept. 28 at the public library.

Closer to Hinton???s visit, Pitt-Bradford's Division of Behavioral and Social 
Sciences will host a symposium discussion on the death penalty. Details on the 
symposium will be announced at a later date.

Finally, members of the Justice Robert H. Jackson American Inn of Court, a 
group of lawyers and judges, will hold its annual meeting in conjunction with 
Hinton's visit and attend his talk.

(source: The Bradford Era)






GEORGIA----new (impending) execution date

Execution set for July 14 would be the 6th in Georgia this year


John Wayne Conner was scheduled Friday to become the sixth man executed in 
Georgia this year - a record number since the death penalty was reinstated here 
40 years ago.

The time for his lethal injection for the 1992 murder of a drinking buddy was 
set for 7 p.m. on July 14.

Conner's scheduled execution comes as the pace of executions in Georgia is 
increasing. Yet, death sentences are being rendered in Georgia murder trials 
less often.

At this time, Conner is the only death row inmate who has exhausted his 
appeals, though several others are nearing the end of legal recourse.

On Jan. 9, 198, Conner, Beverly Bates and J.T. White went to a party in 
Eastman, Ga., but when it was over they weren't ready to call it a night.

So they returned to Conner's house to keep drinking.

But Conner, then 26, and White, 29, needed more bourbon. They walked to a 
neighbor's house in hopes of getting a ride to the liquor store but the 
neighbor refused, so they started walking back to Conner's house.

On the way, Conner told investigators, White "made a statement about he would 
like to go to bed with my girlfriend and so I got mad and we got into a fight 
and fought all the way over to the oak tree and I hit him with a quart bottle."

White ran and Conner chased him. The fight continued in a ditch by the road.

"He was swinging, trying to get up, or swinging at me to try to hit me," Conner 
told investigators. "There was a stick right there ... and I grabbed it and 
went to beating him with it."

Conner left White for dead in a ditch and went home to wake Bates. He told her 
they had to leave town because he thought he had killed White.

But he also needed to make sure, so they drove back to the ditch where White 
and Conner had fought.

Bates told investigators she heard a thud moments after Conner disappeared into 
the woods. He came back to the car, telling her he was sure. "Let's go," he 
said.

Conner, now 60, and Bates were picked up the next day in Butts County, which is 
where Georgia's death row is located.

The last time Georgia carried out an execution was on April 27, when Daniel 
Anthony Lucas died by lethal injection 18 years and four days after he murdered 
Steven Moss and his 2 children in their Jones County home.

This year Georgia has also executed Joshua Bishop, Kenneth Fults, Travis 
Hittson and Brandon Astor Jones.

The only other time Georgia has put to death as many as 5 people in a year was 
in 1987.

(source: myajc.com)






LOUISIANA:

Triple-murder suspect faces new felony charge


A man accused of killing a Lockport woman and her 2 daughters Nov. 4, 2012, now 
faces an additional felony charge of conspiracy to commit aggravated escape.

David Brown, 38, of Houma, had already been charged with 1st-degree murder in 
the stabbings of 29-year-old Jacquelin Nieves and her daughters, 7-year-old 
Gabriela and 1-year-old Izabela.

He is also charged with aggravated rape and aggravated arson. Prosecutors say 
he sexually assaulted Jacquelin and Gabriela Nieves and then set the family's 
apartment on fire to cover up the crimes.

A grand jury on Friday indicted Brown on the new charge. He remains in the 
Lafourche Parish jail.

Louisiana law defines criminal conspiracy as "the agreement or combination of 2 
or more persons for the specific purpose of committing any crime" when "1 or 
more of such parties does an act in furtherance of the object of the agreement 
or combination."

Aggravated escape is "the intentional departure of a person from the legal 
custody of any officer of the Department of Public Safety and Corrections or 
any law enforcement officer or from any place where such person is legally 
confined when his departure is under circumstances wherein human life is 
endangered," according to state law.

District Attorney Cam Morvant II declined to comment on the details of the new 
allegations against Brown but said a conviction on this charge would carry a 
prison sentence of up to 30 years.

Morvant's office is seeking the death penalty on Brown's murder charges.

New Orleans attorney Kerry Cuccia and his Capital Defense Project of Southeast 
Louisiana team are representing Brown.

Cuccia said Friday that Morvant informed him of the new indictment but that he 
hadn't reviewed the actual document.

"I have not had an opportunity to see the indictment, so it would be 
inappropriate for me to comment at this time," he said.

Brown is set for trial Sept. 12 in state District Judge John LeBlanc's 
courtroom in Thibodaux. The judge and attorneys have been holding conferences 
each month and hearings as needed in preparation.

(source: houmatoday.com)






ARKANSAS:

Arkansas death penalty drug expiring before use----Court OKs execution but 
requires wait; AG won't ask for a rush


1 of Arkansas' execution drugs will expire before a court decision upholding 
the state's execution law goes into effect, and might be impossible to replace.

A spokesman for Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said Friday that she 
will not ask the state's Supreme Court to expedite finalizing its Thursday 
ruling that upheld Arkansas' execution secrecy law and drug protocol. The 
executions of 8 people are waiting for that ruling.

Generally, rulings are final 18 days after opinions are issued. Without the 
attorney general's request, the ruling takes effect July 11 - days after the 
state's supply of vecuronium bromide, a paralytic the state uses in executions, 
expires.

"After careful consideration and analysis, the attorney general has decided not 
to seek an expedited mandate from the court. But once the court issues the 
mandate, the attorney general is fully prepared to ask the governor to set 
execution dates to see that justice is served," said Rutledge spokesman Judd 
Deere.

After the mandate is issued, the stays on the 8 executions would be lifted. But 
with 1 of the 3 drugs expiring June 30 and the supplier telling the state it 
would not provide more, it was unclear when the state could resume executions.

Solomon Graves, spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Correction, said he 
would not speculate about what will happen after the supply of the paralytic 
expires. Deere said Thursday that the attorney general's office would not 
advise the Department of Correction to use expired drugs.

The inmates' attorney, Jeff Rosenzweig, said he did not have a comment on the 
attorney general's decision. He said he still plans to file a petition with the 
court asking for a rehearing before the mandate is issued.

The court ruled Thursday in a 4-3 decision that the state's 3-drug protocol and 
the law that allows Arkansas to keep its source of drugs confidential are 
constitutional. The inmates had argued that Arkansas' execution secrecy law 
could lead to cruel and unusual punishment and that the state reneged on a 
pledge to share information.

But the high court said that a lower court "erred in ruling that public access 
to the identity of the supplier of the 3 drugs (the Arkansas Department of 
Correction) has obtained would positively enhance the functioning of executions 
in Arkansas. As has been well documented, disclosing the information is 
actually detrimental to the process."

The inmates argued that without disclosure of the source and other information 
they had no way to determine whether the midazolam, vecuronium bromide or 
potassium chloride would lead to cruel and unusual punishment.

The inmates also argued that the secrecy law violates a settlement in an 
earlier lawsuit that guaranteed inmates would be given the information. The 
court agreed with the state that the agreement is not a binding contract.

Attorneys for the state said at least 5 other courts have ruled that the three 
drugs used in Arkansas' protocol are acceptable, including the sedative 
midazolam. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Oklahoma???s use of midazolam last 
year.

(source: Associated Press)






OKLAHOMA:

Anti-death penalty org wants to prevent executions from being enshrined in 
state constitution


The Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (OK-CADP) said Thursday at 
its annual meeting that the defeat of Oklahoma State Question 776 in November 
will be its top priority.

State Question 776, which goes to before Oklahoma voters in November, asks that 
all methods of execution shall be constitutionally allowed, and in any case 
where an execution method is deemed invalid, the measure would provide that 
"the death sentence shall remain in force until the sentence can be lawfully 
executed by any valid method."

State Question 776 would also forbid the death penalty from being construed as 
"the infliction of cruel or unusual punishments."

"We are ground zero in Oklahoma for eliminating the death penalty in America," 
said Connie Johnson, chair for the OK-CADP. "State Question 776 presents a 
great opportunity to raise awareness and to talk about why we should not have 
the death penalty in Oklahoma. We need you out there this year on the campaign 
trail against SQ 776."

The spotlight has been on Oklahoma since the infamous executions of Clayton 
Lockett and Charles Warner.

Warner, who was executed Jan. 15, 2015 with the wrong drugs, uttered "my body 
is on fire" during his execution.

Since then, Richard Glossip's execution was delayed 4 times, lastly, due to a 
drug protocol mix up, which became the focus of a multi county grand jury 
investigation. That same "wrong drug" was used in the execution of Warner.

The problems with Oklahoma's execution were the focus of a Multi-County Grand 
Jury investigation into Oklahoma's execution process.

The 106-page grand jury report was released last month containing scathing 
critiques, citing "inexcusable failures" in the state's execution process.

Also this year a 1st-ever, bipartisan Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission, 
co-chaired by former Gov. Brad Henry, was formed to conduct a "thorough review 
of the state's capital punishment system."

A full report is expected to be released in 2017.

"How can even voters decide what is cruel and unusual?" said Darla Shelden, 
member of OK-CADP. "We are not supposed to kill inhumanely or under so much 
secrecy. Everything the state does with executions is behind a wall."

Oklahoma could become the 1st state to enshrine the death penalty into its 
constitution, if the measure is approved by voters.

According to Robert Dunham of the Death Penalty Information Center, no other 
state has ever attempted to exempt the death penalty from the requirement of 
complying with the constitution.

"The Oklahoma ballot question does not simply say that the state will have a 
death penalty, it says that the state courts are prohibited from determining 
that the manner that the death penalty is carried out is unconstitutional," 
Dunham said. "It says that the state courts cannot rule that the death penalty 
constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, which on its face means that the 
courts cannot consider whether the administration of the death penalty violates 
either the state or federal constitutional guarantees against cruel and unusual 
punishment."

According to Dunham, the law also says that the death penalty shall not be 
deemed to violate any other provision of Oklahoma's state constitution, which 
means that no matter how discriminatorily or arbitrarily the punishment is 
applied, the courts cannot say that it violates any provision of the state 
constitution.

"This referendum is not to say that the death penalty is part of state 
constitutional law; for that, it would need only to say that the penalty is 
authorized as a punishment," said Dunham. "The referendum is to ensure that the 
administration of the death penalty shall not be regulated by the law. There is 
no other state that, to my knowledge, has ever tried to codify in its 
constitution that the death penalty is above the law."

Johnson added that the referendum would also cost the taxpayers in terms of 
legal battles.

"This referendum is deeply flawed and does nothing to alter Oklahoma's ability 
to carry out executions, but could open up the state to further costly legal 
challenges paid for by taxpayers, said Johnson. "Our goal is to educate 
citizens about this expensive governmental overreach, and to urge them to vote 
'No' to SQ 776". Meanwhile lethal injection debacles continue nationwide as 
states struggle to find drugs and carry out executions in secrecy. And now 
Pfizer, the last remaining, FDA-approved supplier of lethal injection drugs, 
says they "no longer want to be in the execution business."

(source: reddirtreport.com)

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

Oklahoma state questions on criminal justice reform to be on November ballot


Oklahoma Secretary of State Chris Benge said Friday that each measure required 
about 66,000 voter signatures to qualify for the ballot. Each received about 
110,000 signatures.

Benge's office counted the signatures and sent a report to the Oklahoma Supreme 
Court, which makes the official certification for placement on the ballot.

AT A GLANCE

Measures likely to be on ballot:

--State Question 780, changing simple drug possession from a felony to a 
misdemeanor. Secretary of state's office counted adequate signatures to place 
measure on ballot. --State Question 781, specifying that money saved by easing 
drug possession classification shall be applied to county programs for mental 
health and drug addiction. Secretary of state's office counted adequate 
signatures to place measure on ballot.

--State Question 776, specifying that the method for implementing the death 
penalty can be changed. Referred to the ballot by the Legislature.

(source: The Oklahoman)






ARIZONA:

Arizona abandons use of sedative as a lethal-injection drug


The state of Arizona has eliminated its use of the sedative midazolam as one of 
the drugs it relies on in carrying out executions.

Lawyers for the state said in a court filing Friday that its current supply of 
midazolam expired on May 31 and that Arizona's sources of the drug have dried 
up because of pressure from opponents of the death penalty.

That leaves Arizona with other lethal-drug combinations, but the state's 
lawyers said they can't currently carry out executions because it has no access 
to supplies of pentobarbital and sodium thiopental.

The status of the state's lethal-injection drug supplies were revealed Friday 
in a court filing in a lawsuit that challenges the way Arizona carries out the 
death penalty.

Executions in Arizona were put on hold after the July 2014 death of convicted 
killer Joseph Rudolph Wood, who was given 15 doses of midazolam and a 
painkiller and who took nearly 2 hours to die. His attorney says the execution 
was botched.

/ Executions in Arizona remain on hold until the lawsuit is resolved.

A ruling last month by U.S. District Judge Neil Wake dismissed parts of the 
lawsuit, but other elements of the case remain alive.

The state argued in its filing Friday that the lawsuit is moot now that 
midazolam is off the table.

Dale Baich, one of the attorneys representing death row prisoners, said that 
even if the lawsuit's claims involving lethal-injection drugs are dismissed, 
his clients still have claims that Arizona Department of Corrections Director 
Charles Ryan has abused his discretion in the methods and amounts of the drugs 
used in past executions.

"It's our belief that the unlimited discretion that the director has during the 
execution process violates the Eighth Amendment," which forbids cruel and 
unusual punishment, Baich said.

Similar challenges to the death penalty are playing out in other parts of the 
country that seek more transparency about where states get their execution 
drugs.

States are struggling to obtain execution drugs because European pharmaceutical 
companies began blocking the use of their products for lethal injections. Death 
penalty states refuse to disclose the sources of their drugs, though the 
sources are widely believed to be compounding pharmacies - organizations that 
make drugs tailored to the needs of a specific client. Those pharmacies do not 
face the same approval process or testing standards of larger pharmaceutical 
companies.

(source: Associated Press)