[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.MEX., ARIZ., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 2



NEW MEXICO:

'Why are these people allowed to live?'


In my day job as editorial page editor, I see dozens of letters to the editor 
each week. But this one really caught my eye.

It was one of many sent to the Journal concerning the horrific last hours of 
Victoria Martens, who at 10 years old was truly an innocent.

The depths of depravity shown by her killers sent shock waves throughout the 
community, and, believe me, that included a newsroom of world-weary 
journalists.

It also deeply affected Don Vernay, a Rio Rancho lawyer who has spent his 
career defending clients facing the death penalty - mostly in Texas.

Many times, his efforts were unsuccessful. 3 of his clients have been executed 
this year alone. He has worked to provide a defense to clients who run the 
gamut from mass murderers to child and cop killers.

Since one of his successful defenses involved a man prosecutors claimed killed 
a 10-year-old Montana boy in 1996, then cooked and ate him and served some of 
the dish to his neighbors, he thought he had seen it all.

But he said nothing prepared him for little Victoria.

"I've seen them all, but this one really, really hit me," Vernay said. "It's 
just beyond comprehension what these people did to that kid."

So he sat down last Friday and wrote what he titled "My Personal Rubicon" and 
sent it to the Journal's letters website, ABQjournal.com/letters.

"It really was a gut reaction," he said Tuesday.

Here's a portion:

"Although I am not one to argue religion or politics, I have nonetheless held 
my ground in the face of arguments made by those who voiced strong support for 
the death penalty - until I read the article in last Friday's Journal setting 
forth the details of the unspeakable sexual assault, murder and dismemberment 
of an innocent 10-year-old child ...

"Having put the paper down, instead of engaging in my usual knee jerk defense 
lawyer's analysis of the manner in which these perpetrators could be 
represented, the only thought that entered and remained in my mind was 'why are 
these people allowed to live?'"

Strong feelings coming from a man who has spent the last 30 years defending 
those charged with taking a life.

"I've represented guys for whom guilt is not an issue," he said. "I've handled 
a lot of bad ones."

Vernay recognizes that the role of an attorney is to give a client the best 
possible defense the rule of law permits - a job that someone will wind up 
doing for those accused in the Victoria Martens case. "But still, my thought 
was - I quoted from 'The Brothers Karamazov' - 'why are these people allowed to 
live?'

"That was really a visceral reaction on my part, I mean, I'm not going to run 
out and say I'm pro-death penalty now because of this particular case, but this 
one really hit home. It just knocked the wind out of me."

Vernay is not a member of the State Bar of New Mexico, but he was involved in 
the defense in an infamous local mass killing - the John Hyde case of August 
2005.

Hyde was a mentally ill Albuquerque resident who in a single day shot and 
killed 5 people, including 2 police officers. Hyde remains in the New Mexico 
Behavioral Health Institute in Las Vegas, where he will spend the rest of his 
life.

Vernay still has a few death penalty cases he is working on in Texas but today 
is focusing on creating metal sculptures that are shown in the Jezebel Gallery 
in Madrid.

He has also self-published a novel about the last day of a death row prisoner 
called "Today and Tomorrow" and has written a full-length play on the death 
penalty "that almost made it to Broadway."

He moved to New Mexico 13 years ago. He had been looking for a home in Santa Fe 
but wound up in Rio Rancho after finding one with a room that was perfect for 
an artist's studio. He didn't move to Albuquerque:

"I call this place (Albuquerque) Mogadishu. It's really astounding, the level 
of violence here. And I'm a kid who grew up on the streets of New York City. 
I'm not some country boy from Montana."

As I said earlier, at some point, someone is going to get the unenviable job of 
representing the 3 people accused of killing Victoria.

New Mexico does not have a death penalty. But the accused in America have the 
right to a proper defense.

(source: Dan Herrera, Editorial page editor, Albuquerque Journal)






ARIZONA----female may face death penalty

Valley mother accused of killing her kids hopes to avoid death penalty


Defense attorneys for a Phoenix woman accused of killing her children are 
hoping prosecutors don't ask for the death penalty.

Octavia Rogers is accused of stabbing her 3 children to death and partially 
dismembering their bodies.

Rogers appeared in court for a pre-trial conference Thursday.

Back in June, Rogers' 3 boys were found dead in a home near Interstate 17 and 
Bell Road. Police say Rogers, 29, stabbed them to death and then stuffed their 
partially dismembered bodies in a closet.

Police said Rogers also stabbed herself and then tried to drown herself in a 
bathtub.

The children were identified as Jaikare Rahaman, 8, Jeremiah Adams, 5, and 
Avery Robinson, 2 months.

Rogers' court appearance Thursday lasted only a few minutes. At the end, Rogers 
broke down, sobbing uncontrollably before leaving the room.

Rogers' attorneys had previously pleaded not guilty to 1st-degree murder in the 
deaths of her sons. Now, they're also hoping that she's not sentenced to death 
if she's found guilty.

Some family members have called Rogers a devoted mother.

On Thursday, Octavia's mother told reporters outside the courtroom that she saw 
no signs Rogers was troubled.

"It broke my heart because that's my baby, regardless of what she's accused of. 
That's still my baby and I love her and she let me know that she loves me," 
said Rogers' mother Tanella McCoy, in tears.

"She brought me so much joy by bringing those grandkids to me and I don't fault 
her for what happened but I still gotta be there for her because that's my 
daughter."

Rogers is tentatively scheduled to be back in court for pre-trial on February 
9.

Her trial is tentatively set to get underway on February 16.

(source: azfamily.com)






USA:

Overzealous Prosecutors Are Losing Elections


Together they have disproportionately targeted black defendants, tried 
juveniles as adults, condemned schoolchildren to prison, and let police get 
away with murder. And over the past year, they have lost their bids for 
reelection.

In a year with renewed attention on the corrosive and discriminatory effects of 
harsh sentencing, notorious, tough-on-crime local prosecutors are increasing 
being held accountable for perpetuating an overzealous style of law and order.

Until recently, these elections were battles of who could appear harsher on 
crime. The same hysteria over crime and illegal drugs that drove mass 
incarceration in the late 1980s and 1990s also created intense political 
pressure. Racially-charged fearmongering, exemplified by the infamous 'Willie 
Horton' ad that attacked presidential candidate Michael Dukakis for backing 
criminal rehabilitation, boosted scores of district attorneys and judges who 
promised to crack down and pursue the toughest sentences available.

But not anymore. In March, Chicago area prosecutor Anita Alvarez was voted out 
of office after she covered up the police shooting of Laquan McDonald and 
condemned the innocent. That same day, Tim McGinty, a Cleveland prosecutor who 
refused to charge Tamir Rice's shooter, also lost reelection. And on Tuesday, 
Jacksonville, Florida state attorney Angela Corey was defeated in her primary 
after criminal justice advocates exposed her propensity to try juveniles as 
adults and to sentence defendants to die.

"This could be a sea change and might mean that prosecutors might become more 
accountable to the public."

And those were just the most high-profile losses. Across the country, hard-line 
district attorneys are losing races that were once considered shoo-ins for 
incumbents.

"The era of tough-on-crime rhetoric is coming to a close as voters realize that 
overzealous prosecutors have abused their power for too long," said law 
professor Daniel Medwed. "This could be a sea change and might mean that 
prosecutors might become more accountable to the public."

This year, 935 prosecutors across the country are up for election? - 40 % of 
all elected local prosecutors. In all but 4 states, prosecutors are elected to 
office.

As President Obama noted during his speech at the Democratic National 
Convention, these races are crucial for people who care about criminal justice 
reform.

"If you want more justice in the justice system, then we've all got to vote not 
just for a president, but for mayors, and sheriffs, and state's attorneys and 
state legislators," Obama said. "That's where the criminal laws are made, and 
we've got to work with police and protesters until laws and practices are 
changed. That's how democracy works."

Wealthy political donors are also realizing the importance of these races, 
turning their attention away from Congress and the presidency to pour money 
into local prosecutor elections. As Politico noted this week, billionaire 
financier George Soros has "channeled more than $3 million into 7 local 
district-attorney campaigns in 6 states over the past year."

It seems to be working. Already this election cycle, at least seven prosecutors 
have lost reelection after voters and activists turned up the pressure and 
raised questions about the effects of their aggressive prosecution and 
misconduct.

Here are 5 less-known prosecutors who have also lost reelections this year:

Jeff Ashton

On Tuesday, metro Orlando area prosecutor Ashton lost his primary to Aramis 
Ayala, who will likely become the 1st black woman elected prosecutor in 
Florida. Soros' super PAC poured almost $1.4 million into the previously 
low-budget race, according to Politico.

Ashton gained national notoriety in 2011 when he failed to convict Casey 
Anthony for murdering her 2-year-old daughter. But while serving the Orlando 
area, he more quietly made changes to the state attorney's office that effected 
many Floridians.

After taking office in 2013, Ashton dismantled the dedicated domestic violence 
unit that had 9 prosecutors handling only domestic violence cases, according to 
a local investigation. Now, all felony domestic violence cases - including sex 
crimes, child abuse, and elder abuse cases - are combined into the special 
victims unit, leaving far fewer resources for domestic violence victims. He 
also promised that he would add many victims' advocates to the Domestic 
Violence Commission, but has only added one, leaving each with hundreds of 
cases to handle.

And as area public defenders pleaded with the city to rely on civil citations 
instead of arresting children, Ashton said that officers may still have to 
handcuff 10-year-old children because "there may occasionally be a case when 
law enforcement simply does not have a choice for the safety of the officer."

As lead prosecutor, Ashton has also aggressively sought the death penalty, even 
after the U.S. Supreme Court found that Florida's capital punishment protocol 
violates the Sixth Amendment.

Mark Skurka

On March 1st, tattooed defense attorney Mark Gonzalez beat incumbent Mark 
Skurka in the Democratic primary for Corpus Christi, Texas's district attorney. 
Gonzalez claimed after his victory that "voters wanted a fresh change."

During his 6 years in office, Skurka was criticized for frequently hiding 
evidence in child neglect and homicide cases and for overcharging people guilty 
of nonviolent offenses. Local defense attorneys claimed that Skurka's office 
needlessly forced people into trial, costing the taxpayers large sums of money.

For example, in 2014, a local couple was found living out of their car on the 
beach with their children. Prosecutors charged the 2 with 1st degree child 
abuse and several lesser charges and the trial cost over $150,000 in attorney's 
fees alone before both were sentenced to probation.

Skurka denied the allegations of overcharging. "We charge what the law allows. 
Period," he told a local TV station.

Dale Cox

Cox pulled out of the race for district attorney in Caddo Parrish, Louisiana 
before the November 2015 election, facing long odds to beat Republican 
challenger Dhu Thompson and eventual winner James Stewart.

Cox is most notorious for being one of the country's most vocal supporters of 
the death penalty. He has "secured more than 1/3 of Louisiana's death sentences 
over the last 5 years," according to the New York Times. And last March, he 
told the Shreveport Times that capital punishment is primarily about revenge 
and that Louisiana should "kill more people." In follow-up interviews, he has 
stood by that position.

(source: Kira Lerner, thinkprogress.org)

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

Relying on Psychological Assessments do not Right Death Penalty Wrongs for the 
Intellectually Disabled


In addition to the increasingly familiar racial biases and legal flaws in death 
penalty convictions and use of lethal injection, according to Celia B. Fisher, 
Ph.D. Director of Fordham University's Centerfor Ethics Education, little 
attention has been paid to the lack of professional consensus surrounding the 
validity and reliability of IQ tests in general and for racial CRSIP 
logominorities in particular, disagreement over the use of absolute cut-off 
scores to determine intellectual disability, and the inherent fallibility of 
tests to determine the probability of future violence.

"Professional evaluations are not a panacea for inconsistent, uninformed and 
often racially biased jury decisions," notes Fisher, "rather than providing a 
fair and neutral assessment of mental ability forensic assessments are 
contributing to inconsistencies that lethally violate the human rights of 
convicted criminals in capital cases."

For more information on the ethics of psychologists' involvement in death 
penalty evaluations - particularly for defendants with mental disabilities Dr. 
Fisher's 2013 article in Ethics & Behavior entitled "Human Rights and 
Psychologists" Involvement in Assessments Related to Death Penalty Cases."

(source: Celia B. Fisher, Ph.D. is the Marie Ward Doty University Chair, 
Professor of Psychology, and Director of Fordham University's Center for Ethics 
Education. She chaired the 2002 revision of the American Psychological 
Association's Ethics Code and is the author of Decoding the Ethics Code: A 
Practical Guide for Psychologists, now in it's 4th edition, from Sage 
Publications----socialjusticesolutions.org)