[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA.,OHIO, WASH., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 16




FLORIDA:

Ending death penalty is right in every way


There are a myriad of compelling reasons for abolishing the death penalty in 
the United States. What are we waiting for?

I'm no bleeding heart. I worked in Dade County Homicide for 16 of my 30 years 
on the job, and saw it all: dead babies, mutilated bodies, multiple murders, 
torture deaths, random killings, and hundreds of autopsies. I arrested or 
assisted in arresting hundreds of murderers and rapists.

Those who were truly guilty of the crimes deserved the harshest of punishments 
and more so, to be permanently harnessed away from society.

Now, the state of Florida, after a new Supreme Court ruling, must revamp its 
sentencing process in capital cases, which will entail millions of dollars in 
case investigations in order to resentence over 200 cases retroactive to 2002.

It's complicated. It's heart wrenching. It's costly.

But there's another solution, less complicated, less costly. Just do what most 
of the free world has already done.

Many folks (and politicians) believe being tough on crime is synonymous with 
killing killers. But, is death really a punishment? Politicians must get 
elected, so they politick according to how they want to be perceived. But there 
are facts people might not know.

Politicians, take note:

1) Every study ever conducted on capital punishment has shown it is not a 
deterrent to crime.

2) Of 196 countries in the world, the United States ranked 5th for confirmed 
executions in 2015, behind China, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Good 
company. Virtually all of Europe and most of the Americas no longer execute 
criminals.

3) Studies have shown that the death penalty is 2-3 times more costly than if 
capital punishment did not exist. Much of the cost stems from endless appeals.

4) Economic inequities often dictate the level of legal defense and thus, 
fairness of criminal trials. Indigent defendants are destined to minimal 
representation while wealthy or celebrity defendants have unlimited funds for 
teams of lawyers and investigators.

5) The chances of innocent persons wrongly executed are too great. To date, 156 
death row inmates have been exonerated and released from prison since 1973, 
some had spent over 30 years on death row. Legal technicalities may have been a 
factor in some dismissals, but the overwhelming majority were convicted by 
tainted or false evidence. The only way to ensure no innocent person is ever 
executed is to abolish capital punishment.

6) Then there is the torture factor. America considers waterboarding as 
torture. Records indicate that a total of 3 terrorist suspects were 
waterboarded during the Bush II years. Compare a death row cell, where 2,905 
inmates dwell, 55 of whom are women. I submit that living on death row is 
punishment beyond humane.

I interviewed a Florida death row inmate, Jim, 12 years ago. The conditions: 
The concrete cell is 7 feet by 9 feet, dimly lit, with toilet, bed and sink. 
Steel mesh is welded to the bars so an inmate cannot reach through. There is no 
air conditioning and very little ventilation. Temperatures in summer reach 120 
degrees and above.

Jim said he often soaks his sheet in the toilet and drapes himself to tolerate 
the heat. Inmates remain in the cell 24-7, except for 2 showers a week and 2 
1-hour walks in a small yard, alone. No socialization allowed except for 
visitors.

If a convict is not crazy, he may likely go crazy on death row. Jim was 
convicted in 1987. He's still there.

Did Jim really kill that 11 year-old girl? I think so. But to be honest, the 
evidence was pathetic, flimsy and in part, false. His court-appointed lawyer 
never even took depositions from key witnesses.

So what's the message? The system is too fragile and imperfect to risk anyone - 
not a single person - being put to death by the state or made to suffer 24-7 in 
a sweltering death row chamber for 20 or 30 years.

19 states have abolished it. What is Florida waiting for?

(source: Column; Marshall Frank is a retired Miami-Dade police 
detective----Florida Today)






OHIO:

Defense: Man shouldn't face death penalty in 2014 slayings


Defense attorneys for a man accused in the 2014 shooting deaths of a pregnant 
woman and 3 others in Cleveland say he's intellectually disabled and shouldn't 
face the death penalty.

Cleveland.com reports (http://bit.ly/2iZO67Z ) court records filed by attorneys 
for 20-year-old James Sparks-Henderson II cite school records that show his IQ 
was measured at 73 in 2010.

Court records say Sparks-Henderson's lawyers found a mental health expert to 
examine him last year. The report was filed under seal in November.

A judge has scheduled a March 10 hearing to decide if the case should remain a 
death penalty case.

Police have said a masked gunman killed 3 people in a home and then fired into 
a car, killing a woman and her unborn child.

(source: Associated Press)






WASHINGTON:

Washington state has 8 people on death row - and no plans to ever execute them 
---- Family argues against reprieve for death penalty cases.


20 years ago, Dwayne Anthony Woods was convicted of murdering 2 women, 
sentenced to die and sent to Washington's death row at the state penitentiary 
in Walla Walla.

Claiming he was innocent, he launched a series of appeals that kept him alive 
and denied the victims' families the justice they wanted. The appeals came to 
an end this month when Woods, 46, died of a heart attack.

It was the only death on death row since Gov. Jay Inslee issued a moratorium on 
executions in 2014. At the time of his edict, there were 9 inmates on death 
row.

If Inslee has his way, the 8 who remain will also die of disease or old age.

In the broadening fight against capital punishment, his strategy for clearing 
death row now plays a key role, with similar moratoriums in place in Oregon, 
Colorado and Pennsylvania.

Opposition to the death penalty has grown in recent years amid concerns over 
whether some innocent people have been put to death, discrimination against 
African Americans in sentencing, the costs of appeals, and the methods states 
use to carry out killings.

"The fact is that the death penalty is not anywhere close to being used in an 
equitable measure," Inslee said at the time he announced the moratorium. "1 
person gets life, the other person gets death - it depends on which side of the 
county line you are."

Nationwide, the number of executions has fallen dramatically, from a peak of 98 
in 1999 to 20 last year, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information 
Center. There are about 2,900 people on death rows across the country, down 
from a peak of nearly 3,600 in the year 2000.

Over the last decade, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, New Mexico, Connecticut, 
Maryland and Delaware have abolished capital punishment, placing them among the 
18 states, along with the District of Columbia, where the most severe 
punishment is life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The moratoriums are a way for governors to halt executions without putting the 
issue directly to voters in a referendum or to state legislatures.

Although public support for the death penalty is at a 40-year low, 56% of U.S. 
residents are still in favor of it, according to a poll last year by the Pew 
Research Center. Despite California's liberal credentials, voters there 
narrowly rejected one ballot proposition in November to abolish capital 
punishment and approved another to speed up executions.

Washington, where appeals can take 20 years, has executed just 5 people in the 
last 54 years, most recently in 2010. Nonetheless, Inslee has failed to 
persuade the Legislature - where Republicans narrowly control the Senate and 
Democrats narrowly control the House - to abolish capital punishment.

The political risks of his stance became apparent as Inslee faced reelection 
last year. His Republican challenger, Bill Bryant, made the death penalty an 
issue, saying that a governor shouldn't choose which laws to enforce and vowing 
that if he were elected, "so as long as it is the law in Washington state, I 
will enforce it."

Inslee won with almost 55% of the vote.

The victory will allow him to delay executions through 2020, when his term 
expires. It has also made him optimistic that the next governor would keep his 
moratorium in place. That the state has not elected a Republican governor in 
more than 30 years only bolsters that hope.

"Any Dem who follows Jay will be hard put to coming in and reversing the 
moratorium," Nick Brown, Inslee's general counsel, said.

"My sense is we have ended the death penalty and will not see another execution 
in Washington state," he said.

A similar dynamic is in play in Oregon, which has had only Democratic governors 
over the last 3 decades.

Gov. John Kitzhaber, a doctor who saw the death penalty as a "perversion of 
justice" that went against his medical oath, imposed a moratorium in 2011, and 
his successor elected last year, Gov. Kate Brown, continued it. Currently, 34 
inmates are on death row there.

In Colorado, where there are only 3 inmates on death row, Democratic Gov. John 
Hickenlooper, citing costs and concerns about fairness, imposed a moratorium in 
2013 and extended it upon reelection the following year.

In Pennsylvania, where Gov. Tom Wolf suspended the penalty in 2015 for the same 
reasons, 186 inmates are on death row, but there have been only 3 executions in 
the last 40 years, the most recent in 1999.

As effective as moratoriums can be, death penalty opponents view them as a 
stepping stone to laws that offer a more permanent end to executions. That 
happened in Illinois, which eliminated the death penalty in 2011 after a long 
moratorium.

The moratoriums do not prevent prosecutors from seeking the death penalty, 
though given the difficulties of carrying out executions, some have backed away 
from it.

Inslee's effort to clear death row is a race against mortality. 6 of the 8 
inmates on Washington's death row were born in the 1950s.

The youngest inmate there is 35-year-old Conner Michael Cross, who was 
convicted in 2010 of killing a woman, her sister and 2 young sons.

The oldest is 65-year-old Clark Richard Elmore, who was convicted in 1995 of 
raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl after she threatened to report him for 
having molested her.

His appeals reached the U.S. Supreme Court in October. It chose not to hear the 
case despite concerns from Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 
who pointed out that his defense lawyer never investigated his questionable 
mental state or told the jury about his life growing up around pesticides or 
handling Agent Orange in Vietnam.

With his appeals run out, Elmore was sentenced to die this month.

Under the moratorium, the governor must act to stop each execution. Inslee has 
said he will not commute sentences or pardon death row inmates, and instead 
will issue reprieves that keep inmates on death row but delay their executions 
as long as he remains in office.

That is what he did in the case of Elmore.

Dave McEachran, the Whatcom County prosecutor who handled Elmore's case and met 
with Inslee in hopes of changing his mind, said he was "disappointed that after 
21 years of appeals in which the sentence of death has been upheld by the 
highest courts in the state and the United States, the governor has derailed 
the sentence."

Inslee issued a statement assuring that Elmore will "remain in the State 
Penitentiary in Walla Walla for the rest of his life."

That will be true even if the next governor lifts the moratorium.

(source: Los Angeles Times)

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

The death penalty: Some crimes deserve death


Re: "Governor's quiet reprieve of death-row murderer draws ire from many 
directions." (TNT, 12/31)

Our governor, Jay Inslee, has rejected the effectiveness of the death penalty. 
Is that the result of decades of research, or, is it the result of cowardice on 
the part of our state's justice system? Maybe it is the slowness of the justice 
system that creates such a costly and undesirable procedure.

If a person is found guilty of a heinous crime, why do we take so much time to 
carry out the required penalty? Decide what it means to commit a capital crime, 
then perform the punishment in a reasonable time period. Stop delaying the 
death penalty for years and decades.

There are 2 problems: One, the crime requires legitimate witnesses. If there 
are no witnesses, there is no capital crime. Two, there must be supporting 
circumstantial evidence. When witnesses and evidence agree, then there is 
reason for the death penalty.

All crimes deserve full investigation. Some deserve leniency. Some deserve the 
full weight of the law. Please do not reject the need for the death penalty.

Douglas Leander, Tacoma

(source: Letter to the Editor, The News Tribune)






USA:

A Racial-Justice Argument Against Killing Dylann Roof----When we grant states 
the right to kill its citizens, we are accepting all forms of state-sanctioned 
violence.


On Wednesday, January 11, white supremacist Dylann Roof was sentenced to death 
for the mass murder he perpetrated on June 17, 2015, taking the lives of nine 
innocent black parishioners at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church 
in Charleston, South Carolina.

Many are lauding what may feel like true justice. The atrocity Roof committed 
is beyond appalling. His total lack of remorse only compounds the horror. And, 
in a nation where all too often white killers of black people walk free, it's 
understandable that some might feel a measure of satisfaction at Roof's 
receiving the ultimate punishment.

And yet, I am firmly against the death penalty for Dylann Roof. It's not a 
matter of Roof's innocence or guilt - clearly, he is guilty. It's not a 
question of the gravity of his crimes, or whether Roof epitomizes the "worst of 
the worst." My opposition is rooted in the deep belief that as a society, we 
will not be better off for executing Roof. In fact, by killing Roof, we will 
have further endangered the very black and brown communities that Roof so 
brutally attacked.

10 weeks before Roof committed mass murder, Walter Scott, an unarmed black man, 
was killed by police officer Michael Slager. The killing of Scott (just miles 
away from where Roof wreaked mayhem) illustrates the core reason I oppose the 
death penalty: When we grant states the right to kill its citizens, we are 
accepting all forms of state-sanctioned violence. Police killings, mass 
incarceration, surveillance, immigration raids, stop and frisk, and other 
methods of repressive social and racial control are part of the same 
destructive system in which capital punishment is the sharpest edge.

I am aware that the families of Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance, 
DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Clementa Pinckney, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel Simmons 
Sr., Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, and Myra Thompson (Roof's victims) do not hold 
one opinion about Roof's sentence. Some feel justice has been served, others 
have spoken out against the decision, and many are deeply conflicted. But 
having been closely connected to multiple death-penalty cases (including that 
of Troy Davis and Reggie Clemons), I have seen all too closely the additional 
harm that the death penalty inflicts on all of the families involved.

In Roof's case, the victims' families can expect to be continually 
re-traumatized as the appeals drag on. Rather than the case being closed and 
healing allowed to begin, the justice they were promised will take years - 
perhaps decades - to be delivered. And in the end, if the state is successful 
in putting Dylann Roof to death, I dare imagine that the families - even those 
who wanted this outcome - will feel the loss of their loved ones just as 
acutely. Perhaps most tragically, we will be continuing on a national 
trajectory that ensures more families will feel their pain, because executing 
Roof will not deter future racist murderers - it will embolden them.

Though Roof is white, the system that would kill him disproportionately targets 
black and brown bodies. Violence by the state, which all too often is used as a 
form of racial and social control, paves the way for civilians to perpetrate 
the same violence. If our society did not permit, for example, the police 
killing of Aiyana Stanley-Jones, a black 7-year-old who was killed while in her 
bed in Detroit, vigilante George Zimmerman may not have accosted and killed 
17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida. Had Joseph Weekley (the officer who 
killed Jones) and Zimmerman been held accountable for their actions, perhaps 
Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Deborah Danner would be alive today. Perhaps 
Jordan Davis, shot and killed at a gas station by Michael Dunn, would be as 
well.

Capital punishment is the most premeditated form of state homicide and the most 
chilling. The precise time, place, and exact method of taking a human's life is 
determined in advance, and announced for public consumption. Each moment 
leading up to the execution is scripted in meticulous detail. Multiple agents 
of the state are involved in the killing - many of whom report symptoms of 
post-traumatic stress in its aftermath.

This pinnacle of state violence has deep-reaching tentacles. It is no 
coincidence that states with the death penalty have higher rates of homicide 
than states without capital punishment, according to the Death Penalty 
Information Center. And when examining who the death penalty impacts the most 
severely, the same patterns emerge as when examining other forms of state 
violence: Black and poor people are disproportionately targeted. The violence 
of our state is expressed towards certain communities and citizens - and is 
embodied by others.

The state-sanctioned killing of Dylann Roof will enable us as a society to 
breed more Michael Slagers, more Joseph Weekleys, more George Zimmermans, and 
more Dylann Roofs.

(source: Jen Marlowe, The Nation)

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

Judge grants prosecutors their own evaluation of alleged Pa. CO 
killer----Recent claims Jessie Con-ui could have a mental condition will be 
vetted by federal prosecutors' own experts following a judge's ruling


Recent claims Jessie Con-ui could have a mental condition will be vetted by 
federal prosecutors' own experts following a judge's ruling Friday in the 
convicted killer's upcoming capital murder case. Federal prosecutors last year 
announced their intention to seek the death penalty against Con-ui, 39, if he's 
convicted later this year for the 2013 murder of Corrections Officer Eric 
Williams, of Nanticoke, inside U.S. Penitentiary at Canaan.

Con-ui, a New Mexican Mafia gang member who was serving life behind bars for 
murdering a rival gang member in Arizona, killed again when he ambushed 
Williams and kicked him down a flight of stairs before he beat and stabbed him 
to death, federal prosecutors allege.

Con-ui's attorneys haven't disputed that Con-ui killed Williams, but are vying 
to spare him from being put to death.

In laying the groundwork for a defense against the penalty, Con-ui provided 
notice he'd introduce evidence relating to a potential "mental disease or 
defect" in November and has since been evaluated by multiple experts, but 
prosecutors now say they want their own doctors to weigh in.

"In order to independently determine the merits of (Con-ui's) claim, and to 
prepare for possible rebuttal testimony, the United States needs to have its 
experts evaluate (Con-ui)," prosecutors said in the federal court motion, 
granted Friday afternoon by U.S. District Judge A. Richard Caputo.

Con-ui's trial is slated for April 27 at the federal courthouse in 
Wilkes-Barre.

Con-ui remains jailed at ADX Florence, a supermaximum federal prison in 
Colorado.

(source: correctionsone.com)