[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., VA., N.C., OHIO, KY., COLO.

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 18



PENNSYLVANIA:

Prosecutor: Death penalty defendant took shelter, food and then killed


Jeffrey Knoble was homeless and desperate, according to a prosecutor. He was 
running from police and had nowhere to go.

Andrew "Beep" White felt sorry for him. And that was his undoing, according to 
Northampton County First Deputy District Attorney Terence Houck.

White put the 27-year-old Riegelsville man up at the former Quality Inn in 
Easton on March 10, 2015. Early the next morning Knoble shot his 32-year-old 
benefactor.

"'Beep' as he was known was a gentle, giving person," Houck said. "He wanted 
nothing more than to see his family and friends have a roof over their heads 
and food in their stomachs and on March 11, 2015, that was his crime. That's 
what he was judged for, that's what he was convicted of and that's what he was 
put to death for."

Knoble faces the death penalty. The much-anticipated opening arguments in his 
trial came Wednesday after nearly 2 years of delays, complaints, outbursts and 
excuses from Knoble in court.

His defense strategy remains unclear. Defense attorney Gavin Holihan deferred 
his opening statement until later in the trial, which is expected to last at 
least 2 weeks.

Knoble called his former attorneys "corrupt" and used profanity previously in 
court. With Houck staring him down and pointing at him, Knoble didn't flinch 
Wednesday.

About 40 friends, family members and supporters of White crowded the left side 
of the courtroom. A handful of court employees and an overflow of White 
supporters took up the right side.

Houck said Knoble's 2-day crime spree started when he stole his 
then-girlfirend's rental car. Police found it abandoned in Williams Township 
with 4 bullet holes in the side.

Knoble knew police were after him. So he called "Beep," Houck said.

White was putting up a female friend and her child at his home. She refused to 
allow Knoble to join them, so White agreed to put Knoble up in the hotel. A 
surveillance camera at the Wawa across the street shows White bought Knoble a 
sandwich wrap so he would have something to eat.

A surveillance camera at the hotel shows the last moments of White's life as he 
heads for his room, Houck said.

"You'll see him so very full of life, oblivious of the fact that the person he 
is providing shelter to, the person he is feeding will be shortly ending his 
life," Houck told the jurors.

Police would later find 2 videos on Knoble's cell phone that show a naked, 
bound White covered in blood. Houck said Knoble shot him in the head through a 
pillow to muffle the sound. On the video, Knoble says, "I do what I want."

"Folks, they are 5 words that show intent to kill," Houck said.

On March 11 Knoble left the hotel room wearing White's coat and holding White's 
phone.

He called his mother, Lori Knoble, to get new clothes. She was horrified when 
he got in her car and, according to Houck, said, "We're safe. I killed him." 
She said she saw her son's video of White dead but wasn't sure whether it was a 
fake.

When he allegedly told her "I'm going to shoot this out with the cops. I'm 
going to kill them. I'm going to kill the police," a hysterical Lori Knoble 
kicked him out of the car and called police.

Jeffrey Knoble headed back to the hotel, where he stayed for three hours as 
police tried to make sense of Lori Knoble's tale.

"She was beside herself. The police don't know what to think. Is this woman 
crazy?" Houck asked.

Later, police tracked down Knoble at his mother's house in the 1200 block of 
Liberty Street, where a standoff occurred. They charged him with threatening 
police.

White's house guest saw the report on the news and called police wondering 
whether White was in danger. Police went to the hotel room and that's when they 
found the body and realized there had been a killing, Houck said.

"They get a room key, they go up, and there he is. Lying on the bed, a trail of 
blood from his head to the floor as he lay on the bed, naked," Houck said. "Now 
they know everything (Lori Knoble) said was true."

The case was further solidified when police found the murder weapon in a false 
wall in Lori Knoble's attic, authorities said. White's coat and phone were also 
in her house.

"You'll see the evidence. You'll see the ballistics," Houck told jurors. "I'm 
going to join you again at the end of this trial. I'm going to ask you to do 
what I wanted you to do from the first moment I met you. I'm going to ask you 
to return a verdict that his evidence screams for. Guilty."

Houck turned, pointed at Knoble and glared at him.

"Guilty. 1st-degree murder," he said. "You robbed this man. You terrorized 
police. You took this car without permission and you ruined it."

(source: lehighvalleylive.com)






VIRGINIA----impending execution

Emergency stay request from Ricky Gray before U.S. Supreme Court


The Virginia Attorney General's office is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to 
reject an 11th hour stay request from Ricky Javon Gray, set to die tonight for 
the 2006 slayings of 2 young Richmond sisters.

Gray's lawyers filed the request Tuesday alleging that 2 drugs made by a 
compounding pharmacy - not manufactured by a pharmaceutical company - that the 
Virginia Department of Corrections plans to use on Gray risk chemically 
torturing him in violation of his protection against cruel and unusual 
punishment.

But the attorney general's office complained in a brief filed with the high 
court that, "Despite the decade he has spent on death row, Gray waited until 35 
days before his scheduled execution to challenge the compounded drugs Virginia 
procured for his execution."

The state argued that U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson held an evidentiary 
hearing and ruled that Gray was not entitled to a preliminary injunction 
stopping the execution so his drug concerns could be further litigated. 
Hudson's ruling was upheld without comment by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of 
Appeals on Friday.

The wake of Ricky Javon Gray's murder rampage that claimed two Richmond 
families 11 years ago leads tonight to the death house at the Greensville 
Correctional Center.

"The timing of Gray's challenge left (Hudson) with 'little doubt that the real 
purpose behind his claim is to seek a delay of his execution, not merely to 
effect an alteration in the manner in which it is carried out,'" wrote the 
attorney general.

Gray's lawyers complained Wednesday that the attorney general's position makes 
it clear the state is "intent on 'running out the clock' on Mr. Gray, seeking 
to execute him before they are required to respond to his complaint challenging 
the method of execution that they seek to use to kill him."

"All that he seeks in this case is a stay to permit his constitutional claims 
to be fully and fairly litigated," argue Gray's lawyers.

The state's "accusation that Mr. Gray was late in bringing this constitutional 
challenge is stunning. It mischaracterizes the factual and procedural history 
of this case, and it wrongly suggests that this case is a last-minute act of 
desperation aimed at sparing his life," wrote Gray's lawyers.

They said Gray could not start his challenge of the drugs until the state 
revealed what it intended to use in October.

States that conduct lethal injections have been unable to obtain the necessary 
drugs from pharmaceutical manufactures which no longer make them available for 
executions. In response, Virginia law was changed allowing the state to obtain 
the required drugs from a compounding pharmacy and to keep the identity of the 
pharmacy confidential.

An expert testified for the state that compounding drugs was a safe and common 
practice and that the planned use of them in an execution should not cause a 
problem. Gray's experts testified compounded drugs represented a number of 
potential problems.

Virginia uses a 3-drug procedure, as do some other states. The 1st drug is 
intended to render the inmate unconscious, the 2nd to cause paralysis, and the 
drd stops the heart.

Chemicals authorized for use by the department of corrections' execution manual 
include midazolam, sodium thiopental or pentobarbital for use as the 1st drug; 
rocuronium bromide or pancuronium bromide as the 2nd; and potassium chloride as 
the final drug.

For Gray's execution the state plans to use midazolam and potassium chloride 
made by a licensed compounding pharmacy in Virginia and tested monthly to 
verify identity and potency.

The chemicals are injected into 1 of 2 intravenous lines - the 2nd line is a 
backup - with a saline flush following the injection of each chemical. 2 
minutes after the 1st saline flush, the inmate is pinched or otherwise tested 
to make sure he or she is unconscious.

Critics contend that if the st drug fails to render the inmates unconscious, 
they could be awake but paralyzed by the 2nd drug and unable to signal they are 
suffering pain. Compounded midazolam has never been used in an execution 
before, say Gray's lawyers.

Carl Tobias, a professor at the university of Richmond School of law, said 
Tuesday that, "It seems unlikely that (the high court) will grant Gray's 
request for a stay for several reasons."

Tobias said, "The Justices might concomitantly take into account Judge Hudson's 
hearing and full decision denying Gray relief and the 4th Circuit's rapid, 
terse disposition of Gray's appeal from Hudson's ruling."

Gray, 39, was sentenced to die for the Jan. 1, 2006, slayings of Ruby Harvey, 
4, and Stella Harvey, 9. He also killed their parents, Bryan Harvey, 49, and 
Kathryn Harvey, 39, in their South Richmond home.

Less than a week later, Gray and accomplice Ray Dandridge, 39, killed Ashley 
Baskerville, 21; Baskerville's mother, Mary Tucker, 47; and stepfather, 
Percyell Tucker, 55, in their Richmond home. Ray Dandridge, his nephew and 
accomplice, was sentenced to life.

(source: Richmond Times-Dispatch)

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

Virginia set to execute man with controversial drug


If death row inmate Ricky Gray is executed in Virginia on Wednesday evening, he 
will be injected with a controversial drug obtained as part of a process 
shrouded in secrecy.

Virginia's Department of Corrections has never used midazolam, which has been 
involved in several prolonged and apparently painful executions in other 
states. Virginia procured the drug from a compounding pharmacy whose name is 
shielded from the public.

Attorneys for Gray, who murdered a well-loved Richmond couple and their young 
daughters in 2006, filed an emergency application for a stay of execution 
Tuesday with the U.S. Supreme Court, after Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) declined to 
commute his sentence.

"It is the Governor's responsibility to ensure that the laws of the 
Commonwealth are properly carried out unless circumstances merit a stay or 
commutation of the sentence," said a statement from McAuliffe, who is opposed 
to the death penalty but has promised to uphold the state???s capital 
punishment law. "After extensive review and deliberation, I have found no such 
circumstances."

McAuliffe's refusal came after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th 
Circuitdeclined last week to halt the execution.

"Ricky's execution will serve no purpose other than retribution," Gray's 
attorneys, Jon Sheldon and Rob Lee, said in a statement after McAuliffe 
announced his decision. "We regret that he will no longer be able to try to 
make amends for his past wrongs."

The execution of Gray, 39, would be the 1st since October 2015 and the 1st to 
take place since the state passed a law to keep secret the identities of 
pharmacies that produce the lethal drugs, as a way to protect them from 
political pressure.

Gray has admitted that, with help from his nephew Ray Dandridge, he beat his 
wife to death with a lead pipe and dumped her body on a hill in Washington, Pa. 
in October 2005. 3 months later, on New Year's Eve, they attacked Ryan Carey as 
he walked from his car to his parents' home in Arlington, stabbing him multiple 
times, according to Gray's confession. Carey ran into the home and survived, 
but he permanently lost the use of his right arm.

The next day, as the Harvey family in Richmond prepared for its New Year's Day 
party, Gray and Dandridge entered their home through an unlocked door. They 
brought Kathryn, Bryan, 9-year-old Stella and 4-year-old Ruby to the basement, 
tied them up and taped their mouths closed. After ransacking the house, Gray 
cut every family member's throat. He bludgeoned them with claw hammers. Then he 
poured 2 bottles of wine over an easel and lit a match, setting the basement on 
fire. The men left with some electronics, a wedding ring and a plate of 
homemade cookies.

The scene was so awful that when homicide detectives arrived, they cried.

Gray and Dandridge say 21-year-old Ashley Baskerville helped them target the 
Harveys and hide after the murders. A week later, they planned to attack 
Baskerville's mother and stepfather. They were bound, stabbed, then gagged and 
suffocated in their home. So was Baskerville, who Gray reportedly complained 
was nagging him for money.

Advocates against the death penalty argue that Gray's crimes are irrelevant to 
the concerns regarding midazolam, a drug normally prescribed for anxiety and 
minor surgery.

"One of the hallmarks of constitutional safeguards is that they exist to 
protect everybody," said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty 
Information Center. "One does not get to torture somebody because you don't 
like what they've been convicted of doing."

In 5 out of 19 executions in which midazolam has been used since its 
introduction in 2014, according to statistics compiled by the Death Penalty 
Information Center, the condemned person has shown signs of pain or difficulty 
breathing and has taken longer to die than expected.

Although use of the drug in executions was narrowly upheld by the Supreme 
Court, the pharmacologist who testified in favor of its use relied heavily on 
the consumer website drugs.com. Arizona has pledged to stop using midazolam.

Because of the way the drug affects the brain, experts say, there's a limit on 
how effective even a massive dose can be.

"It's used to decrease anxiety - it's not used by itself to produce 
anesthesia," said S. Stevens Negus, a professor of pharmacology at Virginia 
Commonwealth University and 1 of 16 pharmacologists who told the Supreme Court 
that midazolam was not being used appropriately in executions. "It will produce 
relaxation and that relaxation may be sufficiently severe to produce sleep, but 
in studies we've conducted, it does not eliminate sensation to pain."

In Virginia, midazolam will be used as the first drug in a three-drug protocol, 
along with rocuronium bromide to cause paralysis and potassium chloride to stop 
the heart. The 1st and 3rd drugs were produced by a compounding pharmacy; under 
a 2016 state law, the name and other particulars are kept secret.

A spokesman for the Virginia Department of Corrections said a similar protocol 
has "been used successfully ... many times in states like Florida."

Gray's lawyers also say his traumatic upbringing and drug use was not fully 
explained or appreciated when he was sentenced to death. In a video released 
last week, family members say that as a child, Gray was beaten by his father 
almost daily with cords, pipes, and a leather belt labeled with Ricky's name. 
He was violently raped by an older brother almost as often. Gray began using 
PCP as a small child and was high on the drug during his killing spree.

"Remorse is not a deep enough word for how I feel," Gray says in the video. "I 
robbed them of a lifelong supply of joy. I've stolen Christmas, birthdays, and 
Easters, Thanksgivings, graduations, and weddings, children. ... I'm sorry they 
had to be a victim of my despair."

2 of Gray's nieces say in the video that since going to prison, Gray has become 
a father figure, encouraging them to do well in school and stay out of trouble.

"If he was executed ... I would just lose all my motivation, I just wouldn't 
even have a purpose anymore," one niece says.

Last week, lawyers for Gray presented the evidence of abuse to Judge Henry 
Hudson, who ruled that Gray failed to prove that use of midazolam, compounded 
or otherwise, is unconstitutional. Moreover, he said that Virginia offers all 
prisoners a constitutional alternative: the electric chair.

(source: Washington Post)






NORTH CAROLINA:

Man faces death penalty if convicted in Iredell Co. homicide, kidnapping


A man accused of killing a woman and kidnapping her daughter in Iredell County 
last month faces the death penalty if convicted, sources confirmed Wednesday.

Gary Stephen Love, 47, faces the death penalty if convicted of murder, sexual 
assault and kidnapping.

Iredell deputies responded to a welfare check around 7:30 a.m. Dec. 26 at a 
home on Cool Springs Road, where they found 46-year-old Robin Denman dead and 
her 14-year-old daughter who said she'd been tied up for days.

Denman knew Love, deputies say.

Deputies made the trip to the Statesville home after the 14-year-old texted a 
friend saying she needed help.

When deputies arrived they talked to Love and asked about the whereabouts of 
Denman and her daughter. Love reportedly told them the 2 were at a funeral. 
Deputies said Love then ran from the house but was found, and taken into 
custody.

Deputies say they looked through the house and found Denman's body "concealed" 
inside.

While deputies were investigating, Denman's 14-year-old daughter was found in a 
"hysterical" state. She told officials she ran from the house when she heard 
cars pull up, not knowing it was law enforcement.

The teen told deputies Love tied her up and had been holding her in the house 
since Christmas Eve, which was the last time she saw her mother.

According to Iredell County detectives, Love has only been in North Carolina 
for about 90 days. They believe Love and Denman knew each other when they lived 
in New York.

Love is also accused of sexual assault in the case.

He had an outstanding warrant in Ohio for domestic violence related charges and 
had an active protection order against him.

(source: WBTV news)

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

Gary Love to face death penalty if found guilty


The man accused of murdering a woman and kidnapping and sexually assaulting her 
14-year-old daughter will face the death penalty if found guilty.

Gary Love is accused of killing a 46-year-old woman, as well as binding and 
sexually assaulting her 14-year-old daughter inside the child's own home. Love, 
who was described as a family friend, had been staying with the family for 
several months when the incident occurred.

Initially arrested on held on the charge of murder, Love is now facing 10 
counts felony statutory sex offense with a child less than 15-year-sold, 1 
count of felony 1st-degree kidnapping, felony indecent liberties with a child, 
felony sexual servitude with child victim and one count of assault on a female.

In addition to being held without the opportunity for bond on the initial 
murder charge, Love received a $3 million secured bond for the new charges.

(source: WCNC news)






OHIO:

Death row inmate Jalowiec seeks new sentencing after court ruling


Lawyers for convicted killer Stanley Jalowiec have asked a county judge to 
order a new sentencing hearing for the death row inmate.

The request, filed last week in Lorain County Common Pleas Court, argues that a 
recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling should render the process Ohio judges use to 
determine whether a death sentence should be imposed unconstitutional.

Richard Cline, chief counsel for the Ohio Public Defender's Office Death 
Penalty Department, wrote in his court filing that the Supreme Court has ruled 
that Florida's death penalty law was unconstitutional because it requires "the 
judge, not the jury, to make the factual determinations necessary to support a 
sentence of death."

Ohio follows much the same pattern with a jury recommending to a judge whether 
to impose a death sentence, he argued. If even 1 juror doesn't recommend death, 
the defendant in the case receives a life prison sentence.

If the jury unanimously recommends a death sentence, the final decision lies 
with the judge hearing the case, who can follow the jury's recommendation or 
decide not to impose a death sentence.

Cline said Tuesday that the law doesn't require the judge to make actual 
findings to support his decision, something he argued the new Supreme Court 
ruling requires.

Since such findings weren't done when Jalowiec was sentenced to death in 1996, 
he is entitled to a new sentencing hearing, Cline argued.

County Prosecutor Dennis Will said the difference between the Florida case and 
what happens in Ohio is that in Florida a judge imposed a death sentence 
despite a jury recommending against it. That can't happen under Ohio law he 
said, adding that Ohio courts have already rejected the arguments being raised 
by Jalowiec's legal team.

"I don't think there's any merit to his argument," Will said.

Jalowiec has long denied that he was involved in the killing of police 
informant Ronald Lally in 1994. The body of Lally, who had been shot, stabbed, 
beaten and run over by a car, was found in a Cleveland cemetery.

Jalowiec's lawyers unsuccessfully tried to have his conviction overturned by 
arguing there was police and prosecutorial misconduct in the case, but judges 
have rejected those allegations.

Jalowiec has claimed he was at his mother's home at the time of the killing, 
which also led the conviction of Raymond Smith, whose death sentence was 
reduced to a life prison term after he was found to be mentally handicapped.

Daniel Smith, Raymond Smith's son, also was charged in the killing but was 
acquitted in the case.

(source: The Chronicle-Telegram)






KENTUCKY:

Brice Rhodes an issue for execution foes


You see Brice Rhodes and his unnerving smirk on television and in the newspaper 
and you think of the things he's accused of doing. It's difficult not to 
despise him.

It's also hard not to think that the world would be better off without him.

The Rev. Pat Delahanty, Kentucky's leading death penalty foe, has been fighting 
to keep people like him alive for more than 3 decades.

Police and prosecutors say Rhodes is a 3-time killer - 2 of his victims teenage 
brothers whom he lured to his mother's apartment before stabbing the boys 
multiple times and then ordering 2 teenage accomplices to stab them more. They 
say he then dumped their lifeless bodies in an abandoned lot.

All so they couldn't snitch on him for the other murder he allegedly committed.

Prosecutors say Rhodes tried to throw urine on a corrections officer, 
threatened another one and assaulted an inmate. He allegedly spat on his former 
lawyer and threatened him. He told a judge in open court that he would track 
her down and kill her and her family once he gets out.

Most recently, prosecutors said he tried to dig his way out of his cell at 
Metro Corrections.

His evil is palpable.

His defiance so pervasive, he's got to be hauled into court wearing a Hannibal 
Lecter-type mask to keep him from spitting on people, and strapped to a chair 
so he can't attack anyone.

Prosecutors haven't said if they will seek the death penalty against him, but 
he seems like a perfect example of why some people believe the death penalty 
ought to exist. If he did what prosecutors claim, he is, by all appearances, an 
unrepentant killer.

Delahanty, who is chairman of the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death 
Penalty, says none of that should matter. He argues that no one but God should 
take a life, that the death penalty is too expensive to impose and from a 
perspective that is designed to appeal to conservatives - if government has 
trouble keeping potholes filled, why should we trust it to make such life and 
death decisions.

The case of Rhodes is troubling. In 2013, his mother called the police after 
she said Rhodes beat her with his fists and his feet and then with a wooden 
chair. It wasn't the only time that he allegedly hit her.

A year later, he pulled her hair, grabbed her around the neck and threw her to 
the ground, she told police. He's had drug charges in the past as well as a 
theft charge. But the violence of a man who struggled to keep his temper 
allegedly exploded last year.

Brandon McLeod, the attorney who represented Rhodes briefly until he learned 
that the 2 dead teenagers were the grandchildren of a friend, said he doesn't 
know Rhodes well but has known his mother for years and isn't aware of anything 
in Rhodes' upbringing that would portend such wickedness.

"She is a very good person," he said of Shawna Rhodes, Brice Rhodes' mother. 
"She's just a nice, hard-working lady."

As death penalty opponents gear up for yet another attempt to end the death 
penalty in Kentucky during the 2017 General Assembly - this time with 
Republicans planning to sponsor bills in both houses - the specter of Brice 
Rhodes will hang over that effort, which remains unlikely to succeed in the 
near term. 6 states have abolished the death penalty since 2007, but Kentucky 
opponents have met with little success, getting a committee hearing on an 
abolition bill for just the 1st time last year.

Delahanty said for years, legislators have pointed to particularly heinous 
cases to justify their support for the death penalty, which hasn't been carried 
out in Kentucky since 2008 when Marco Allen Chapman was given a lethal 
injection for murdering 2 children and stabbing their mother and sister.

There have always been bad people who seem to cry out for death. The worst in 
Kentucky may be Robert Foley, who is serving 2 death sentences for killing 6 
people in Laurel County more than 2 decades ago. 4 of them, Foley buried in a 
septic tank.

It's hard for someone who's a bit ambivalent about the death penalty - someone 
who worries about the inequities of it, who fears that the system isn't perfect 
and an innocent person could be killed, who just isn't sure government should 
be in the business of killing - not to pause when they think about someone like 
Foley or Rhodes.

But Delahanty argues that it really shouldn't matter, that the core problems 
with the death penalty still persist.

He doesn't even try to defend Rhodes or argue for his mercy. Some things are 
indefensible.

(source: The Courier-Journa;)






COLORADO:

On proposed Colorado death penalty repeal, some key questions


Senate Minority Leader Lucia Guzman, a Denver Democrat and a Methodist pastor, 
plans to introduce a death penalty repeal bill this week. It will be an uphill 
climb in Colorado. Here are some points to consider as the effort unfolds.

Elections

The opening will be gone in a flash. Elections season is barely behind us, but 
the next major legislative elections will be held in 2018 - or as the new old 
saying goes: "2 years is the new 2 weeks! Put down that coffee, fool, and start 
knocking doors!"

It will difficult to get Democrats in swing districts to go on the record in 
support of a death penalty repeal. It will be way more difficult to get 
Republicans to go on the record in support.

Guzman

Guzman may be exactly the right figure to lead the effort. Chosen by her 
Democratic colleagues to head the Senate caucus for the second year in a row, 
Guzman derives her strength as a leader for the personal respect and affection 
she engenders on both sides of the aisle. She is praised by lawmakers for the 
thoughtful approach she brings to issues and has been lauded for working hard 
to fully consider opposing views. With Guzman leading the repeal effort, the 
conversation might get the kind of head start through which it could shed hours 
of calendar time that otherwise would be filled with posturing and point 
making.

Guzman reportedly has been working for some time quietly behind the scenes 
building support. So, who has she brought around?

Hickenlooper

When Hickenlooper won the governorship, he supported the death penalty. Then, 
in 2013, he was faced with signing off on the execution of convicted killer 
Nathan Dunlap. Hickenlooper was deeply conflicted. Ultimately, he granted 
Dunlap a reprieve, a move that drew harsh criticism as soft for the fact that 
it signaled his opposition to capital punishment as it is practiced today even 
as it left Dunlap subject to the leanings of the state's next governor.

Hickenlooper has since firmed up his stance. He announced that he will not sign 
off on new executions. He is also term limited and so more free to make big 
statements on controversial issues. The governor might be all the more 
influential as a champion of the Guzman repeal for the fact that, out of 
conviction, he has endured the political slings and arrows of a very public 
evolution on the matter.

Fields

What about former Aurora state Rep. and freshman Democratic Sen. Rhonda Fields? 
Has Guzman won her over?

Fields is a dependably liberal lawmaker, but she has made repeat headlines for 
powerfully opposing efforts to repeal the death penalty in Colorado. Her 
opposition is passionate and articulate and tied to personal tragedy.

2 of the 3 inmates on death row in Colorado landed there for gunning down 
Fields' son, Javad Marshall-Fields, and his fiance, Vivian Wolfe. The 2 were 
killed on a street corner to prevent Marshall-Fields from testifying in a 
gangland murder case.

Fields told Westword that the 2012 movement to repeal the death penalty felt 
like a "slap in the face." She also noted that, in the wake of the chilling 
Aurora Theater massacre, the effort would send the wrong message to a shocked 
and reeling nation. "I think it's an insult to crime victims," she said. "I 
don't think the timing is right."

Maybe now the timing is right. It would be an enormous win for Guzman and the 
repeal effort if Fields came out in support.

Priola, and frustrated Republicans

What about quiet Republican Senate support? Republicans control the upper 
chamber and can see to it through committee assignment that any progress the 
bill might win early on is halted long before it can make it to the floor for a 
vote.

But Guzman may have at least 1 like-minded colleague across the aisle and, who 
knows, careful negotiation might bring support from unexpected quarters.

Former Henderson state Rep. and freshman Sen. Kevin Priola, a devout Catholic, 
in 2012 joined with Democratic House colleagues to sponsor a death penalty 
repeal bill. Priola has won election after election in tough districts in tough 
years and last year won a top legislative race for carefully watched swing 
Senate District 25.

Other Republicans are deeply frustrated with the current state of the death 
penalty in Colorado.

Sen. Kevin Lundberg a Berthoud Republican, is one of the strong veteran 
conservatives in the chamber. Last year he ran a bill that echoed frustration 
felt in many corners of the state when James Holmes, the Aurora Theater 
shooter, received a life sentence without parole. His Senate Bill 64 aimed to 
eliminate the state requirement that 12 jurors unanimously agree to impose a 
death penalty. The bill died in committee. Guzman strongly opposed it.

But the bill clearly came from Lundberg's heart. He told The Colorado Statesman 
after the hearing last year that the state's death penalty system no longer 
functioned and had become policy in name only. "Is the death penalty in 
Colorado a reality or is it a fiction?" he said, shaking his head.

The current state of the death penalty is surely a continuing, if not gnawing, 
source of dissatisfaction for him. There was a sense in the way Lundberg talked 
about it that suggested he felt the state was not being straight with its 
residents. That would still be the case in his mind, given that nothing in 
regard to the policy has changed, and so it might be the kind of sentiment in 
which Guzman could find a door to open onto an alternate reality Colorado 
Senate that might advance her bill.

(source: The Colorado Statesman)