[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----KAN., NEB., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 28



KANSAS:

Becker launches new bid to eliminate death penalty


Rep. Steven Becker, R-Buhler, is beginning anew a campaign to abolish the death 
penalty in Kansas.

"I'm on a quest to accomplish this," said Becker, who began his efforts in 
2013, his 1st year in the House.

When a bill in 2015 failed to get a hearing in the House Judiciary Committee, 
Becker began 2016 with a strategy to start the bill through the House 
Corrections and Juvenile Justice Committee. However, then-Speaker Ray Merrick, 
R-Stilwell, assigned it to Judiciary, where it died without a hearing.

This is a new session, new leadership, new members.

On Wednesday, a death penalty bill, House Bill 2167, was introduced bearing the 
names of 15 sponsors. All 3 political factions in the House - conservative 
Republicans, moderate Republicans, and Democrats - are represented on the list 
of sponsors, according to Becker.

There are Republicans: Reps. Becker, Tory Marie Arnberger, Great Bend; Susan 
Concannon, Beloit; Diana Dierks, Salina; Mike Houser, Columbus; Jan Kessinger, 
Overland Park; Joy Koesten, Leawood; and Bill Sutton, Gardner. And Democrats: 
Reps. Tim Hodge, North Newton; John Carmichael, Wichita; Broderick Henderson, 
Kansas City; Boog Highberger, Lawrence; Eber Phelps, Hays; Annie Kuether, 
Topeka; and Tom Sawyer, Wichita.

The bill would create the crime of aggravated murder with sentencing of 
imprisonment for life without the possibility of parole.

It would not be retroactive. It states: "No person shall be sentenced to death 
for a crime committed on or after July 1, 2017." Any person sentenced before 
that date may be put to death, the bill reads.

Unlike a version Becker promoted in a prior year, this bill does not call for 
creating a death penalty fund for the annual actual or projected cost savings 
from ending the death penalty and giving the Secretary of the Department of 
Corrections discretion over the fund. Savings under this new bill would benefit 
the general fund, he said.

This bill has been assigned to the House Corrections and Juvenile Justice 
Committee. Chairman is Rep. J. Russell Jennings, R-Lakin, who, like Becker, is 
a moderate Republican. The committee's ranking minority member is Highberger, 
one of the bill's sponsors. Also, 3 other sponsors are on the committee - 
Koesten, Kuether and Becker himself. He's hopeful the bill will get a hearing 
and advance to the House floor for a vote.

"I'm an attorney and I see the negatives outweigh the positives" of having a 
death penalty, said freshman Rep. Hodge, a sponsor. "Life imprisonment without 
parole is quite possibly a worse sentencing than death, in some cases."

Kansas has abolished the death penalty before. The current death penalty was 
implemented in July 1994. No one has been executed under that law. The last 
execution in Kansas was in 1965. The Kansas Coalition against the Death Penalty 
argues death penalty cases trigger expensive litigation, punishment is unevenly 
applied and wrongful convictions have occurred.

(source: hutchnews.com)

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

Attorney seeking death penalty for triple shooting suspect


Prosecutors said Friday they plan to seek the death penalty against a 
35-year-old man accused of killing 3 people near Moundridge in October.

"The State has filed a notice to seek the death penalty on Jereme Nelson," 
Harvey County Attorney David Yoder said in an e-mailed news release, referring 
to 1 of 2 people accused in the Oct. 30 shooting deaths of Travis Street, 33; 
Angela Graevs, 37; and Richard Prouty, 52.

The other person implicated is Myrta Rangel, 31. Yoder did not say whether he 
would seek death against her.

Both are charged with capital murder and 3 counts of 1st-degree murder in 
connection with the shootings. Street, Graevs and Prouty were found dead 
outside of a rural home on Spring Lake Road near Moundridge where Street and 
Graevs lived with their 18-month-old son.

The toddler was found inside the home screaming but unharmed after authorities 
were alerted to the killings.

Nelson and Rangel fled to Mexico after allegedly carrying out the shootings. 
They were captured Jan. 12 by Mexican authorities and on Thursday were 
extradited back to Kansas to face charges.

They are awaiting first appearances before Harvey County District Court Judge 
Joe Dickinson.

(source: kansas.com)






NEVADA:

Murder case against Brandy Stutzman, facing death penalty, goes to jury


Brandy Stutzman helped ditch the killer's bloody clothes, sent text messages to 
her husband, knowing he was dead, then feigned surprise when she found his body 
in his northern valley home, prosecutors said Friday.

She had just sent the couple's 5-year-old son off to a park with the man who 
had stabbed Joe Stutzman 15 times, severing his ring finger.

In late 2010, the 31-year-old Las Vegas woman had convinced 19-year-old 
Jeremiah Merriweather to kill 32-year-old Joe Stutzman "because of her sheer 
laziness and pure greed," Chief Deputy District Attorney Michelle Fleck told 
jurors during closing arguments of Brandy Stutzman's death penalty trial.

On Monday, jurors are expected to resume deliberating the case against 
Stutzman, who would be only female on Nevada's death row if the panel decides 
she is guilty of 1st-degree murder and deserves execution.

Stutzman orchestrated at least three plans to have her husband killed and often 
talked about life without him among teenagers she plied with alcohol and drugs 
while Joe Stutzman worked overseas as a military aircraft mechanic, according 
to prosecutors.

"If Joe was dead, I would be happy and set for life with his money," Fleck 
quoted the defendant as saying. "My life would be so much better if he was 
dead."

But defense attorney Josh Tomsheck said Merriweather, who has pleaded guilty to 
1st-degree murder and burglary, killed on his own because he loved Brandy 
Stutzman, her son, and even her 2 dogs, Phoenix and Bella.

Merriweather, who faces 21 years to life in prison, was "motivated under the 
most powerful emotion there is," Tomsheck said. But she didn't feel the same 
for Merriweather.

Brandy Stutzman told police in a 911 call placed by a neighbor that she found 
her husband dead on the afternoon of Nov. 7, 2010, at his Quail Prairie Street 
home. She had been arrested for domestic violence earlier that same year, 
police said at the time, and was living with a friend while the couple tried to 
work things out.

The Stutzman home turned into a disheveled "flop house" while her husband was 
away, and his lucrative work paid for her lifestyle, according to prosecutors, 
who said she also stood to gain $213,000 from Joe Stutzman's life insurance 
policy.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Frank Coumou called Brandy Stutzman the 
"manipulator in chief."

Tomsheck said there was "not a shred of evidence" Brandy Stutzman thought she 
would receive insurance money.

The lawyer also argued that Merriweather killed on his own and without help 
from the defendant.

"This case is fraught with reasonable doubt," he said.

(source: Las Vegas Review-Journal)






CALIFORNIA----death row inmate dies

A man on California death row has been found dead, prison officials say.


James David Majors, 69, was on death row at San Quentin State Prison since 1991 
for the 1989 robbery and 1st-degree murders of 3 people at a Fair Oaks home. 
Majors had come to California from Arizona to buy a pound of methamphetamine.

Majors was convicted in Sacramento County court and was given the death 
penalty.

On Thursday, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation 
reported that Majors had been taken to a nearby hospital. He was later 
pronounced dead.

Authorities are waiting on autopsy results to determine Majors' official cause 
of death.

CDCR says there are currently 749 offenders on California's death row.

(source: CBS news)

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

S.C. Upholds Death Sentence for Parolee in Oakland Robbery-Murder


The California Supreme Court yesterday unanimously affirmed the death sentence 
imposed on a parolee who murdered an Oakland woman while robbing her residence

Justice Carol Corrigan rejected challenges to the conviction of Grayland 
Winbush, and to the death penalty, including the defendant's claim that 
prosecutors challenged potential jurors who were black on account of their 
race.

Winbush was a 19-year-old Berkeley resident when 20-year-old Erika Beeson was 
killed in the apartment she shared with Mario Botello, who was out Christmas 
shopping at the time. Winbush, who had been released from the Youth Authority 
10 days earlier, reportedly committed the murder just hours after the ankle 
bracelet he was required to wear as a condition of his parole stopped 
transmitting.

Winbush knew Botello as a childhood friend of co-defendant Norman Patterson, 
whose sister was married to Winbush's brother, according to testimony. 
Patterson was convicted in a joint trial with Winbush and sentenced to life 
imprisonment without parole.

Prosecutors presented evidence that the pair stole a shotgun, $300 and some 
stereo equipment, and strangled and stabbed Beeson. Patterson, after being 
arrested in connection with another crime, confessed to the killing and 
implicated Winbush.

Winbush's appeal emphasized a claim that prosecutors improperly exercised three 
peremptory challenges against African Americans because of race, resulting in a 
jury that did not include a single black juror or alternate. Alameda Superior 
Court Judge Jeffrey W. Horner denied the defense challenges, concluding that 
prosecutors had given non-pretextual, race-neutral reasons for the strikes.

One panelist, they said, was stricken because he had expressed ambivalent 
feelings about the death penalty, and seemed unfriendly toward law enforcement. 
The others expressed views that the criminal justice system treats indigent 
defendants and minorities less favorably than others, and one of them had 
served as foreperson of a hung jury.

Corrigan said Horner's evaluation of the strikes was reasonable, rejecting the 
claim that the views of the stricken jurors were similar to those of jurors 
whom the prosecutors accepted. While the stricken panelists were not the only 
ones who expressed concerns about the treatment of minorities, their responses 
to other questions would have led a reasonable prosecutor to believe they were 
more likely to convict, for reasons having nothing to do with race, the justice 
concluded.

The case is People v. Winbush, 17 S.O.S. 369.

(source: metnews.com)

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

Death Sentence In Oakland Murder Upheld


The California Supreme Court has unanimously upheld the death sentence of a man 
who murdered a 20-year-old woman in her Oakland apartment in 1996.

Grayland Winbush, 40, was convicted in Alameda County Superior Court in 2003 
and given the death penalty for murdering Erika Beeson during a robbery on the 
evening of Dec. 22, 1996.

Beeson was found beaten, strangled with a belt and stabbed. Her boyfriend's 
shotgun, some marijuana and other items were missing.

Winbush, then 19, who grew up in South Berkeley, had been released 10 days 
earlier from the California Youth Authority, where he spent 4 years in custody 
after being arrested for driving a stolen car.

Police later found that Winbush's ankle monitoring bracelet was disconnected 
between the evening of the murder and Christmas Day.

Beeson's boyfriend, Mario Botello, and other witnesses at the trial testified 
that Winbush had asked Botello several times to get him a gun he could use in a 
robbery, and that Botello sought to put him off. Botello was out Christmas 
shopping at the time of the slaying.

Winbush's brother-in-law, Norman Patterson, who admitted being present at the 
murder, was tried and convicted in the same trial and was sentenced to life in 
prison without parole.

Winbush was arrested in May 1997 after Patterson was apprehended for a gas 
station robbery. Patterson admitted to police that he was in Beeson's apartment 
but maintained that Winbush was the perpetrator of the murder.

After being told of Patterson's statement and waiving his right to have a 
lawyer present, Winbush confessed to police that he had carried out the 
stabbing, but said Patterson participated in the strangling. The confession was 
played for the jury at the trial.

In his appeal, Winbush claimed his confession was coerced.

But the state high court's 7 justices said they agreed with the trial judge???s 
conclusion that the admission was not forced.

After reviewing the evidence concerning the confession, "We independently 
conclude defendant's statements were not coerced by express or implied promises 
of leniency," Justice Carol Corrigan wrote for the court. The panel also 
rejected Winbush's appeal claims of errors in jury selection.

Winbush can continue appeals through habeas corpus petitions in the state and 
federal courts.

There are now more than 700 California inmates on death row, with cases in 
various stages of appeal. Executions in the state have been on hold since 2006 
because of federal and state court rulings and lawsuits.

In November, California voters passed an initiative intended to speed up the 
process of appeals in death penalty cases. The measure has been challenged in a 
federal lawsuit.

(source: CBS news)






USA:

Death-row inmate Marvin Gabrion 'actively delusional,' no help to attorneys


Attorneys for death-row inmate Marvin Gabrion contend he is incompetent and 
unable to help challenge his murder conviction and death sentence.

Gabrion has filed a civil appeal in U.S. District Court in the 1997 killing of 
Rachel Timmerman, 19, of Cedar Springs.

He is also suspected of killing her 11-month-old daughter, Shannon, whose body 
wasn't found, and 3 of his associates.

His attorneys filed a detailed report that looks at Gabrion's life and 4 
generations of his family. It includes stories of mental illness, abuse, 
poverty, violence and substance abuse.

Gabrion's attorneys asked for a stay in proceedings and a hearing to determine 
his competence.

They have also sought recusal of the trial judge, U.S. District Judge Robert 
Holmes Bell. The case will likely fall to another judge, anyway, because Bell 
is retiring.

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has found Gabrion severely mentally ill but 
not incompetent.

His attorneys say he is incompetent now and was at trial.

Gabrion "has a long history of severe mental illness" that "may have 
deteriorated over the last 15 years while he has been housed on death row. His 
condition has certainly not improved," his attorneys, Scott Graham of Portage, 
and Monica Foster and Joseph Cleary, both of Indianapolis, wrote in documents.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer McManus opposed the motion for a competency 
hearing, the attorneys said.

The government says Gabrion killed Timmerman 2 days before she was to testify 
that he raped her in 1996. She was bound to cinderblocks then thrown into 
Oxford Lake, a remote Newaygo County lake on federal land.

Michigan does not allow the death penalty but federal prosecutors convinced the 
jury the killing happened on federal land, thus allowing the federal death 
penalty.

Gabrion's attorneys said he is unable to assist them with his appeals unless 
his competency is restored with medication.

They say it would be an "abuse of discretion" to deny Gabrion a hearing because 
the issue of his competence has not undergone an adversarial hearing.

"Mr. Gabrion behaved bizarrely during the run up to the trial and during trial 
itself," his attorneys wrote.

"His peculiar conduct has continued unabated in the 15 years since he was 
sentenced to death. His mentally ill conduct did not begin with the events 
described at trial. Mr. Gabrion behaved erratically for decades prior to Ms. 
Timmerman's death."

The attorneys said there were reports at trial that Gabrion was faking mental 
illness to help his criminal case. His trial attorney reported "difficulty 
communicating" with him.

It was "a refrain that would haunt this case to its conclusion," Gabrion's 
attorneys said.

Despite the concerns, the trial attorney did not insist on a hearing to test 
government witnesses' conclusions, his appellate attorneys said. The trial 
attorney sought a competency evaluation but a neuropsychologist and a forensic 
psychologist concluded he was "competent and malingering even though some 
bizarre behavior was noted ... ."

At trial, Gabrion whispered loudly, was very agitated, belched and was told 
repeatedly by his attorney and judge to be quiet.

Gabrion ignored his attorney's advice and took the witness stand where he 
declared: "I am the speaker of the truth."

His testimony veered into irrelevant tangents.

When the penalty phase began, Gabrion punched his attorney in the face as 
jurors looked on.

The judge noted that Gabrion's competency was "one of great concern to this 
court," but denied a request then for a competency examination, records showed.

Gabrion returned to court after 25 witnesses testified.

Then, he said: "I'm sorry to be represented by evil shysters in a kangaroo 
court in a prostitute evil nation that murders its babies by abortion. And I'll 
be quiet because I'm forced to just as if I was in Nazi Germany. Thank you."

He spent the last day of the penalty phase with his head on the defense table, 
sleeping.

Then, he again testified against his attorney's advice and went on odd rants. 
He told jurors he would be "fine" with whatever punishment they handed out.

He didn't care because he had been depressed over the Sept. 11, 2001, terror 
attacks, he said.

He speaks nearly every day with the Indiana Federal Community Defenders' Office 
but refuses to talk about his case.

"He is consumed with topics having nothing to do with his litigation and that 
is all he will discuss with counsel," his attorneys said.

"He's actively delusional."

They said he was not always this way. Despite chaos and poverty growing up, he 
was described as a "tenderhearted" boy who looked after family and stood up for 
kids being bullied. He ran track and liked to play chess.

The trouble started after high school, when his behavior turned bizarre, his 
attorneys said.

His attorneys say a forensic psychiatrist would testify that Gabrion is 
incompetent. His competence could be restored with psychiatric medication but 
that is not the goal of the Terre Haute, Indiana, prison where he is housed.

"The process that leads to the execution of a citizen by the government must 
bear the hallmarks of due process," his attorneys wrote.

"Mr. Gabrion's trial conduct was bizarre. Though the government claimed he was 
malingering mental illness for the purpose of influencing these proceedings, 
Mr. Gabrion did nothing to try to save his own life and much to destroy any 
chance of a life sentence."

His attorneys say they need "nondelusional input" from Gabrion to assist in his 
appeals.

(source: mlive.com)