[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OKLA., KAN., COLO., NEV., US MIL.

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 29




OKLAHOMA:

Pro MMA fighter faces death penalty after being arrested for 'killing 2 people 
in a botched armed robbery of a laundromat'


A professional MMA fighter allegedly killed 2 people during a botched robbery 
of a laundromat in Oklahoma on Monday.

Roshaun Jones, 33, who has a record of 2-6 as a fighter in pro MAA, was 
arrested on Friday in connection with the robbery in Del City, TMZ reported.

The Oklahoma native was last seen in an MMA ring in Kansas this past November.

Authorities allege that he shot dead 2 people during the armed robbery of the 
Laundry Station laundromat in Del City, Oklahoma.

1 victim, Nekia Jackson, 42, was a laundromat manager and the other, 
60-year-old Russ Roberts, was a bystander who tried to stop the robbery.

Police allege that Jones entered the laundromat and during the attempted 
robbery got into an altercation with Jackson.

Roberts, who was the only customer in the laundromat, intervened to try and 
help Jackson.

At that point, police say Jones shot both of them and fled.

'She's a mom, and she just turned a grandma,' her father, Horace Jackson, told 
KFOR-TV.

'And, I'm a great grandfather. And, she was so passionate for the kids.'

Nekia worked the day shift on Monday, requiring her to open the laundromat 
early. This worried her family because it would still be dark outside at dawn.

'I always was uneasy with her, because she opens, and it would be dark, and it 
would be like 6, and she was punctual, and she had a couple of times she would 
come to work and stuff would be broken and windows cracked and they don't keep 
money in here,' Horace said.

'He was just a super guy,' an acquaintance of Roberts, Dona Augsburger, told 
KFOR-TV.

Augsburger managed the building in which Roberts lived.

'I said that would be just like him to jump in a try to help, because he was 
just that type of man. It's a great loss for society, really, he was a great 
guy. He will be missed. I will miss him for sure,' Augsburger said.

Local law enforcement as well as the US Marshal service launched a manhunt in 
search of the suspects.

Jones was arrested Friday and charged with 2 counts of 1st degree murder.

If convicted, he faces the death penalty.

(source: dailymail.co.uk)






KANSAS:

End death penalty in Kansas


As an irreversible penalty, the death penalty demands perfection, and that is 
something our criminal justice system cannot guarantee.

The criminal justice system is far from perfect. I know that too well after 
spending over 16 years in a Kansas prison for a murder I didn't commit.

Since my release from prison after new DNA and other evidence proved my 
innocence, I have no interest in dwelling on past injustices and giving in to 
bitterness. Yet that doesn't mean we just forget the past and move on like 
nothing happened.

What happened to me and hundreds of others wrongfully convicted needs to serve 
as a catalyst to enact meaningful reforms to protect the innocent. One reform 
that should to be at the top of the list is ending the death penalty.

A variety of factors can send an innocent person to prison or, worse, death 
row: eyewitness errors, junk science, false confessions, snitch testimony, and 
prosecutorial misconduct. Needed reforms, such as videotaping interrogations, 
can help minimize these problems.

But we can never eliminate wrongful convictions entirely. The criminal justice 
system is a human system and as such will always be imperfect.

That is why the death penalty has no place in Kansas or anywhere for that 
matter. As an irreversible penalty, the death penalty demands perfection, and 
that is something our criminal justice system cannot guarantee.

Whenever the death penalty remains in place, so does the risk of executing an 
innocent person.

My case shows the danger in believing that Kansas somehow is immune from this 
risk. In 1999, I was wrongfully convicted of a murder in the small town of 
Oskaloosa. Though my murder occurred well after the advent of DNA technology, 
this technology failed to protect me at the time. By ignoring key evidence and 
relying on questionable testimony, officials became convinced of my guilt.

As my experience illustrates, the criminal justice system in real life does not 
always play out like a CSI episode. On TV, officials rely on a bunch of 
high-tech gadgets to always catch the bad guy without any doubt. Reality is a 
lot messier. In many cases - including death penalty cases - prosecutors rely 
on questionable witnesses or junk science when making their case at trial.

And at that point in the legal process, demonstrating your innocence becomes a 
monumental challenge. When the government says you're guilty - and marshals all 
its resources to prove it - who is going to believe you? No matter how much you 
protest, people assume you must be guilty.

What happened to me is a tragedy. Every day, though, I am thankful that I am 
alive and have had the opportunity to rebuild my life. If someone is wrongfully 
executed, it is an injustice that the state is powerless to address.

Kansas can - and should - eliminate that risk by ending the death penalty now.

(source: Opinion; Floyd Bledsoe lives Hutchinson. He serves on the board for 
the Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty----The Wichita Eagle)






COLORADO:

'Til death penalty do us part? - Colorado reconsiders capital punishment 
again----"We believe that there are better things we could be spending limited 
money on than an ineffective death penalty," said Stacy Anderson of Better 
Priorities Initiative, which is backing repeal.


Colorado lawmakers are again considering scrapping the state's hardly-used 
death penalty - a sentence rarely handed down outside of Aurora.

State Senate Minority Leader Lucia Guzman, D-Denver, introduced a bill last 
week that would scrap capital punishment as a potential sentence for crimes 
committed after July 1. Rep. Alec Garnett, D-Denver, is co-sponsoring the 
legislation, Senate Bill 95.

David Pourshoushtari, spokesman for the Democratic leadership in the Senate, 
said the bill is set to go before a committee Feb. 15. He said Guzman, the 
Senate Minority Leader, declined to comment on the measure until closer to that 
committee hearing.

A spokesman for the Senate GOP did not respond to a request for comment.

Colorado's death penalty has been rarely used since the Supreme Court 
reinstated capital punishment about 4 decades ago. Just 1 person, Gary Lee 
Davis in 1997, has been executed in the state. Just 3 men remain on death row, 
all of whom are from Aurora.

In 2015, Colorado juries balked at handing down a death sentence in both the 
Aurora theater shooting case, where 12 people were killed, and the Fero's bar 
case, where 5 were killed.

Opponents of capital punishment say because Colorado uses capital punishment so 
infrequently already, they are hoping now is the time to repeal it altogether.

"We believe that there are better things we could be spending limited money on 
than an ineffective death penalty," said Stacy Anderson of Better Priorities 
Initiative, which is backing repeal.

Anderson said opponents of the death penalty see it as less of a partisan issue 
than it once was and are hoping to get backing from fiscal conservatives 
worried about the costs associated with a death sentence.

Those same conservatives are generally leery of trusting the government on 
issues like health care or to fix potholes, Anderson said, and backers of 
repeal hope that distrust of government carries over to the death penalty.

State law calls for executions to be carried out via lethal injection using 
sodium thiopental, but the state doesn't have any of the drug on hand and other 
states have struggled to procure it in recent years.

Anderson said that fact could sway death penalty supporters worried about how 
the state could even carry out an execution.

"It would be nearly impossible to get a hold of the drugs needed," she said.

Still, the prospects for repeal could be grim. The measure first has to clear 
the Republican-lead judiciary committee, then pass the full Senate where 
Republicans hold a slim majority.

Similar measures have previously failed to win even a Democratic majority.

Even if backers are able to convince a few from the generally pro-capital 
punishment GOP to their side, they could struggle to get all the Democratic 
votes they would need this time.

Sen. Rhonda Fields, a Democrat from Aurora, is on record backing the death 
penalty in Colorado. Her son, Javad Marshall-Fields, and his fiancee, Vivian 
Wolfe, were gunned down in 2005 before Marshall-Fields could testify in a 
separate shooting trial. 2 of the men responsible for the slayings - Robert Ray 
and Sir Mario Owens - are the only 2 men left on Colorado's death row with 
executions pending.

The other person on death row is Nathan Dunlap, convicted of killing 4 during a 
1993 shooting rampage at an Aurora Chuck E. Cheese's restaurant.

Dunlap was set for execution in 2013 but Gov. John Hickenlooper granted him an 
indefinite reprieve. The move stopped short of a full pardon and a future 
governor could step in and lift the reprieve.

Colorado prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in just 1 case right now, 
and that one too is in the 18th Judicial District, which includes Arapahoe 
County and Aurora. Prosecutors there plan to ask a jury to sentence Brandon 
Johnson to death for killing his 6-year-old son last year.

District Attorney George Brauchler - who also sought the death penalty in the 
theater shooting trial - announced plans to seek the death penalty against 
Johnson late last year.

Johnson, who is also accused of raping his ex-girlfriend shortly before killing 
his son, is being held without bond in the Arapahoe County Jail.

(source: Aurora Sentinel)






NEVADA:

Nevada death row inmate making every effort to expedite execution


In a mid-November call to a longtime friend, 5 days before his 46th birthday, 
Scott Dozier contemplated dying by firing squad.

"That would be my favorite way," he said. "That would be the way to go, if it 
was up to me."

But it's not up to him.

The condemned man, sent to Nevada's death row more than 9 years ago for his 2nd 
killing, knew that state law did not allow for a firing squad and that the 
Department of Corrections could not obtain the drug cocktail to carry out his 
execution.

Still, he's doing everything he can to speed it up through the court system.

Meanwhile, a judge is scheduled to appoint a new lawyer for Dozier this week, 
after defense attorney Christopher Oram asked to be taken off the case.

"I feel morally miserable when I am writing emails to the state and to the 
court demanding that Mr. Dozier be brought here so that we can proceed in an 
expedited fashion to have him executed," Oram told a judge earlier this month. 
"I didn't sign up for this. I signed up to try and help him."

Dozier first waived his appeals on Oct. 31, when he sent a letter to District 
Judge Jennifer Togliatti asking that he be put to death.

He was sentenced to die in December 2007 after a 4-week trial for the murder 
and mutilation of an Arizona man in a Strip hotel.

A Clark County jury convicted him of killing 22-year-old Jeremiah Miller at the 
now-closed La Concha Motel and robbing him of $12,000 that Miller had brought 
from Phoenix to Las Vegas to purchase materials to make methamphetamine.

Miller's torso, cut into 2 pieces, was found in April 2002 in a suitcase in a 
trash bin at an apartment complex. His head, lower arms and lower legs never 
were recovered.

In 2005, Dozier was convicted in Arizona of 2nd-degree murder and given a 
22-year prison sentence. In that case, prosecutors said he shot and killed a 
27-year-old man, stuffed his body into a plastic container and dumped it in the 
desert near Phoenix.

'MY GOAL IS TO BE EXECUTED'

Standing before Togliatti and flanked by 3 corrections officers and his 
attorney at a recent court appearance, Dozier made his desires clear and raised 
questions about what would happen should Nevada legislators decide to abolish 
the death penalty.

"My goal is to be executed, first and foremost," said a shackled Dozier, 
wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, black rectangular glasses and white Nikes. 
"But if I'm not, and I'm going to be to stuck alive, I would like to know what 
my options are."

Nevada's last execution, by lethal injection, occurred at the Nevada State 
Prison in April 2006.

The state has executed 12 inmates since capital punishment was reinstated by 
the Legislature in 1977. All but 1 were inmates who, like Dozier, voluntarily 
gave up their appeals. Last year, prison officials sent out 247 requests for 
proposals after a stockpile of at least 1 drug used in executions expired, and 
not one response was received.

Other states have cut back on executions, as only 20 people were executed 
across the nation in 2016, the fewest in 25 years. On Thursday, a federal judge 
in Ohio found that state's lethal injection process unconstitutional.

Legislators in Nevada are weighing a bill that would make life without the 
possibility of parole the maximum criminal penalty.

Dozier has asked to have another attorney explain the legal process to him 
should his death wish be stopped by state law. The judge may have trouble 
finding someone who sees eye to eye with him.

"I have an inherent distrust of most people that are doing death penalty work, 
because I believe they are either politically or personally anti-death 
penalty," Dozier said. "And as such, I don't know that they actually can give 
me an objective assessment and not skew it towards trying to convince me 
otherwise. Even if they could give me an objective one, I might be a little 
dubious about it."

Togliatti said she likely would order an evaluation of Dozier's competency.

"If he really wants to be executed, and talking to a doctor will help him 
achieve that goal, my guess is he's going to cooperate and talk to a doctor," 
the judge said. "Is that true?"

"That is absolutely correct," he said.

Recordings of 47 of Dozier's recent death row phone calls were made public this 
month through court exhibits. The conversations offer a window into his 
intelligence, competence and views on the world he knows from his cell.

He tells friends and family he is tired of life; he envisions his path to the 
execution chamber; he expresses grief over the death of his grandmother; he 
boasts of his muscular physique, chiseled by boredom-induced prison exercise; 
and he offers relationship advice.

'NOTHING TO CRY OVER'

Late last year, Dozier called another friend to let her know that he had 
requested that his appeals cease, and he explained that he soon would be headed 
to court seeking an execution date.

"Oh, my God," his friend said. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah," he replied. "I'm serious."

She asked if others knew of his decision.

"No one thinks it's a stellar idea, but they all understand, you know," he told 
her. "This has been a long time coming, and I finally just got fed up with it."

She wanted to know why.

"I'm (expletive) so over this scene, and I am, yeah, actually I'm kind of 
stressed because ... the chemicals to do it have expired," he said. "And so I 
don't know. There's going to be some issues, but hopefully they'll get it done 
and not decide to abolish it and leave me (expletive) hung out."

She became emotional.

"This is nothing to cry over, I promise," he said, then laughed.

Dozier also called his sister to talk about the legal steps he anticipated 
before the judge could sign his death warrant.

He said he had spoken with an American Civil Liberties Union attorney about 
capital punishment and his own life's worth, a theme echoed in other phone 
calls.

"Perhaps there's some fundamental differences in our philosophies of life," he 
said he told the lawyer. "And I think I recognize this causes you cognitive 
dissonance because it's just never going to make sense. But I think you find 
life has a deeper inherent value than I believe, especially in mine."

(source: Las Vegas Review-Journal)






US MILITARY:

Mom Of Soldier Who Died At Hands Of Fellow Soldiers Hopes For Death Penalty


A local mother is begging for the death penalty after her daughter was 
allegedly murdered while stationed in Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

First Class Private Shadow McClaine's body was discovered earlier this week and 
investigators arrested 2 fellow soldiers.

"Shadow's amazing. She is amazing and didn't deserve this," said her mother, 
London Wegrzyn.

It was supposed to be a welcome home to celebrate 5 years of service in the 
United States Army, but it's with empty hearts they'll never again see their 
daughter again.

"It's hell; a living hell," she said.

McClaine was reported missing in September after she failed to report for duty; 
found nearly 5 months later.

"Holding onto hope that maybe she was still alive, even however small, that's 
what I was holding onto. On Wednesday we lost that hope, and lost a part of 
me," she said.

2 fellow soldiers Sgt. Jamal Williams-McCray and Spc. Charles Robinson were 
charged in November with murder, kidnapping and conspiracy in the case.

Jamal was Shadow's ex-husband.

"The only thing she is guilty of is falling in love with an evil narcissist," 
she said. "I want them sentenced and I want them dead."

Wegrzyn said her daughter asked to be transferred in fear for her life and 
believes something should've been done.

"I 100 % not only fully blame the 2 soldiers involved, I blame the United 
States Army for failing my daughter," she said.

McClaine would have been 26 years old and her mother said enrolling into 
college this spring.

To add insult to injury, the family said there's a fake GoFund me page set up 
and are warning others not to be fooled.

(source: CBS news)