[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, NEB., S.DAK., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

June 14



OKLAHOMA----death row inmate dies

Death row inmate in Tulsa bank teller's murder found dead at state penitentiary



A death row inmate who killed a Tulsa bank teller in 2004 and who exhausted his 
appeals reportedly hanged himself Saturday in his jail cell.

Oklahoma State Penitentiary staff found Jeremy Williams, 35, dead in his cell 
from an apparent suicide, according to an Oklahoma Department of Corrections 
incident report. Matthew Elliott, a DOC spokesman, said Williams' death remains 
under investigation.

DOC security officers found Williams "hanging from the vent with a ligature 
tied around his neck," officers state in the report. Williams was convicted for 
his part in a 2004 shooting death during a botched bank robbery.

He was sentenced to death after his conviction and exhausted his appeals in 
January 2016 when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his final appeal. Williams 
was on death row for nearly 12 years before he was found dead in his cell.

In June 2004, Williams and Alvin "Tony" Jordan were the masked gunmen who 
robbed First Fidelity Bank, located in the 2600 block of East 21st Street, 
according to Tulsa World archives. Amber Rogers, 26, was a teller there at the 
time of the robbery. She was shot in the abdomen and killed.

During the court case, prosecutors argued Williams and Jordan caught Rogers in 
crossfire. The bullet passed through her body and state medical examiners could 
not determine the caliber of gun that fired it.

Jordan pleaded guilty and is serving a life sentence in prison. Jordan avoided 
the death penalty when he pleaded guilty, according to a previous story.

On Saturday, prison security officers were conducting a "count" around 11:15 
p.m. when they found Williams' cell window obscured by a sheet. Staff state in 
the incident report that Williams "did not respond to knocking." They cracked 
the door to pull back the sheet from the window, revealing Williams' body.

Authorities attempted life-saving measures, but by 3:30 a.m. Sunday, state 
medical examiners had taken Williams' body.

Williams was on death row, but he had not yet been scheduled to be executed.

Between 1915 and 2014, state officials executed 192 men and 3 women, according 
to DOC records.

The last execution in Oklahoma was that of Charles Warner, who died by lethal 
injection in January 2015. An autopsy first reported by The Oklahoman revealed 
that 1 of the drugs used was not part of the Department of Corrections' lethal 
injection protocol.

Oklahoma authorities announced in March 2018 that they will transition to inert 
gas inhalation for executions. The announcement came after 3 years without an 
execution due to controversy over lethal injection.

(source: Tulsa World)








NEBRASKA:

Nebraska Supreme Court won't let ACLU weigh in on death penalty case



Just days after the ACLU asked to be allowed to file a "friend of the court" 
brief in Carey Dean Moore's death penalty case, the Nebraska Supreme Court on 
Wednesday denied it.

Without elaborating, the state's highest court simply overruled the motion, 
according to court records.

Friday, attorney Amy Miller of the ACLU of Nebraska had asked to be allowed to 
file a brief, in which she planned to lay out legal reasons why the court 
should delay issuing an execution warrant, sought by the attorney general's 
office, to carry out Moore's death sentence.

In the motion, which contained the proposed brief, Miller listed 4 pending 
lawsuits, including one in which the Lincoln Journal Star, the Omaha 
World-Herald and the ACLU alleged a violation of public-records law regarding 
the source of the state's lethal injection drugs.

But the ACLU doesn't currently represent Moore, who asked defense attorneys to 
withdraw from his case last month and isn't fighting the death penalty.

Moore, on death row since 1980, was convicted of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder 
in the 1979 deaths of Omaha cab drivers Reuel Van Ness and Maynard Helgeland. 
Moore was 21 at the time.

On April 3, Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson filed a motion for an 
execution warrant for Moore.

Peterson's office later asked the court to expedite the execution and requested 
a July 10 date, or sometime in mid-July, because one of the lethal injection 
drugs expires this summer.

Scott Frakes, director of the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, 
said the potassium chloride they have to carry out the execution expires Aug. 
31.

(source: Lincoln Journal Star)

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

Mental illness, burden of 'profound failure' led Anthony Garcia to kill 4, 
lawyer says



The doctor turned quadruple killer was wheeled into the third-floor courtroom, 
shoulders hunched, eyes scrunched.

Forced to court by Douglas County sheriff's deputies, Anthony Garcia rolled 
into court as if he had rolled out of bed - with his unkempt beard, uncut 
fingernails and toenails, and the defiance that he has displayed throughout his 
5-year court case.

"Wow - he's a mess," an attorney said from the back of the courtroom. "Like 
Howard Hughes (the Texas tycoon and recluse) - without the genius part."

Garcia's attorneys spent much of Wednesday - Day 1 of Garcia's defense against 
the death penalty - trying to establish the mitigating factors that they say 
should spare him capital punishment for the March 2008 murders of 11-year-old 
Thomas Hunter and 57-year-old Shirlee Sherman and the May 2013 murders of Dr. 
Roger Brumback and his wife, Mary, both 65. Garcia killed the 4, acting on a 
grudge that had festered after Dr. Brumback and Dr. William Hunter fired him 
from Creighton University Medical Center in 2001.

Attorney Jeff Pickens of the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy essentially 
offered a 3D defense against the death penalty: that Garcia was too dumb to 
become a doctor; that he felt the intense drive of his parents to become one 
despite his mental deficits; and that he became drunk and deranged after 
realizing that he would never measure up.

In essence, Pickens argues that Garcia became a killer - a sort of Frankenstein 
creation - because his parents pressed him into a field for which he wasn't 
qualified and various medical school administrators passed him along, focused 
on his ethnicity rather than his ability.

That defense theory is an attempt to establish a mitigating factor recognized 
under state law: that Garcia "acted under unusual pressures or influences."

Garcia was severely mentally ill and "burdened by a profound failure," Pickens 
said. "All of which caused him to fixate on the 2 doctors he considered 
responsible for his failure."

Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine said prosecutors agree with only 1 of the 
defense's alleged mitigating factors: that Garcia had little criminal record 
before he killed his victims. Kleine said none of the mitigating factors will 
overcome the 10 aggravating factors that a jury found could merit the death 
penalty.

After this week's hearing, a 3-judge panel - Gary Randall and Russell Bowie of 
Douglas County and Ricky Schreiner of southeast Nebraska - will decide whether 
Garcia deserves death. An announcement isn't expected for a month or 2.

Garcia's problems began with his parents' dream, Pickens argued.

Estella and Frederick Garcia - primarily Fred - pushed Garcia to become a 
doctor, Pickens said. During Garcia's childhood, they often would refer to 
Garcia as their future "brain surgeon."

Garcia's grades in high school and college didn't portend a future in the 
medical field, Pickens said. He had, at best, a B average.

Despite that, administrators gladly passed Garcia along, Pickens said.

Garcia's brother, Fernando, told authorities that his brother "did not want to 
be a doctor."

In fact, Anthony Garcia, who studied pathology at Creighton, later wrote in a 
journal: "The primary problem with pathology is that you cannot live or work 
where you want to. ... People treat you like shit. It's not what I wanted to 
be."

And this: "Math was my favorite subject from 1st through 12th (sic) grade ... I 
wanted to be a mathematician. My parents would not let me."

As those journals were aired in court, Garcia's parents sat 2 rows behind their 
son. Fred Garcia had a long career with the U.S. Postal Service. Estella Garcia 
worked as a nurse. The couple, from Walnut, California, invested in their son's 
education - and were so proud that Fred Garcia once proudly loaded up a van and 
drove his son cross-country for his 1st medical gig.

Garcia was admitted to the University of Utah Medical School, even though his 
test scores and grades were lower than typical applicants.

A current Utah medical school official told defense attorneys that he "had 
little doubt that (Garcia) was considered because of his ethnicity," said Shara 
Aden, a paralegal for the Commission on Public Advocacy.

Nonetheless, Garcia graduated with a medical degree and headed off to his 1st 
residency program in upstate New York in the late 1990s.

He was fired from that residency after yelling at a radiology technician who 
interrupted him as he read flash cards. He then went to Creighton, where he was 
fired after a series of misdeeds, including leaving an autopsy subject on his 
face so the body became disfigured, and placing a prank call to another 
resident taking his medical exams.

Dr. Hunter, who headed the residency program, later told police that Garcia was 
Creighton's "worst resident ever."

After his firing from Creighton, he was accepted into the University of 
Illinois-Chicago. He took several leaves of absences from that program because 
of migraines. The director at that program said he accepted Garcia "because he 
had a quota to fill."

"The cruelty in all of this," Pickens said, "is that Dr. Garcia was set up to 
fail."

Garcia didn't prosper in his professional life. After his failings at residency 
programs in New York, Nebraska and Louisiana, Illinois was the only state to 
issue a medical license to Garcia.

Even while he was a doctor in Illinois, Pickens said, Garcia's bosses limited 
his work with patients. He would do work akin to a physician's assistant - at 
times getting decent reviews.

He didn't last long in any job.

"We are not claiming that Garcia was a good doctor or even a competent doctor," 
Pickens said. "There was limited care he was asked to give these patients. He 
wasn't asked to do anything heroic."

As his medical career floundered, Garcia looked to other professions. He once 
applied to become a police officer in Los Angeles.

He also applied to several law schools - albeit in an unusual way. He simply 
sent in his medical school applications, subbing the law school's name for the 
medical school. The applications still included his reference to various 
maladies, such as spiked fevers.

That wasn't the end of his "weird" behavior. One doctor who supervised Garcia 
noted that he used to eat a head of lettuce as if he were chomping into an 
apple. He would wash that down by drinking milk out of the jug. It wasn't the 
only thing he ingested. He prescribed himself medications, including 
testosterone, even though tests indicated that he didn't need it.

One thing that was consistent: Garcia's affinity for booze and nude bars.

"He was the strip club version of Norm from 'Cheers,'" said psychologist Kirk 
Newring. "It didn't seem like he had a high social network."

Loneliness enveloped him. Neighbors described him doing lawn work in full 
"Outbreak" hazmat gear. Another set of neighbors told authorities that he once 
drunkenly reported a theft to them. They told him to go back home, later seeing 
him standing outside his front door with a coat covering his head.

In 2003 - 5 years before his 1st set of murders - he told doctors that he 
dreamed of killing himself and co-workers. Garcia was hospitalized for 10 days 
after that vague threat. He later underwent electroshock therapy for 
depression.

In January 2013, firefighters and rescue squad personnel broke down the front 
door of his Terre Haute home and found him passed out on the living room floor, 
surrounded by beer cans and a gun.

Police seized the gun. However, Garcia bought another and used it 4 months 
later in the Brumback slayings.

While prosecutors say Garcia clearly acted on his grudge over his firings, 
Garcia's attorneys suggested that mental illness fueled the murders.

In 2003, a doctor wrote that Garcia "can't make the negative thoughts stop."

"The mental pain is overwhelming," Garcia told them. "It's like the thoughts 
are not my own."

Outside court, Estella Garcia said she couldn't believe how her son looked. 
"Terrible," she said. "It's bad."

And the couple wasn't buying the idea that Garcia cracked under the weight of 
their expectations.

"It's not like we pressured him or anything like that," Fred Garcia said. "If 
he had a problem, if he wanted to do something else, fine.

"I can't understand it. We've always supported him."

(source: Omaha World-Herald)

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

Attorneys seek to spare ex-doctor from death for 4 slayings



Attorneys for a former doctor convicted of killing 4 people connected to an 
Omaha medical school began the effort Wednesday to spare him from the death 
penalty - even as he refused to help in his own defense.

Anthony Garcia appeared disheveled, with a heavy beard and unkempt hair, when 
he was wheeled into a Douglas County courtroom in a wheelchair. He appeared to 
sleep throughout the hearing and refused to engage in conversation with his 
attorneys, who presented hundreds of documents and interviews collected over 
years intended to show that he was mentally ill at the time of the killings.

Garcia's lawyers hoped to present any mitigating factors - such as impaired 
mental capacity - that might save him from execution. Much of the evidence 
Garcia's lawyers presented Wednesday sought to show Garcia as an alcoholic who 
suffered depression since childhood and mental illness that caused him to have 
invasive thoughts of hurting people.

Garcia, 45, of Terre Haute, Indiana, was convicted of fatally stabbing 
11-year-old Thomas Hunter, son of Creighton University School of Medicine 
faculty member Dr. William Hunter, and the family's housekeeper, 57-year-old 
Shirlee Sherman, in 2008 at the family's home in an upscale Omaha neighborhood.

Garcia also was found guilty of 2 other killings in a separate incident 5 years 
later, the 2013 Mother's Day deaths of another Creighton pathology doctor, 
Roger Brumback, and his wife, Mary, in their Omaha home.

Prosecutors say Garcia blamed Hunter and Brumback for his 2001 firing from 
Creighton's pathology residency program.

His lead attorney, Jeff Pickens with the Nebraska Commission on Public 
Advocacy, on Wednesday painted the medical residency programs to which Garcia 
was accepted - including the Creighton program where Garcia worked for about a 
year - as "poor programs" that accepted Garcia simply to fill open positions.

"There's a cruelty built into this case in that Mr. Garcia was set up to fail," 
Pickens said.

Garcia's parents attended the hearing, but Pickens said he did not plan to have 
them testify on Garcia's behalf.

The jurors who convicted Garcia found evidence of several aggravating 
circumstances that could lead to his execution. A 3-judge panel in Omaha will 
determine whether he will be sentenced to death or to life in prison. The 
sentence is not expected be announced for at least a month.

Nebraska has not executed an inmate since 1997, when the state's method of 
execution was the electric chair. The state has since adopted a lethal 
injection protocol that has been fraught with controversy, legal challenges and 
difficulty in obtaining some of the drugs used to carry out lethal injection.

11 people are on Nebraska's death row.

(source: Associated Press)








SOUTH DAKOTA:

Did a jury give a gay man the death penalty because prison would be 'too much 
fun?'



A South Dakota man is arguing that he was sentenced to death because he's gay, 
and he's asking the Supreme Court to overturn his death sentence.

Lawyers for Charles Rhines say that they have evidence that the jury gave him 
the death penalty because they believed that prison would be too much fun for a 
gay man, possibly referring to the prevalence of male rape in prison.

Rhines murdered Donnivan Schaeffer, 22, in 1992. Schaeffer was an employee of 
Dig 'Em Donuts in Rapid City, South Dakota, when Rhines tried to rob the shop.

In 1993, Rhines was convicted of stabbing Schaeffer to death, and was given the 
death penalty. But defense lawyers are trying to get the Supreme Court to hear 
their appeal to overturn the death penalty, saying that the jury's decision is 
tainted by homophobia.

Juror Frances Cersosimo said that she remembers a juror saying that Rhines 
wouldn't mind life in prison because he's gay. "There was a murmuring, everyone 
said 'Whaaat?'" she said.

"It was not a joke," she said.

In an affidavit presented to the Supreme Court, juror Harry Keenan said that 
his decision was affected by homophobia. But Keenan's wife said that he has 
dementia and that his memory of something that happened 25 years ago isn't 
reliable.

"I wouldn't depend upon it," Keenan's wife said.

In another affidavit, a third juror said that another juror said that a 
sentence of life in prison would be "sending him where he wants to go."

The defense attorneys also point to questions the jury asked the judge during 
sentencing in 1993, which included: What would his life in prison look like? 
Would he be allowed to mix with the general inmate population? Would he have a 
cellmate?

The judge said that he couldn't answer those questions.

Rhines has long argued that he was sentenced to death because he's gay. In 
addition to the comments about prison being too much fun for a gay man, he said 
in 2014 that prosecutors portrayed him as a dangerous "sexual predator" even 
though his crime did not involve sexual assault.

Lawyers for the state of South Dakota, though, shot back, saying that the jury 
had ample grounds for giving Rhines the death penalty.

"Rhines locked Donnivan's head between his knees and pounded a hunting knife 
into the base of Donnivan's skull, partially severing his brain stem," the 
assistant attorney general's brief reads. "Unaffected by the screams and blood 
and death, Rhines left the store with his loot to get something to eat."

Generally, the jury's discussion is not grounds to overturn a sentencing, under 
the "no-impeachment rule." But several recent Supreme Court decisions have 
opened the door to examining juries' bias.

Last year, in Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado, a man was convicted of sexually 
assaulting 2 girls, but 1 of the jurors said, "9 times out of 10 Mexican men 
were guilty of being aggressive toward women and young girls," and "Mexican men 
had a bravado that caused them to believe they could do whatever they wanted 
with women."

The Supreme Court ruled that the statements showed that the defendant's Sixth 
Amendment rights were violated because the jury decided that he "was guilty and 
his alibi witness should not be believed" because of a racist juror. The case 
was sent back to the lower courts.

And earlier this year, the Supreme Court instructed an appeals court to 
reconsider the death sentence of Keith Tharpe, an African American man. In an 
interview after sentencing, a juror said, "After studying the Bible, I have 
wondered if black people even have souls," and referred to Tharpe with the 
n-word. It's possible for the Supreme Court to extend that logic to sexual 
orientation, especially since studies have shown that gay men are more likely 
to be found guilty by juries and that the death penalty is less likely in cases 
involving gay victims.

(source: lgbtqnation.com)








CALIFORNIA----female may face death penalty

Caregiver charged with murder, grand theft in death of elderly Indio woman



A Palm Desert woman charged with murder for allegedly causing a string of 
overdoses in a woman she cared for, so she could gain access to the woman's 
estate and more than $200,000 from her bank accounts, was arrested today.

Marilyn Joy Zemek, 59, is accused in the June 17, 2016, death of Pamelia 
Powell, 69. Zemek is charged with murder, elder abuse, grand theft, identity 
theft and also faces a special circumstance allegation of murder for financial 
gain, meaning she could be eligible for the death penalty, should prosecutors 
pursue it.

She was taken into custody Tuesday morning by Indio police near Frank Sinatra 
Drive and Portola Avenue in Palm Desert, according to county jail records.

Authorities allege that Zemek, who allegedly had Powell draft a new will 
leaving her possessions and bank account information to her, caused Powell's 
fatal overdose on phenobarbital, which the victim had been taking for several 
years to regulate seizures, according to an arrest warrant declaration.

Zemek and Powell allegedly met at a Palm Desert "Botox party'' in late 2015, 
and "within a few weeks, Zemek managed to become a major part of Powell's 
life,'' the declaration states.

On the date of Powell's death, Zemek reported her passing to police, who found 
Powell at her home at 81562 Avenida Viesca in Indio. Neighbors told police that 
Zemek allegedly entered the home and did not call 911 for about 90 minutes to 
report Powell's death.

In the months prior to her death, prosecutors allege that Powell's health 
deteriorated rapidly, with 3 hospitalizations due to phenobarbital overdoses or 
intoxication that led her doctor to remove the drug from her medication list in 
April 2016.

However, after Zemek became her primary caretaker, she allegedly continued 
providing the drug to Powell, who suffered "altered mental states, 
disorientation, delusions and confusion'' during her hospital stays in early 
2016, according to reports from medical records and accounts from Powell's 
neighbors and friends, prosecutors said.

Powell was not allowed to make medical decisions for herself, but was signed 
out of a medical facility in late May against doctor's advice, and allegedly at 
Zemek's behest. She later drafted a new will giving Zemek her power of 
attorney, naming her the beneficiary on her Edward Jones account and the 
recipient of all her possessions, including "every item in the victim's 
house,'' the declaration states.

Following Powell's death, investigators found that more than 100 charges, 
totaling nearly $8,000, were made on her credit card, according to the 
declaration. When the account was frozen, prosecutors claim Zemek successfully 
restored access to the account by claiming she was Powell. She can also be seen 
on video footage making some of the purchases on Powell's credit card, 
officials said.

She also allegedly filed probate paperwork in Nevada to become appointed 
special administrator to Powell's estate and "withdrew $201,634 in 3 cashier's 
checks made out to herself from Powell's account,'' the declaration states.

Zemek, who's being held without bail, is expected to appear in court Thursday, 
according to jail records.

(source: desertsun.com)

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

Jury recommends death penalty for man who killed 5 women in Orange, Riverside 
counties



A jury on Tuesday recommended the death penalty without parole for an 8-time 
serial killer on trial for murdering 5 women in Orange, Riverside and San Diego 
counties.

An Orange County Superior Court judge will make the final decision as to 
whether Urdiales will be sent to death row. The sentencing hearing is set for 
Aug. 31.

The jury recommended the death penalty for all 5 murders.

That Santa Ana jury, which last month found Andrew Urdiales guilty of 5 
special-circumstances murders, deliberated for several hours before backing the 
death penalty rather than a life sentence.

Urdiales, shortly after his arrest, confessed to killing 1 woman in Orange 
County while stationed as a U.S. Marine at Camp Pendleton; four women in 
Riverside and San Diego counties while stationed at Twentynine Palms; and 3 
women in Chicago while working as a security guard after leaving the military.

During closing arguments in Urdiales' Orange County trial, Deputy District 
Attorney Matt Murphy described him as a "misogynistic, sadistic monster."

Attorney Denise Gragg, who represented Urdiales, countered that her client was 
born with brain damage and suffered a childhood marked by emotional, physical, 
sexual and psychological abuse.

Last month, the Santa Ana jury found Urdiales, now 53, guilty of killing Robbin 
Brandley in 1986 in a Saddleback College parking lot in Mission Viejo, and of 
the murders over the subsequent 7 years of Julie McGhee, Tammie Erwin and 
Denise Many in Riverside County, and Mary Ann Wells in San Diego.

A 9th woman, Jennifer Asbenson, escaped from Urdiales after being kidnapped and 
sexually assaulted in a remote Riverside County desert.

While the Southern California News Group does not normally identify victims of 
sexual assault, Asbenson has spoken extensively about her experience in public 
forums.

A Chicago jury previously convicted Urdiales of killing Laura Uylaki, Cassandra 
Corum and Lynn Huberand.

(source: Orange County Register)








USA----2 new death sentences

2 white supremacists from Utah get death penalty for killing Texas inmate



Prosecutors say 2 white supremacists serving time at a federal prison in 
Southeast Texas have been condemned for the 2014 slaying of a fellow gang 
member behind bars.

A federal jury in Beaumont on Wednesday ordered the death penalty for Ricky 
Fackrell of Vernal, Utah, and Christopher Cramer of Ogden, Utah. Both were 
convicted last month of murder.

Investigators say Fackrell and Cramer conspired to kill Leo Johns, who was 
fatally stabbed on June 9, 2014, at the lockup in Beaumont.

Records show Cramer and Fackrell were serving time for unrelated robberies in 
which firearms were used. Johns was imprisoned for being a felon in possession 
of a firearm.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office, Davilyn Walston, says the slaying 
was likely because 1 gang member offended another.

(source: The Salt Lake Tribune)

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

Americans Are Starting to Like the Death Penalty Again----Support had been 
declining for 15 years.



Over the last 2 decades, public support for the death penalty has been on the 
decline. In 2016, the number of people in favor of capital punishment was 49 % 
- the lowest it had been in more than 40 years. But a new Pew Research Center 
survey shows a reverse of that trend for the 1st time since 2003.

Today, 54 % of Americans are in favor of executing those convicted of capital 
murder. The last time there was such backing was in 2013, when 55 % of 
Americans supported capital punishment. The all-time high was in the mid-1990s 
when Pew found that 78 % of Americans were in favor.

Death penalty support ticks up in 2018 after years of decline

Death penalty support has always been divided by race and gender. In 2016, 55 % 
of men supported the death penalty, 2 years later that number has increased to 
61 %. This year, women's support for the death penalty has jumped up from 43 % 
in 2016 to 46 %. In the 2018 survey, 59 % of white people supported the death 
penalty, up 2 points from 2016. Even among black people, who have long opposed 
the death penalty because of its racial bias, the % of this in favor increased 
from 29 to 36.

The increased support was also bipartisan. In 2016, 72 % of Republicans 
supported the death penalty, while just 34 % of Democrats did. 2 years later, 
those numbers have ticked up to 77 and 35 % respectively. Among independents, 
that number has increased from 44 % to 52 %.

19 states have banned capital punishment, but 31 states still have it on the 
books. But only a handful of states continue to execute inmates - in 2018, 11 
people have already been executed.

The greater support for capital punishment has taken place against the backdrop 
of fewer executions taking place in the United States than in decades past, and 
a president who has upped the rhetoric in favor of executing criminals.

Donald Trump has always been a proponent of the death penalty. In 1989, after a 
woman was raped in New York's Central Park and 5 brown and black teenagers were 
accused - and later exonerated - he took out full-page advertisements in the 
city's newspapers demanding the return of the death penalty. He has repeatedly 
called for the death penalty for people who kill law enforcement officers. In 
February, he announced that he would also like to seek the death penalty for 
drug dealers in an effort to combat the opioid crisis.

(source: Mother Jones)