[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.H., KAN./MO., MO., CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

March 18




TEXAS----female faces death penalty

Round 2: Jury to be selected



More than 1,000 potential jurors have been summoned to appear in district court 
Thursday when the state makes a 2nd attempt at jury selection in the capital 
murder case against Sabrina Vielma. Vielma faces the death penalty for the Dec. 
11, 2011, death of her 4-year-old son Davaughn Rodriguez.

Jury selection first began in December of 2017 but came to a halt when 75 % of 
summoned jurors failed to appear. At the time, visiting Judge Stephen A. Ables 
told the crowd of 124 potential jurors that 500 people were asked to appear at 
the Uvalde County Courthouse. A turnout of 215-220 people is needed to select a 
jury.

Summons are randomly generated using voter registration rolls and driver's 
license records.

Prior to jury selection, a final pre-trial hearing was held Friday at 10 a.m. 
in the Uvalde County Justice Center. There, Judge Ables said he hopes to have 
120-130 jurors qualified by the end of Thursday. Those jurors will receive a 
questionnaire to return Friday.

(source: Uvalde Leader-News)








NEW HAMPSHIRE:

The high cost of the death penalty



I am a senior at Hopkinton High School, and I strongly support Senate Bill 593. 
If this bill were passed, New Hampshire would become the 20th state to abolish 
the death penalty.

The main reason I oppose the death penalty is due to the exorbitant trial costs 
it incurs. In 2008, the state of New Hampshire spent more than $5.3 million on 
2 capital cases. The state has not carried out an execution since 1939. Is it 
really worth it to use $5,300,000 to decide whether or not the state should 
kill someone when the money could instead be used to benefit New Hampshire 
residents?

CAITLYN McGLASHAN

Hopkinton

(source: Letter to the Editor, Concord Monitor)








KANSAS/MISSOURI:

The death penalty doesn't deserve to live. Abolish it in Missouri and Kansas



On Tuesday, Missouri may administer a lethal injection to a convict with a 
condition called cavernous hemangioma. Lawyers for Russell Bucklew argue that 
the many tumors in his body could burst mid-execution and cause him to choke on 
his own blood. Which would be gruesome, and potentially unconstitutional. But 
then, so is our whole system of capital punishment.

It's long past time to acknowledge that there are many reasons the state should 
stop executing prisoners. Even for the most egregious crimes, and with no 
exceptions.

The most compelling reason is that on the other side of the ledger, there's a 
big blank space, and no valid rationale for keeping the government in this 
business.

As everyone knows, the criminal justice system sometimes gets it wrong, and 
innocent people are executed for crimes they did not commit. No one is for 
that, and yet it keeps happening.

These cases are a lot less unusual than we'd like to think. Studies have 
suggested that as many as 1 of every 25 persons sentenced to death in this 
country is innocent of the crime for which he or she was convicted. Since 1973, 
161 death row inmates have been exonerated. Across the country, at least a 
dozen of those already executed have been pardoned posthumously.

Serious doubts remain about the guilt of dozens of others, including Missouri's 
Larry Griffin, who was put to death in 1995 for the murder of a 19-year-old 
drug dealer. Since his death, the 1st police officer on the scene of that 
killing has acknowledged that the testimony of a supposed eyewitness was false. 
A 2nd shooting victim, never contacted by either the prosecution or defense, 
says neither Griffin nor the alleged eyewitness was even there.

Last summer, Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens stayed the execution of Marcellus 
Williams, another death row inmate whose guilt is in doubt in the killing of a 
former newspaper reporter.

Decades of study tell us that racial disparities in the meting out of justice 
continue to be systemic, and that the death penalty is not a deterrent. Capital 
cases are far more expensive to prosecute and death row inmates cost the state 
much more than do convicts sentenced to life without parole.

A common argument for the death penalty is that the worst criminals don't 
deserve to live, and that may be. But the American public does deserve better 
than to have innocent people killed in our name, ever, without equal treatment 
under the law, doing nothing to reduce the crime rate, and at greater cost to 
taxpayers.

Do we deserve to remain in the moral universe inhabited by the world's other 
top executioners: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan?

Just this month alone, Alabama executed a seriously mentally ill man, and 
Georgia executed a man who had been excluded as the perpetrator in some of the 
crimes that officials said were all committed by him. The California Supreme 
Court granted a new trial to a man sentenced to death 25 years ago on the basis 
of false evidence.

The death penalty has been discredited, and it doesn't deserve to survive.

(source: Editorial Board, Kansas City Star)








MISSOURI----impending execution

>From death row to advocacy----Exonerated inmates speak out against the death 
penalty



As Missouri prepares for a possible execution Tuesday, a group that argues 
against the death penalty held a forum Saturday in Jefferson City featuring 2 
men who were released from death row.

Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty hosted the event in the 
Undercroft of St. Joseph Cathedral.

Joe Amrine was already serving time in prison when he was convicted in the 
stabbing death of a fellow Missouri State Penitentiary inmate in Jefferson City 
in 1986. He maintained his innocence for years, and in July 2003 - after 17 
years on death row - he was freed from prison after it was found there was no 
credible evidence linking Amrine to the crime and fellow inmates admitted they 
lied when testifying at his trial. They later said Amrine was not in the same 
area where the murder occurred.

Amrine has been speaking out against perceived injustices in the system since 
his release. During his time in prison, Amrine saw 7 inmates he shared a cell 
with executed.

"2 people executed were innocent, and I believe that with all my heart," he 
said.

Amrine was particularly unhappy despite studies concluding the death penalty 
system is disproportionately targeted at blacks and the poor, policy makers 
haven't acted. He lamented more people are "steered by emotions" than compelled 
by facts. He said, if he had been killed on death row, his mother and his 
siblings and his children would've been victims.

"People who have lost loved ones are all victims," he said.

Amrine offered multiple arguments against the death penalty.

"In states where the death penalty exists, the murder rate is higher," he said. 
"Execution makes no sense at all. How are you going to prove murder is wrong by 
killing somebody?"

He noted because of more attention to death penalty cases over the last decade, 
many states are not seeking that sentence because of the amount of time and 
resources it takes to get a conviction.

"They realized that it cost $2.7 million to convict me and keep me on death 
row," he said. "It only costs $600,000 to keep me in prison for the rest of my 
life."

Reggie Griffin is the 4th person in Missouri to be exonerated of a crime in 
which he received a death sentence. He also spoke at Saturday's event.

Griffin was charged with stabbing a fellow inmate at Moberly Correctional 
Center and convicted in 1988 based on the word of 2 prison informants who got 
reduced sentences for their testimony. The Missouri Supreme Court eventually 
found prosecutors withheld evidence that guards confiscated the murder weapon 
from another inmate, not Griffin, and the 2 informants had never said Griffin 
was involved in the crime.

"People probably think that something like this don't happen, but it do happen, 
and it did happen to me," he said. "I stayed on death row for about 6 or 7 
years before that was overturned, but I still was under that, because I knew 
that any time I could've been the next one in line."

Griffin was exonerated of the crime in 2011 and was released from prison in 
2013, but said transitioning to society has been difficult after more than 30 
years of incarceration, 23 of which were spent on death row.

"I've never received an apology - a simple apology - from the State of 
Missouri," he said. "I'm trying to put my life back together, but it's not 
easy. I'm here today because I feel that if I reach one person with my story, 
I've accomplished something."

Amrine and Griffin, with felony convictions and no work history for such a long 
time, have not been able to find full-time jobs. They said they mainly go 
around speaking to groups, when asked, and doing odd jobs like painting and 
cleaning yards.

"The system is set up to help those who have been paroled," Amrine said. "I 
know of guys I was in prison with who get checks every month, get food stamps 
and get Medicaid. The system doesn't help those who were exonerated of their 
crime so we can't get that stuff."

Both men live in Kansas City. Amrine lives in his sister's home. She was 
murdered, and her killer is still being sought. Griffin is married.

"I would take news clippings to an interview about how I was in prison and that 
I got exonerated, but once they've got your Social Security number they know 
everything about you," Griffin said.

In attendance at Saturday's event was Larry Hildebrand, of Jefferson City, who 
was on the jury that convicted Amrine in the 1980s. The 2 had not seen each 
other since then.

"When I went home from that trial, the first thing I said to my wife was, 'He's 
either guilty as sin or he had the worst lawyer in the world,' and we later 
found out he had the worst lawyer in the world," Hildebrand said. "This was on 
my mind for years, and in 2001, a couple of girls came to our home representing 
the public litigation firm out of Kansas City, which was representing (Amrine). 
They left a packet and said they'd be in contact with me in a couple of weeks. 
The packet had information which I never saw at the trial. As jurors, you don't 
get to see everything. When they called me back, I told them, 'It's not a 
matter of if this man should have a new trial; he's innocent and should be 
freed.'"

Hildebrand said the prosecution team was on top of the case while Amrine's 
lawyer was "dead pan."

"Being a Catholic, I understand that the death penalty eliminates the 
possibility of conversion or forgiveness," he said. "As long as there is a 
breath of life, there is the possibility for change. Anybody who is an advocate 
for the death penalty ought to have to sit on a jury."

On Tuesday, the state is scheduled to execute Rusty Bucklew. He is scheduled to 
die by lethal injection for shooting and killing Michael Sanders in Cape 
Girardeau in 1996. He then abducted and raped his ex-girlfriend, who had been 
living with Sanders, before he was caught and later convicted and sentenced to 
death. If he is put to death, he would be the 89th person in Missouri to be 
executed since the state re-instituted the punishment in 1989.

While officials with Missouri for Alternatives to the Death Penalty said they 
condemn the violence Bucklew perpetrated, they believe executions are 
"intolerable acts of retributive violence." The group plans to hold vigils 
Tuesday afternoon in front of the governor's office at the Capitol and Tuesday 
evening in Columbia at the Boone County Courthouse.

(source: News Tribune)








CALIFORNIA:

America is a violent country. It needs the death penalty



To the editor: It's no surprise that the majority of California voters support 
the death penalty in this progressive state. ("Execution is inhumane, no matter 
what method states use," March 16)

This country has more than 300 million guns in circulation and an incredibly 
high number of deaths as a result. As far as I'm concerned - and surely as 
millions of other Californians also think - it's justified that we should have 
the ultimate penalty to counter the reality that we live in a violent country.

And why do we always hear the argument that some people on death row are 
innocent? Is there a clear answer that this is in fact true?

Finally, when will California start carrying out the death sentences for the 
nearly 750 prisoners awaiting execution? If terminally ill, law-abiding 
individuals seeking end-of-life solutions via prescribed drugs can fulfill 
their wishes, I'm sure California can come up with a similar solution on the 
death penalty.

David Novis, Santa Barbara

----

To the editor: The death penalty, loathsome as it is, must be considered legal 
under the U.S. Constitution, which incorporated English common law as it stood 
at the time it was ratified. Then, England considered execution a legitimate 
form of punishment.

What is wrong with the death penalty is the moral implication of randomly 
meting out the punishment. For example, compare the rate of executions in Texas 
to that in California.

Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, who once accepted the legitimacy of the 
death penalty, said it best: "From this day forward, I will no longer tinker 
with the machinery of death."

Erica Hahn, Monrovia

----

. To the editor: In addition to all of the excellent reasons you cite to 
abolish the death penalty in the U.S., there is yet another reason that was not 
mentioned: the devastating effect of this sentence on the family members of the 
people involved.

Imagine living, usually for many years, with the possibility that your relative 
may eventually be executed. Sometimes even the families of the victims protest 
the death penalty.

Instead, why can't we have a less bloodthirsty but very severe (and more 
immediate) punishment for convicted murderers? The possibility of life 
imprisonment with no hope of parole, with solitary confinement and no amenities 
such as television, might be more of a deterrent to murder than the death 
penalty.

Jan Kelley, Studio City

(source: Letters to the Editor, Los Angeles Times)