[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.H., FLA., ALA., MO., NEB., S.DAK., ARIZ., NEV., CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

April 11



TEXAS:

GOP Texas lawmaker reintroduces bill to allow death penalty for women who have 
abortions



A Republican state lawmaker in Texas has reintroduced a bill that would 
criminalize abortion without exception, making it possible for women to be 
convicted of homicide and sentenced to death for having the procedure.

Texas state Rep. Tony Tinderholt (R) was placed under state protection in 2017 
when he first introduced the bill because of the death threats he received, The 
Washington Post reported Wednesday.

His bill earned its 1st public hearing this week, and he argued that his 
intention is to guarantee “equal protection” for life inside and "outside the 
womb.”

He has previously said that his proposal would completely remove access to 
abortions and “force” women to be “more personally responsible” with sex.

“Right now, it’s real easy," Tinderholt told the Texas Observer in 2017. "Right 
now, they don’t make it important to be personally responsible because they 
know that they have a backup of ‘oh, I can just go get an abortion.’ Now, we 
both know that consenting adults don’t always think smartly sometimes. But 
consenting adults need to also consider the repercussions of the sexual 
relationship that they’re gonna have, which is a child.”

The Post called Tinderholt’s bill a clear violation of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 
landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

The bill would criminalize abortion and classify it as homicide, which would 
make it possible for a woman to receive the death penalty for having the 
procedure done. The legislation's language directs authorities to enforce its 
requirements “regardless of any contrary federal law, executive order, or court 
decision.”

“I think it’s important to remember that if a drunk driver kills a pregnant 
woman, they get charged twice. If you murder a pregnant woman, you get charged 
twice. So I’m not specifically criminalizing women. What I’m doing is 
equalizing the law,” Tinderholt said during a hearing Tuesday, according to 
Fox4 News.

Hundreds of people attended the 2-day hearing before the Texas House’s 
Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence this week.

Committee members said that it was the 1st time in Texas history that public 
testimony was hearing on a measure to hold women criminally responsible for 
abortions.

There are 446 witnesses who registered their approval for the bill ahead of the 
hearing, the Post reported. The majority of supporters represented faith groups 
or local Republican parties.

54 people — including business leaders, women’s rights activists and legal 
experts — spoke against the bill.

(source: thehill.com)








NEW HAMPSHIRE:

With a Death Row of 1, New Hampshire Weighs Ending Capital Punishment



Soon after the man who killed his father with a shotgun blast to the chest was 
captured, Renny Cushing ran into a friend at the grocery store, who said that 
he hoped the culprit would be executed so that Mr. Cushing’s family could find 
some peace.

“I didn’t know how to respond,” recalled Mr. Cushing, who is now a New 
Hampshire state representative. “I knew he was trying to give me some comfort.”

Mr. Cushing, a Democrat, was then — and is today — a death penalty opponent. 
And in the 31 years since his father’s murder, he has become one of the 
nation’s leading opponents of capital punishment. But his efforts at repeal in 
his home state have always fallen short.

That may soon change: The New Hampshire State Senate is expected to vote on 
Thursday morning to repeal the death penalty, after a 279-88 vote for repeal in 
the State House last month.

Twice before — in 2000, and again last year — both chambers have voted for 
repeal, only to be blocked by a governor’s veto.

This time, backers of repeal are hopeful that 16 of New Hampshire’s 24 senators 
will vote their way. That would give the measure the 2/3 majority needed to 
override another anticipated veto by the governor, Chris Sununu, a Republican 
who is a capital punishment proponent.

If that were to happen, New Hampshire would become the last state in New 
England to get rid of the death penalty.

And it would continue a national trend toward fewer executions. 20 states have 
now abolished capital punishment, and bills to limit the application of the 
death penalty or to repeal it have been introduced in at least 18 states this 
year.

With the suspension of capital punishment announced last month in California, 
most people in the United States now live in places where the death penalty is 
either outlawed or subject to moratoria, said Robert Dunham, executive director 
of the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit.

In nine states, he added, repeal bills have significant Republican sponsorship 
or support. In New Hampshire, too, the debate has not fallen exclusively along 
party lines. (The House was controlled by Republicans during the 2000 vote for 
repeal, and it was a Democratic governor, Jeanne Shaheen, who vetoed that 
legislation.)

In recent years, some Republicans in the state have changed their stances on 
the issue and now favor abolishment; some have cited the $5 million it cost to 
prosecute and sentence the state’s only current death row inmate as part of 
their reasoning for the change. At the same time, some Democrats still back 
capital punishment.

State Senator John Reagan, a Republican who favors repeal, said he had long 
believed that the government’s primary role was to keep people safe, and that 
the death penalty was part of that.

His views changed, though, because “the more and more experience I had with 
government, I concluded that the general incompetency of government didn’t make 
them the right people to decide life and death.”

But it is Mr. Sununu who remains the principal opponent to abolishing the death 
penalty, and who, according to supporters of repeal, has continued to urge 
Republican colleagues to reject the legislation.

“Governor Sununu will always stand up for law enforcement and the families of 
crime victims,” said Benjamin Vihstadt, his spokesman, who said that 
representatives of the governor’s office had met with people on both sides of 
the issue. But Mr. Cushing said Mr. Sununu had avoided meeting with the 
relatives of victims who see the issue the same way Mr. Cushing does.

“The governor has positioned himself as saying he’s vetoing the repeal of the 
death penalty because he cares about law enforcement and victims, but he’s 
refused to meet with murder victims’ family members who oppose the death 
penalty,” Mr. Cushing said.

The debate over capital punishment has simmered in New Hampshire for decades, 
though the state hasn’t executed anyone in 80 years. The state’s only death row 
inmate — Michael Addison, 39, who was convicted of murdering a police officer — 
has no execution date. What’s more, the state does not actually have an 
execution chamber at this point. (State law authorizes lethal injection as the 
means of execution, with hanging as a backup option.)

Asked how the state would proceed with Mr. Addison’s execution if it ever came 
to that, a Corrections Department spokeswoman said: “We have worked with our 
legal counsel on draft policies and procedures that have not yet been 
finalized. If an execution order is enacted then we would finalize the policies 
and move forward.”

Yet Mr. Addison’s fate has taken on an outsize role in the legislative debate, 
serving as a rallying point for opponents of repeal, including state law 
enforcement associations.

The legislation is not retroactive, and would not affect Mr. Addison’s case. 
But opponents of repeal say passage of the legislation would nevertheless make 
it more likely that a judge would be inclined to reduce his sentence. Laura 
Briggs, the widow of the officer killed by Mr. Addison, told a legislative 
committee last month that she worried that a vote to repeal would almost 
inevitably lead to the commutation of Mr. Addison’s sentence.

“The person that killed my husband was smirking in court. He had no interest in 
feeling remorseful,” Ms. Briggs said. She added that her husband had also 
believed in capital punishment. “It’s about protecting our society from evil 
people that do evil things.”

The debate has evoked powerful emotions on both sides. State Representative 
David Welch, a Republican, said he changed his mind to favor repeal after his 
wife died two years ago, causing profound grief and prompting him to be 
baptized.

“The victim’s family goes through grief similar to what I went through,” Mr. 
Welch said in a recent speech. But “when that inmate is put to death, there’s 
another family going through the grief, and they’re innocent.”

(source: New York Times)








FLORIDA:

Escambia County woman remains in prison for beating, burning a teenager to 
death



An Escambia County woman who was convicted of beating and burning a teenager to 
death in 2012 is remaining in prison.

Tina Brown was convicted in June for killing 19-year-old Audreanna Zimmerman.

The court records revealed the jury recommended Brown for the death penalty.

Channel 3 News had a crew in the courtroom when the judge's decision was 
delivered at that time.

"The defendant, Tina Brown, is hereby sentenced to death in the matter 
subscribed by law for 1st-degree murder for Audreanna Zimmerman."

In 2017, Brown filed a motion for post-conviction relief saying her attorneys 
were "ineffective" and jurors were biased.

Last week, Circuit Judge Gary Bergosh reviewed Brown's arguments and found them 
insufficient.

Trial Judge Gary Bergosh issued a 100 plus page order in the case of Tina 
Brown, who was asking for a new trial based in ineffective council in her 
original trial.

The judge denied her motion and now that order is also now subject to appeal.

(source: WEAR TV news)








ALABAMA----stay of impending execution is denied

Man facing execution for pastor's sword-and-dagger slaying



A man convicted of the sword-and-dagger stabbing death of a pastor is set to 
become the 2nd person executed in Alabama this year, barring a last-minute 
stay.

46-year-old Christopher Lee Price is scheduled to receive a chemical injection 
Thursday evening, sentenced to death for the killing of pastor Bill Lynn. The 
57-year-old victim was slain during a Dec. 22, 1991, robbery while preparing 
Christmas gifts at his home.

Prosecutors said Lynn was at his Fayette County home, getting toys ready for 
his grandchildren, when the power was cut. Lynn went outside to check the fuse 
box when he was killed, according to court filings.

Lynn’s wife, Bessie Lynn, testified she was in an upstairs bedroom watching 
television when she heard a noise. She said she looked out a window and saw a 
person dressed in black in a karate stance, holding a sword above her husband’s 
head. Lynn, a minister at Natural Springs Church of Christ, had returned home 
with his wife from a church service before the slaying.

Bessie Lynn said she went outside to help her husband, but two men ordered her 
back in the house and demanded money and any jewelry and weapons they had. 
After being arrested, Price initially told police it was an accomplice that 
killed Bill Lynn. An autopsy showed that Lynn had been cut or stabbed more than 
30 times.

After Lynn’s conviction in the killing, a jury recommended a death sentence by 
a vote of 10-2.

A second man, Kevin Coleman, pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life 
in prison.

In last-minute legal filings, attorneys for Price have sought to stay execution 
plans over Price’s request to be put to death by nitrogen hypoxia. His 
attorneys argued that the state was planning to execute Price with a drug 
combination that has been linked to problematic executions while agreeing to 
execute other inmates by use of nitrogen hypoxia.

Although Alabama last year authorized nitrogen as an execution method, it has 
not developed a procedure for using it or carried out any death penalty using 
the gas.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday declined to halt Thursday’s 
execution plan. The appellate judges said Price did not have an equal 
protection claim because all death row inmates had an opportunity to select 
nitrogen as their preferred execution method after the law was approved, but 
that Price missed the deadline for making a selection.

According to the state, some 48 of the more than 170 inmates on death row have 
elected to be put to death by nitrogen hypoxia. As states have had trouble 
obtaining lethal injection drugs, Alabama in 2018 authorized nitrogen hypoxia 
as an alternative for carry out death sentences. Proponents of the change 
argued nitrogen would be readily available and hypoxia would be a painless way 
to die.

If carried out, the execution would be Alabama’s 2nd this year.

In February, Alabama executed inmate Dominique Ray for the 1995 murder of a 
15-year-old girl.

(source: Associated Press)








MISSOURI:

It’s time to give capital punishment a death sentence



The state of Missouri should repeal the death penalty.

5 members of the Missouri Legislature agree with me and have introduced bills 
to either scale back executions or ban them outright.

State Sen. Paul Wieland (R-Imperial) is one of them. He introduced Senate Bill 
32 for a full repeal of capital punishment. It’s the 5th straight year he’s 
sponsored such legislation.

Numerous Senate and House capital punishment bills have come and gone since 
2012, which tells you misgivings about state-sponsored death linger in the 
minds of our Jefferson City lawmakers.

And well they should. The case against it has become compelling, resulting in 
movement on this issue nationally.

Last October, Washington became the 20th state to abolish the death penalty and 
the seventh in the last 15 years. In March, California Gov. Gavin Newsom 
imposed a moratorium on capital punishment, a reprieve for the state’s 737 
death row inmates. His move was mostly symbolic because legal challenges have 
held up executions in California since 2006, but it sent a message. “I think if 
someone kills, we don’t kill (them),” Newsom said. “We’re better than that.”

In fact, 10 other states with the death penalty haven’t executed anybody in 
more than a decade, including New Hampshire (last one was 1939), Kansas (1965), 
Wyoming (1992), Colorado and Oregon (1997), Pennsylvania (1999), Montana, 
Nevada and North Carolina (all 2006) and Kentucky (2008).

Nationwide, courts are issuing fewer death sentences, dropping from 295 in 1998 
to 42 last year. Executions nationally peaked at 98 in 1999; last year there 
were 25.

Here in Missouri, the pace also has slowed dramatically. Since the U.S. Supreme 
Court reauthorized capital punishment in 1976, ruling it does not violate the 
Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, our state has put 88 people to death, all 
by lethal injection.

We executed 16 people in 2014-2015, but only 2 since then. The last was Mark 
Anthony Christeson on Jan. 31, 2017.

We can debate whether the slowdown reflects general moral qualms or just legal 
and practical obstacles. I think it’s both. But in the meantime my thinking has 
changed 180 degrees on this issue.

For many years I walked that tightrope of moral contradiction, opposing 
legalized abortion while supporting the death penalty. My justification was 
brutally simple: Abortion takes innocent human life; capital punishment ends 
guilty human life.

If only we could be so sure of the latter.

The leading objection to the death penalty is the potential innocence of those 
convicted. More than 160 death row inmates have been released since 1973 after 
new evidence exonerated them. A major scientific study in 2014 concluded that 
nationwide, the probable innocence rate among those sentenced to death is 4.1 % 
– one of every 25 convictions.

“A surprising number of innocent people are sentenced to death,” said Samuel 
Gross of the University of Michigan Law School, lead author of the study 
published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He noted that 
with an actual exoneration rate of about 1.6 %, “It tells you that a lot of 
them (innocent inmates) haven’t been exonerated. Some of them no doubt have 
been executed.”

Newsom finds that unacceptable: “I cannot sign off on executing hundreds and 
hundreds of human beings, knowing – knowing – that among them will be innocent 
human beings.”

The Supreme Court in Washington state unanimously struck down capital 
punishment for a different, but related, reason – the inequities in our systems 
of justice.

“The death penalty is unequally applied – sometimes by where the crime took 
place, the county of residence, the available budgetary resources at any given 
point in time, or the race of the defendant,” wrote chief justice Mary 
Fairhurst. “Our capital punishment law lacks fundamental fairness.”

Numerous studies have shown that death sentences slant disproportionately based 
on the races of the defendant and victim. Odds of conviction are highest for 
black defendants with white victims. Of the 310 people executed since 1976 for 
an interracial murder, 290 were blacks convicted of killing whites.

A key rationale for capital punishment is that it reduces crime. Here, 
statistics don’t help much. A major project of the National Research Council, 
reviewing 35 years of studies on the “deterrence effect” of the death penalty, 
concluded that all that research “is not informative about whether capital 
punishment decreases, increases or has no effect on homicide rates.” The 
studies the NRC looked at, it said, “reached widely varying, even contradictory 
conclusions.”

It’s worth noting, however, that the region of the U.S. with the highest murder 
rate (6.4) per thousand population in 2017, the southern states, accounts for 
80 % of executions since 1976.

Add to this 2 other reasons for abolition: cost and botched procedures.

Death rows are the most expensive real estate in America, with spending for 
trials, appeals and petitions typically running 2 or 3 times higher than for 
life sentences. Colorado law professor Michael Radelet, meanwhile, has compiled 
a detailed list of 51 botched executions in the U.S. since 1982. Try reading 
the whole list (just Google it) without getting sick.

And finally, in the court of public opinion, support for capital punishment is 
declining. A 1996 survey found 78 % in favor and only 18 % opposed. In 2015, 
that split was 56/38, according to the Pew Research Center. And clear 
majorities of the public are troubled by the risk of executing the innocent (71 
%) and believe the death penalty doesn’t deter serious crime (61 %).

I fully supported the execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in 
2001. I believed that if anybody deserved it, he did. The evidence for his 
conviction was overwhelming.

But as Gov. Newsom said, we are better than that.

Retribution cheapens justice. We should leave the ultimate punishment to God.

(source: Gordon Bess, myleaderpaper.com)



NEBRASKA:

Nebraska death-row inmate's post-conviction motion sat idle for 2 years after 
judge retired



A Nebraska death row inmate's case raising constitutional claims has sat idle 
for more than 2 years, following a Scotts Bluff County judge's retirement.

In 2004, a jury there found Jeffrey Hessler guilty for raping and killing 
15-year-old Heather Guerrero after he abducted her while she delivered 
newspapers, and he got a death sentence.

On Friday, a federal judge asked for an update on where Hessler's motion for 
post-conviction relief stood in state court, because his federal court case has 
been stayed since 2015 so that issues raised in it could be handled first.

U.S. District Judge David G. Kays' request led to a status hearing by phone 
Tuesday in Scottsbluff.

According to court records, the state's motion to dismiss Hessler's motion for 
post-conviction relief has been pending since District Judge Randall Lippstreu 
retired Feb. 28, 2017.

Both sides had submitted briefs prior to his retirement, but there was no 
decision.

District Judge Andrea Miller, who was appointed to succeed the retired judge in 
November 2017, wasn't made aware of the pending motion to dismiss. But, 
according to court records, she will make a decision on the briefs that 
previously were submitted.

In 2016, Hessler had asked to be taken off death row because a 3-judge panel 
and not a jury sentenced him to death for Guerrero's murder.

His motion cited a U.S. Supreme Court decision earlier that year that struck 
down part of Florida’s system because jurors didn’t play a great enough role in 
determining whether defendants were sentenced to die.

In Florida, a jury had considered evidence before making a recommendation on 
whether the death penalty was appropriate, but the decision ultimately fell to 
a judge. In January 2016, the nation’s high court found that sentencing scheme 
violated the Sixth Amendment.

Nebraska has a similar method: A jury must determine whether certain 
aggravating circumstances alleged by the state existed to make the case 
eligible for the death penalty, then a 3-judge panel weighs mitigating factors 
before making a decision.

(source: Lincoln Journal Star)








SOUTH DAKOTA:

Deadline set for death penalty decision in SD murder case



The Pennington County State’s Attorney’s Office must disclose by April 30 
whether it intends to seek the death penalty if 2 Rapid City men are convicted 
of their alleged roles in a murder, a judge ruled Tuesday, April 9.

Andre Martinez and Cole Waters, both 19 years old, are each charged with aiding 
and abetting 1st-degree murder, commission of a felony with a firearm, aiding 
and abetting 1st-degree robbery, and conspiracy to commit 1st-degree murder.

They each pleaded not guilty to all charges Tuesday at the Pennington County 
Courthouse in Rapid City, the Rapid City Journal reported.

If found guilty of aiding and abetting 1st-degree murder, they could face the 
death penalty or life in prison.

At a previous court proceeding, a prosecutor said Martinez and Waters hatched a 
plan to rob another teenager. During the robbery on Feb. 26, Waters allegedly 
held a gun to the head of 17-year-old Emanuel Hinton, of Box Elder, and pulled 
the trigger.

(source: The Mitchell Republic)

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

Jurors Thought a Gay Man Would Enjoy Prison. So They Sentenced Him to 
Death----The Supreme Court may decide if LBGT discrimination is the same as 
racial discrimination.



When Charles Rhines, a gay man, was convicted of the murder of Donnivan 
Schaffer in January 1993, the jurors at his trial in South Dakota were tasked 
with deciding whether he would serve life in prison without the possibility of 
parole, or death. During deliberations, some jurors wondered if life in prison 
would be punishment at all, suggesting that years in a men’s prison might not 
be a hardship for a man who is gay. The jurors sentenced him to death.

Rhines’ lawyers have filed a petition to the US Supreme Court, asking the 
justices to review his case, especially since the high court has weighed in 
recently on racial discrimination in juries. But Rhines’ case presents a new 
question: Should juries be able to discriminate against the LGBT community? 
“Just as the Constitution does not permit a person to be sentenced to die 
because of his race, it should not permit a person to be sentenced to die 
because of his sexual orientation,” the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational 
Fund said in an amicus brief supporting Rhines’ petition.

“Just as the Constitution does not permit a person to be sentenced to die 
because of his race, it should not permit a person to be sentenced to die 
because of his sexual orientation.”

In 1992, Rhines used a key to enter a donut shop that he’d previously been 
fired from in Rapid City, South Dakota, to steal cash. The robbery turned 
deadly when he was interrupted by Schaefer, a former coworker. Rhines stabbed 
Schaefer 3 times, killing him. At the 1993 trial, the jurors sent the judge a 
note. In it, they said that in order to consider what “life in prison without 
parole” really meant, they needed to know what life in prison would be like for 
a gay man like Rhines. They wondered if he would be able to “create a group of 
followers or admirers” or “brag about his crime to other inmates…or young men,” 
or if he’d have a cellmate and be allowed conjugal visits. “It’s just so clear 
in this case that the jury was considering gay bias in their deliberations,” 
says Shawn Nolan, one of Rhines’ attorneys. “And the court ought to correct 
it.”

The Supreme Court has a mixed record on cases involving discrimination based on 
sexual orientation. In 2015, the court ruled in favor of same-sex couples who’d 
argued that marriage bans violate the 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal 
protection under the law. But in 2018, the court ruled that a Colorado baker 
who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple for religious reasons did 
not discriminate against the couple.

The Supreme Court has dealt with racial bias in the death penalty before. In 
Buck v. Davis, a 2017 case, the court overruled a black inmate’s death sentence 
after it found that a Texas jury was told that black defendants are more 
dangerous than white ones. In Texas, jurors can only sentence a defendant to 
death if they can prove that he will be a danger to society.

A few weeks later, the court ruled in favor of Miguel Pena-Rodriguez, a Latino 
man, who was convicted of unlawful sexual conduct and harassment. He pleaded 
guilty, but 2 jurors later told his lawyers that another juror had made racist 
statements about his likely guilt. Most states have a no-impeachment rule, 
which means jurors cannot testify about what was said or occurred during 
deliberations. When the case reached the US Supreme Court, it ruled in the 
defendant’s favor and established that racial discrimination is the only 
exception to the no-impeachment rule. But in March 2019, the Supreme Court 
declined to hear the case of Keith Tharpe, a black man who had argued that a 
case against him was tainted by a white juror who wondered if black people even 
had souls.

(source: motherjones.com)




ARIZONA:

It just got a bit tougher to get the death penalty in Arizona



For a person to be sentenced to death, Arizona law requires proof of at least 1 
aggravating circumstance and the determination that the sentence is the most 
appropriate punishment.

Wednesday, Gov. Doug Ducey signed into law legislation that eliminates 3 of the 
possible aggravating circumstances, potentially limiting how many people will 
qualify for a death sentence.

But supporters of the bill have said prosecutors don't use those three factors 
very often anyway, and opponents say the new law doesn't go far enough toward 
restricting the use of the death penalty.

Sen. Eddie Farnsworth, R-Gilbert, introduced the legislation. The Senate passed 
the bill unanimously; a few Democrats in the House opposed it.

Arizona's last execution took 2 hours

Currently, there are 115 people on death row in Arizona. The most recent 
execution was Joseph Wood in 2014.

Wood killed his estranged girlfriend Debra Dietz and her father Eugene in 
Tucson in 1989. His botched execution took nearly 2 hours and required 14 more 
doses of death drugs than called for in the department’s protocol.

Arizona is among 30 states that still have a death penalty, according to the 
Death Penalty Information Center, which provides information on capital 
punishment.

Democratic lawmakers have in the past introduced bills in Arizona to eliminate 
it, but Republican legislative leaders never put them up for a vote.

New law may have limited impact

Under the new law, the Arizona death penalty statute will decrease from 14 
aggravated circumstances to 11.

The law will eliminate:

The defendant knowingly created a grave risk of death to another person in 
addition to the person murdered.

The offense was committed in a cold, calculated manner without pretense of 
moral or legal justification.

The defendant used a “remote stun gun” during the crime.

In February, Rebecca Baker, a legislative liaison for the Maricopa County 
Attorney’s Office, spoke to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the bill. She 
said the office had discussions about which factors it used the most when 
prosecuting cases and how the statute could be more sustainable for the future.

According to Baker, the three circumstances have proven to historically not be 
the most persuasive factors when prosecuting death penalty cases.

Phoenix lawyer Susan Corey spoke at the House Judiciary Committee meeting about 
her concerns with the bill. In 2017, Corey asked the U.S. Supreme Court to 
review Arizona’s death-penalty statute.

“Aggravating factors are designed to identify those most deserving of the death 
penalty,” she said.

She said the legal defense community believes the bill is a step in the right 
direction toward restricting the death penalty sentence. But she said changes 
still need to be made to the state statute overall.

(source: The Arizona Republic)








NEVADA:

Push to ban death penalty expected to fail in Nevada



One Nevada lawmaker who backed a bill (AB149) to end capital punishment said 
Wednesday that the measure is not expected to cross the finish line this 
legislative session.

Assemblyman Ozzie Fumo said the bill is likely to die in committee because it 
will not receive a hearing within the next two days, failing to meet a 
legislative deadline.

Fumo, a Las Vegas defense attorney who has represented death row inmates, said 
he is baffled the committee did not consider the legislation. The Democrat said 
he thought the measure had a good chance of moving forward due to strong 
Democratic majorities in each chamber.

Legislators who supported ending capital punishment cited costly appeals.

"We spend millions of dollars defending these people and the state pays for 
it," Fumo said, arguing that some Republicans as well see banning the death 
penalty as fiscally responsible.

State Sen. James Ohrenschall sponsored a similar bill in the Senate, but he 
expressed doubt on Wednesday that the measure would receive a hearing in the 
next two days and continue on in the legislative process. The state has not 
carried out an execution since 2006.

Ohrenshall said that fact has taken some of the urgency out of moving forward 
with a ban on capital punishment in Nevada.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Progressive Leadership Alliance of 
Nevada both expressed disappointment that the push to ban capital punishment 
did not go further this session.

Holly Welborn, policy director for the ACLU of Nevada, said there are issues of 
racial disparities in the way a person receives a sentence for capital 
punishment.

"Governmental sanctioned death is one of the biggest intrusions on liberty that 
a person could experience," she said. "And death at the hands of the state is 
something that we have argued as being contrary to the Eight Amendment -- 
prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment."

(source: Associated Press)








CALIFORNIA:

Golden State Killer: California prosecutors to seek death penalty



Prosecutors in California will seek the death penalty if they convict the man 
suspected of being the notorious “Golden State Killer”.

The move comes less than a month after the California governor, Gavin Newsom, 
announced a moratorium on executing any of the 737 inmates on the nation’s 
largest death row. But Newsom’s reprieve lasts only so long as he is governor 
and does not prevent prosecutors from seeking nor judges and juries from 
imposing death sentences.

Prosecutors from four counties in the state briefly announced their decision 
one after another on Wednesday during a short court hearing for Joseph 
DeAngelo, jailed as the suspected “Golden State Killer”.

DeAngelo was arrested a year ago based on DNA evidence linking him to at least 
13 murders and more than 50 rapes across California in the 1970s and 80s.

He stood expressionless in an orange jail uniform, staring forward from a 
courtroom cage, as prosecutors from Sacramento, Santa Barbara, Orange and 
Ventura spoke.

Although prosecutors from six counties were in court for the four-minute 
hearing, charges in those four counties include the special circumstances that 
could merit execution under California law.

DeAngelo’s attorney, the public defender Diane Howard, did not comment. 
DeAngelo, 73, has yet to enter a plea and his trial is probably years away.

Prosecutors wouldn’t comment after the hearing, but the Orange county district 
attorney, Todd Spitzer, said several prosecutors and family members of murder 
victims planned a Thursday news conference to denounce Newsom’s moratorium.

An announcement from Spitzer’s office said victims’ families “will share their 
stories of losing their loved ones and how the governor’s moratorium has 
devastated their pursuit of justice”.

“These are horrific crimes,” Newsom said in a statement. “Our sympathies are 
with the victims and families who have suffered at the hands of the Golden 
State Killer. The district attorneys can pursue this action as is their right 
under the law.”

California has not executed anyone since 2006, but Newsom said he acted last 
month because 25 inmates have exhausted their appeals and court challenges to 
the state’s new lethal injection process are potentially nearing their end. He 
endorsed a repeal of capital punishment but said he could not in good 
conscience allow executions to resume in the meantime knowing that some 
innocent inmates could die.

He also said he is exploring ways to commute death sentences, which would 
permanently end the chance of executions, though he cannot act without 
permission from the state supreme court in many cases.

Voters narrowly supported capital punishment in 2012 and 2016, when they voted 
to speed up executions by shortening appeals.

The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation legal director, Kent Scheidegger, said 
prosecutors’ decision made sense despite Newsom’s moratorium.

“It’s a perfect example of a killer for whom anything less would not be 
justice,” said Scheidegger, who is fighting in court to resume executions. “I 
think it’s entirely appropriate for DAs to continue seeking the death penalty 
in appropriate cases, because the actual execution will be well down the road 
and the governor’s reprieve won’t be in effect by then. Something else will 
have happened.”

(source: The Guardian)

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

Attorneys to seek death penalty if East Area Rapist suspect convicted



The man accused of being the East Area Rapist and the Golden State Killer 
appeared in court Wednesday.

Joseph DeAngelo, 73, is charged with 13 counts of murder, with many additional 
special circumstances, as well as 13 counts of kidnapping for robbery in 6 
counties, officials said.

Prosecutors from 5 California counties appeared in court and said that if 
DeAngelo is convicted, they will seek the death penalty.

The crimes happened in Sacramento, Contra Costa, Orange, Santa Barbara, Tulare 
and Ventura counties between 1975 and 1986, investigators said.

DeAngelo's charges were announced in Orange County last August. District 
attorneys from several California counties, including Sacramento County, 
announced last year that the case will be tried in Sacramento.

"On behalf of at least some of the victims of the Golden State Killer, we are 
thrilled with the decision to seek the death penalty," said Ron Harrington, 
whose brother and sister-in-law were victims of the Golden State Killer. 
Newlyweds Keith and Patty Harrington were killed in 1980.

(source: KCRA news)