[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.Y., S.C., FLA., LA., ARK., NEB., WYO., USA

[Rick Halperin]

April 26



TEXAS----impending execution

Death Watch: Was Dexter Johnson Condemned by His Own Attorney?----Inmate's new 
co-counsel seeks to terminate longtime attorney for bad lawyering



Dexter Johnson isn't going to die without a fight. The 30-year-old, who suffers 
from brain damage and schizophrenia, has filed a flurry of court motions since 
his death date was set in December by a Houston judge – several months before 
the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his last round of appeals. With his execution 
scheduled for May 2, Johnson has stay requests filed in the Texas Court of 
Criminal Appeals and in federal district court in Houston.

Johnson also has a motion pending in the Hous­ton court to terminate his 
longtime appellate counsel Patrick F. McCann; in February, U.S. District Judge 
Alfred Bennett denied an earlier request to remove McCann but also appointed 
the Federal Public Defender's Capital Habeas Unit as co-counsel, directing FPD 
to "explore" Johnson's claims of ineffective counsel assistance. According to 
FPD's April 5 filing, their review of McCann's work cast "serious doubt on the 
constitutionality" of Johnson's conviction and death sentence, while leaving 
"no doubt" that McCann's work on the case "falls far below prevailing 
professional norms." McCann, who was appointed Johnson's appellate attorney on 
the day he was sentenced to death in 2007, failed to collect the trial team's 
"voluminous" files, which FPD calls the "most basic duty of post-conviction 
counsel in a capital case" and "essential" to provide "competent" 
representation.

During his years as Johnson's only attorney, FPD alleges, McCann failed to 
raise "numerous viable claims for relief" in state and federal courts, 
including Johnson's likely intellectual disability, his trial counsel's 
conflicts of interest as a former Harris County prosecutor, and errors by the 
Houston police crime lab, along with numerous mistakes made by McCann himself. 
Another appeal was filed in the CCA on April 22.

Johnson was sentenced to death in 2007 for the double murder of a young couple 
whom he and several friends carjacked and robbed before Johnson allegedly raped 
the woman and shot the pair. During his trial, jurors were told of other 
murders Johnson was suspected of committing. Despite his age (he was 18 at the 
time) and his schizophrenia, jurors returned a guilty verdict in 2 hours.

In closing, the lawyers of FPD offered: "Absent a stay of execution, Mr. 
Johnson will not receive the meaningful assistance of counsel he is entitled 
to." After James Byrd's killer John William King was executed Wednesday 
evening, Johnson is in line to be the 4th man killed by the state this year.

(source: Austin Chronicle)

On the Execution of John William King



Wednesday in Texas, an avowed white supremacist, John William King, was 
executed for his part in the gruesome killing of James Byrd Jr. in 1998.

King and his friends Shawn Berry and Lawrence Brewer beat James Byrd then 
chained him to the back of their pickup and dragged him for miles along a 
country road. Still alive during his ordeal, Byrd was finally killed when he 
hit a culvert and his right arm and head were torn off. If you have the stomach 
for it, you can read the whole sickening story here.

Berry was sentenced to life in prison. Brewer was executed in 2011 and King 
yesterday. Brewer and King never expressed remorse for their crimes saying they 
would do it again if they had the chance.

King had several racist tattoos: a black man hanging from a tree, Nazi symbols, 
the words “Aryan Pride”, and the patch for a gang of white supremacist inmates 
known as the Confederate Knights of America.[19] In a jailhouse letter to 
Brewer that was intercepted by jail officials, King expressed pride in the 
crime and said that he realized while committing the murder that he might have 
to die. “Regardless of the outcome of this, we have made history. Death before 
dishonor. Sieg Heil!” King wrote.[2] An officer investigating the case also 
testified that witnesses said that King had referenced The Turner Diaries after 
beating Byrd.

So here we have 3 guys who are just about as despicable and disgusting 
specimens of humanity that you can imagine. What is your reaction?

Should Brewer and King have been executed?

I’m a Catholic and my church teaches that the death penalty is wrong. Until 
recently the wording in our teaching on the matter has been that the death 
penalty should not be used, but it still left an opening for its use in extreme 
circumstances, but more recently Pope Francis has changed this article in the 
Catechism to read:

2267. Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, 
following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the 
gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of 
safeguarding the common good.

Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person 
is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a 
new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by 
the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, 
which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not 
definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.

Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death 
penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and 
dignity of the person”,[1] and she works with determination for its abolition 
worldwide.

Was he right to do so? Some Catholics disagree. Two eminent philosophers, 
Edward Fesser and Joseph Bessette in their book By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed 
make the case the capital punishment should be retained.

They reason that capital punishment not only deters violent crime, but that it 
also punishes the crime justly and objectively.

The pope’s reasoning in changing the catechism is that if the criminal is not 
executed he will still have time to repent. Those in favor of the death penalty 
observe that the imminence of their execution will help them to focus on the 
need for that repentance. The person who knows exactly the day and hour of his 
death will therefore have the motivation to repent according to that deadline.

When confronted with the unmitigated evil of people like Berry, Brewer and 
King, it is difficult for ordinary people not to rise up in furious rage to 
demand justice. Those in favor of the death penalty will challenge their 
opposite numbers in the debate with the horrific crime, look them in the eye 
and say, “Do you really, honestly believe this human cockroach deserves to live 
on the taxpayers’ dime for the next thirty years with three square and a roof 
over his head?”

The film Dead Man Walking–the story of anti-death penalty campaigner Sister 
Helen Prejean–faces these tough questions. When working with the convicted 
rapist and murderer she comes to realize just how deep the darkness in him 
runs. At a crucial point after she has got him to read the gospel he says he 
identifies with Jesus and sees himself as a victim. At that point she too 
wonders whether he is beyond redemption.

Finally, there is the question of eternal justice. I wonder what those who 
believe God is too good and merciful to send anyone to hell think when 
confronted with John William King and Lawrence Brewer. Do they really believe 
such men should go to heaven for all eternity or do they think they should go 
to hell?

If Brewer and King did not repent during the extra twenty years of life they 
had here on earth would they ever repent?

Me? I doubt it.

But then, who am I to judge?

(source: Fr. Dwight Longenecker, patheos.com)

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

The Death Chamber Next Door----“It was as though a small part me died with each 
execution.”

Serving a prison sentence is difficult in and of itself. The deplorable living 
conditions, the separation from loved ones, the brutality—you know about all of 
this.

But do you know what it’s like to serve your time at a prison where executions 
are occurring? That was my reality when I was incarcerated at the Huntsville 
Unit, where the state of Texas housed the busiest death chamber in the country.

One particular morning, I rolled out of my bunk to images of Robert James 
Campbell flashing across my T.V. screen. Campbell was the next person scheduled 
to be executed there, by way of some unknown prison worker shooting poison into 
his veins—in a room located a short walk from my cell.

Suddenly, I became convinced that a foul odor had begun to seep into my living 
space. The electric chair had been replaced by lethal injection decades ago, 
but I was almost certain the smell was that of burnt flesh. I looked at my 
clock, and it was only 7:15 a.m.

I stepped out of bed to wash my face, while thoughts ran madly through my head. 
How could these people kill a perfectly healthy man? What the fuck are they 
thinking? Murder is murder is murder.

Then I looked out my door and saw two prisoners from the maintenance department 
welding a new table down in the dayroom. There were three others standing close 
to them drinking coffee. All appeared entirely insensitive to the fact that 
Texas was planning to execute Campbell later that day.

Relieved the odor was melting metal, not burnt flesh, I tried to think about 
something other than this man’s pending demise.

But the past three nights, I’d endured nightmares of being snatched from my 
cell by a goon squad and unceremoniously strapped to the death gurney. After 
taking hours to locate a suitable vein, a guard had decided to insert an 
intravenous line directly into my groin. And the warden, denying me an 
opportunity to give a final statement, never explained why I was suddenly being 
executed.

In the dreams, I saw images of my mother, wife, sisters and childhood friends 
sobbing against the windows of the viewing room. With a sadistic grin, the 
warden looked at them and then to my executioner and yelled, “Kill him, kill 
him!”

I woke up each time in a sweat.

Being incarcerated at the prison that carried out the death penalty had clearly 
penetrated my soul. It was as though a small part me died with each execution, 
and, unwilling to lose any more of my being than I had already, I was 
determined to make this execution different.

I walked outside to the yard to get some fresh air and gather my thoughts. I 
watched as my fellow inmates played handball and basketball, apparently without 
the same burden.

Before long, my focus drifted to every van that entered the prison. I wondered 
which one carried Campbell, and what I could do to obstruct its path. Almost 
deliriously, I stared up at the wicked officer in the guard tower and wondered 
if he would be the one to inject the poison into the veins of the condemned. If 
I could somehow stop him from making it to the death chamber…

My thoughts were interrupted by the screams of a different guard: “Clear the 
yard, clear the yard!” he shouted with authority. The time had come, I thought: 
Campbell had arrived, and the prison officials were going to great lengths to 
ensure that their planned murder would be uninterrupted.

The media had begun to gather on the outside of the compound, and on my way 
back to my cellblock, I could hear the chants of an abolitionists’ group: “No 
Justice, No Peace!”

I began to think about Campbell’s mental state. What does a man think while 
someone is escorting him to the very room that would consume his soul? What 
does he he think of the prisoners who cleaned out that room in preparation for 
his untimely death? What does he think about the one who prepared his last 
meal?

Would he eat from the very hands that would return a short time later and strap 
him to the gurney to meet death? Would he resist like Gary Graham had, and be 
beaten before being killed?

Or would the courts intervene at the last moment? Campbell's IQ had been tested 
at 68, 69 and 71, and the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that scores below 
“approximately 70” indicated intellectual disability. Was Campbell's attorney 
questioning the fact that Texas had still scheduled a man who was 
“intellectually disabled” for lethal injection?

It was almost late afternoon, and the execution was hanging over the prison 
like a dark cloud on a dark day. Or at least it was hanging over me, 
personally.

I asked my neighbor if he’d heard the name Robert Campbell before, and he said 
with confidence that it was the owner of the Houston football team. I shook my 
head in disgust. I wanted to yell, but didn’t, that Robert Campbell would be 
the guy in the room next door.

But a sudden burst of roaring cheers suddenly came from the T.V. room. The news 
that Campbell had received a stay of execution must have flashed across the 
T.V., I thought to myself! I rushed to the common area—only to see that a Jerry 
Springer-type show was on, and it was the origin of all of the excitement.

Again, I wanted to shout, “There’s a guy about to be murdered! In the room next 
door!”

I returned to my cell to moan alone. Despite the crime that Campbell had 
committed, he didn’t deserve to die like this, and despite the crime I’d 
committed, I didn’t deserve to have a part of me die with this other man.

Two prisoners stood a few feet from me arguing about what the prison was 
serving for dinner. Campbell’s time was expiring fast. If the state of Texas 
kept up its tradition, he would be strapped to the gurney once the clock struck 
6, and the poison would begin flowing shortly after that.

I thought of lynchings. I thought of the old saying, “Old habits are hard to 
break.”

I was paralyzed and petrified. Campbell was soon to be killed, and there was 
absolutely nothing I could do to stop it.

Now I was caught in a terrible quandary. One part of me demanded life for 
Campbell, while another wanted death for the people about to carry out this 
senseless act. I’d become what I despised, in just a day.

Then, a roar invaded the silence of my cell again. This time it came from 
outside the compound—and this time it was real! A victory roar from the 
abolitionists could not be mistaken for the cheers from a Jerry Springer 
audience. I turned on my radio and there it was: “Death Row inmate Robert 
Campbell has just received a stay of execution from the Fifth Circuit Court of 
Appeals. The appellate court stayed the execution to determine if his 
intellectual disabilities make him ineligible…”

Hooray! The execution was stopped. Campbell would live to see another day. He 
would return back to his prison and speak to his friends there, and all the 
people he’d thought he would never see again. Perhaps this would assure them 
that not everyone who leaves death row dies. Perhaps I’ll sleep nightmare-free 
tonight.

But in the words of Leo Tolstoy, “All this is carefully arranged and planned by 
learned and enlightened people.”

In 2017, Robert James Campbell's death sentence was reduced to life with the 
possibility of parole after a U.S. Supreme Court decision declared capital 
punishment for the intellectually disabled unconstitutional.

Jeremy Busby, 41, is incarcerated at the Stiles Unit prison in Beaumont, Texas, 
where he is serving a 75-year sentence for murder.

(source: themarshallproject.org)








NEW YORK:

Little Electric Chair — the defining image of Andy Warhol’s ‘Death and 
Disasters’ series----In this iconic but haunting image painted in 1964-65, 
Warhol reveals the underside of America’s consumerist and capitalist culture. 
The work is offered in New York on 15 May



A chilling portrait of one of America’s most infamous inventions, Little 
Electric Chair is the defining image of Andy Warhol’s ‘Death and Disasters’ 
series, a seminal body of work that saw the artist penetrate the shining veneer 
of post-war American life and reveal the darker realities that lay beneath.

The sinister spectacle of the electric chair, alone save for the SILENCE sign 
that emerges from the darkness of the door, is bathed in a soft shade of 
flesh-toned pink, a colour unique to this group of works that was executed in 
late 1964-1965.

The idea for the ‘Death and Disasters’ series came about in June 1962 when the 
curator Henry Geldzahler presented a copy of the day’s newspaper to Warhol over 
lunch. The headline on the front page screamed ‘129 DIE IN JET’. ‘I wanted Andy 
to get serious,’ Geldzahler recalled. ‘I said, “It is enough life. It is time 
for a little death”.’

Soon after, Warhol transferred the image of the plane wreckage onto canvas, the 
headline announcing the theme that would preoccupy the artist for the following 
years. He was also painting the Marilyns at the time. ‘I realised that 
everything I was doing must have been Death,’ he later reflected. ‘Every time 
you turned on the radio they said something like, “Four million are going to 
die.” That started it.’

‘Electric Chair’ is filled with a chilling sense of foreboding. The real terror 
is left unseen, making it all the more horrifying

Over the next 2 years, Warhol explored the theme of death through a variety of 
subjects, creating a powerful body of work that was intended for an exhibition 
at the Sonnabend Gallery in Paris in the spring of 1964. It was to be the first 
presentation of his art in Europe, a show he planned to title Death in America. 
Believing that the French intelligentsia would scorn his Pop depictions of 
consumerist icons, Warhol chose instead to present the dark realities of 
everyday life in 1960s America.

In contrast to the cool commercialism of his Coca Cola bottles and Campbell’s 
soup cans, Warhol’s depictions of suburban car crashes, people jumping to their 
deaths from skyscrapers, the atomic bomb, race riots in the Deep South and more 
revealed the underside of his country’s consumerist and capitalist culture. The 
most disturbing, provocative and sinister of this series, the ‘Electric Chairs’ 
serve as the quintessential symbols of the group.

Death by electrocution was at the forefront of people’s minds when Warhol began 
the group in early 1963. The source image was a press photograph from January 
1953 that showed the electric chair, known as ‘Old Sparky’, at Sing Sing State 
Penitentiary in Ossining, New York. It was here that Julius and Ethel 
Rosenberg, the couple convicted of Soviet espionage, were executed a few months 
later.

Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Little Electric Chair, painted in 1964-1965. Acrylic 
and silkscreen ink on linen. 22 x 28 in (55.9 x 71.1 cm). Estimate 
$6,000,000-8,000,000. Offered in Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale on 
15 May 2019 at Christie’s in New York. Artwork © 2019 The Andy Warhol 
Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS)

It is no coincidence that in 1964-65 when Warhol painted this work — which 
comes from The Collection of S.I. Newhouse — the issue of capital punishment 
had come to the fore once again. Protest against the death penalty was at an 
all-time high. In New York, the electric chair in Sing Sing was used for the 
final times in March and August of 1963, before being finally outlawed 2 years 
later.

Taking this press photograph, which was already highly contrasted to increase 
its legibility for media dissemination, Warhol applied a single layer of 
monochrome colour before printing the silkscreen. For this group of ‘Little 
Electric Chairs’, the artist used a range of colours — from garish cadmium 
yellow and orange, to sugary lavenders and pinks — to create a disturbing 
contrast with the sinister subject matter printed on top. The rare, soft pink 
of the work offered in New York, which has previously been exhibited as The 
Pink Chair, is in fact a very light shade of ‘indo orange red’.

Warhol’s depersonalised mode of production and the repetition of the same image 
throughout the series would seem to affirm his statement about seeing a 
gruesome picture over and over again, and it losing its effect. The result of 
these works is in fact the opposite: it is the seeming indifference to the 
meaning of this image that paradoxically heightens the quiet horror it exudes.

Unlike the ‘Car Crash’ or the ‘Race Riots’ works, the ‘Electric Chairs’ are 
exempt from explicit violence; they are defined by a stillness, emptiness and 
silence. Lacking any sign of human presence, Little Electric Chair is filled 
with a chilling sense of foreboding. The real terror is left unseen, making it 
all the more horrifying; the viewer is left to imagine the gruesome events that 
will follow.

It is in its very absence of human content that this image serves as the 
complete embodiment of the concept of death that Warhol was exploring with this 
series. ‘I never understood why when you died, you didn’t just vanish and 
everything could just keep going the way it was, only you just wouldn’t be 
there,’ he said. ‘I always thought I’d like my own tombstone to be blank.’

(source: christies.com)








SOUTH CAROLINA:

State seeking death penalty against Bennettsville man accused of killing woman, 
child



The state of South Carolina wants to seek the death penalty against Jejuancey 
Fernando Harrington, 33, in connection to the murders of 36-year-old Ella 
Lowery and her 8-year-old daughter, Iyana Lowery, according to S.C. Public 
Index online records.

The index shows the notice was filed on April 23.

Ella Lowery was found murdered in her Bennettsville home on May 5, 2017.

Her daughter was found dead 12 days later in Gum Swamp Creek on New Bridge Road 
in the McColl area of Marlboro County.

Deputies charged Harrington with two counts of murder.

Arrest warrants said Harrington stashed the personal belongings of Ella Lowery 
inside an abandoned home on New Bridge Road near the creek where Iyana was 
found dead, according to arrest warrants.

The warrants add that video footage from New Bridge Road places Harrington near 
the abandoned home where Lowery's personal belongings were found after the 
murder.

The warrants say Harrington killed Lowery on May 5 at a home on Craig Circle in 
Bennettsville.

Deputies said Harrington kidnapped Iyana and killed her.

Arrest warrants say Iyana's DNA was found in the trunk of a 1998 Mitsubishi 
Eclipse that Harrington was driving.

Deputies have yet to say how Iyana was killed or what personal belongings of 
her mother's were found at the abandoned house.

Harrington has been transferred to 3 different detention centers since his 
arrest. Officials haven't said why he's been moved around so much and they 
aren't saying where he's being held at this time.

A gag order was issued on May 18, 2017, by Fourth Circuit Chief Administrative 
Judge Roger M. Henderson in the case against Harrington.

The order says said the investigation is ongoing and there have been “numerous, 
aggressive inquiries regarding this case by non-trial participants.”

It also says, “The State believes it has a duty to protect the pending 
investigation of this case as well as the right of the defendant to a fair 
trial.”

The order doesn’t restrict the activity of any person or entity not included as 
a “Covered Person.”

It defines a “Covered Person” as the 4th Circuit Solicitor’s Offices, 
Solicitor, Deputy Solicitor, Assistant Solicitors, employees and staff of 
Solicitor’s Offices, all law enforcement, defendant, all counsel for defendant, 
victim, parents of victim, family members of victim, witnesses and or potential 
witnesses, all counsel for victim, victim’s family and victim’s representative.

The Fourth Circuit Solicitor’s Office can’t comment on the death penalty notice 
because of the gag order.

A trial date for Harrington hasn’t been set at this time.

(source: WPDE news)








FLORIDA:

Death penalty for convicted Vero Beach killer 'cruel and unusual,' attorney 
says



A defense attorney has moved to strike the death penalty from consideration in 
the resentencing of convicted killer Paul Evans because of Evans' age at the 
time of the murder.

Evans was 19 years old when he gunned down Vero Beach resident Alan Pfeiffer in 
1991, in a murder-for-hire plot that also landed a life sentence for Pfeiffer's 
estranged wife.

His death sentence has twice been vacated, most recently in 2017, a year after 
Florida's sentencing guidelines for the death penalty were ruled 
unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Granted a fresh sentencing phase under the new rules, Evans is once again 
fighting to stay off death row.

The latest in a slew of defense motions filed since January, his attorney 
Antony Ryan argued Wednesday the death penalty for those under 21 at the time 
of their offense constituted cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the 
Eighth Amendment.

At issue is whether the age-18 cutoff for juveniles accounts for a growing 
scientific consensus the brain continues to develop well into adulthood — and 
with it, the markers of maturity that make adults more culpable for their 
crimes.

A new Florida law requires juries to unanimously decide on the death penalty, 
which experts expect will mean fewer inmates on death row. Wochit, Wochit

Similar arguments formed the basis for a landmark 2005 Supreme Court decision 
striking down the death penalty for juvenile offenders, ruling it was cruel and 
unusual to execute minors.

Assistant State Attorney Ryan Butler said motions like Evans' have become 
"boilerplate" since the 2005 ruling.

"We've seen that in other contexts, in non-capital cases," Butler said. "It's 
routinely filed in cases where a defendant is not a juvenile and is within a 
few years of being a juvenile."

The motion has yet to succeed in a Florida court, though it has had purchase 
elsewhere.

A similar motion was granted two years ago by a Kentucky district court judge 
in the murder case against Travis Bredhold, who was 18 years old when Lexington 
police said he shot and killed a gas station clerk during a robbery in 2013.

That ruling is currently in appeal in the Kentucky Supreme Court.

Even so, Butler said, the motion is not likely to work here.

"Our constitution says that clause shall be interpreted with the U.S. Supreme 
Court's interpretation. Our courts don't have the ability to interpret our 
constitution differently," he said.

"The U.S. Supreme Court...drew a bright line a number of years ago," he added. 
"They held if you're under 18, you're a juvenile and the death penalty is not 
an option. If you're over 18, the death penalty is an option." (source: 
tcpalm.com)

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

Death row killer Adam 'Rattlesnake' Davis due in court ahead of re-sentencing



Attorneys are expected to update a judge Thursday on the case of a convicted 
killer in Hillsborough County who’s trying to get off of death row.

Adam "Rattlesnake" Davis is 1 of 3 people found guilty in the brutal murder of 
a Carrollwood mother back in 1998.

Back in 1998, Davis, who was 19 at the time, his 15-year-old girlfriend Valessa 
Robinson and friend Jon Whispel were all convicted in the murder of Valessa's 
mom, Vicki Robinson.

The trio tried to inject her with bleach but it didn't work, so they stabbed 
her to death and then skipped town.

Davis was the only one sentenced to death in a 7 to 5 vote by the jury. The law 
now requires a unanimous decision in death penalty cases.

Davis will get a do-over with a chance to get off of death row in turn for life 
in prison.

Davis' attorney was last in court at the beginning of the year and said he 
found 17 boxes of transcripts and old testimony he still needed to go through.

Valessa Robinson was released back in 2013 but Davis' attorney argues she was 
the main culprit in her mother's death.

Their friend Jon Whispel is set to be released in October.

(source: WFLA news)








LOUISIANA:

Religious leaders support end to death penalty in Louisiana



Religious leaders are trying to build support for ending Louisiana's use of the 
death penalty, a proposal that has repeatedly failed to gain the backing of 
state lawmakers.

2 dozen clergy representing Catholic and Protestant churches spoke Thursday on 
the Louisiana Capitol steps in favor of proposals by Republican Sen. Dan 
Claitor and Democratic Rep. Terry Landry to eliminate executions in the state.

(source: Associated Press)








ARKANSAS:

Death penalty still in play for Rick Headley



Capital murder suspect Rick Headley appeared Thursday in Baxter County Circuit 
with his attorneys, who requested the judge postpone the case as they continue 
to work with prosecutors towards a potential resolution.

They also handed the court requests to gain access to any records regarding 
crimes Headley may have committed while a juvenile. Additionally, they are 
seeking any records of intervention into Headley's family when he was young, 
particularly any documents related to a FINS (family in need of services) case 
they say may have been opened.

The defense attorneys told Circuit Court Judge John Putman they needed more 
time to gather information regarding mitigation because the prosecuting 
attorney has yet to make a final decision regarding the death penalty.

Should Headley be found guilty of capital murder, the only two punishments he 
could receive are life without parole or the death penalty.

The defense attorneys must prepare for a potential penalty phase of the case. 
If Headley is found guilty, defense attorneys will want to present as much 
evidence as possible to show to the court.

In the penalty phase of death penalty cases, defense attorneys generally try to 
present evidence that defendants had bad childhoods. Additionally, they present 
loved ones of the defendants who ask the court to spare the life of the 
defendant. Family members of Kirstie Dawn Headley are shown displaying tattoos 
they received to honor the victim of domestic violence.

The murder

Mountain Home police say Kirstie Headley was stabbed to death March 13 of last 
year by her estranged husband Rick Headley, who was arrested and charged with 
capital murder in connection with her death.

An affidavit in the case says a video surveillance camera in the store captured 
Rick Headley, armed with a knife in his right hand, drag his estranged wife out 
of the store.

Once outside, Headley allegedly stabbed her multiple times. One witness 
reported seeing Headley stabbing his estranged wife, while a second witness 
told police they saw Headley striking his estranged wife, but didn't know 
Headley had a knife.

When interviewed by police after being read his rights, Headley reportedly told 
police he drove to the Dollar General store where his wife worked with the 
intention of killing her.

Police interviewed other witnesses who reportedly confirmed Headley went to the 
store with the intention of killing her.

(source: The Baxter Bulletin)




NEBRASKA:

Nebraska rejects new attempt to abolish death penalty



3 years after Nebraska voters reinstated the death penalty, lawmakers have 
rejected a new attempt to abolish the punishment.

Senators who want to outlaw capital punishment fell 8 votes short Thursday of 
the support needed to advance the measure through a 1st-round vote. The measure 
stalled with 17 lawmakers voting in favor of it and 25 against. Seven senators 
didn't vote.

Senators who want to outlaw capital punishment fell eight votes short Thursday 
of the support needed to advance the measure through a 1st-round vote. The 
measure stalled with 17 lawmakers voting in favor of it and 25 against. 7 
senators didn't vote.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Ernie Chambers pushes for repeal of death penalty; others say eliminating it 
would ignore will of voters



State lawmakers took up the sobering issue of whether to repeal the death 
penalty on Thursday, with some senators arguing that to repeal capital 
punishment would ignore the will of Nebraska voters.

In 2016, the state's voters, by a 61 % to 39 % margin, overturned the 
Legislature's repeal of the death penalty a year earlier.

State Sen. Julie Slama of Peru, the Legislature's youngest member, said that 
overturning capital punishment would show "flagrant disregard" for the people's 
vote.

Others disagreed, including Sen. Ernie Chambers, who has fought for repeal of 
the death penalty during his four-decade-long tenure in the unicameral 
Legislature. His bill, LB 44, would eliminate the death penalty.

Chambers, the Legislature's oldest senator, said that matters like death should 
not be subject to a public vote, quoting from the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court 
ruling that struck down the states' capital punishment policies then in effect. 
Many states then amended and reinstated the death penalty, including Nebraska, 
which is one of 30 states that still have the punishment.

The senator said that many heinous murders do not result in the death penalty 
and that every developed country in the world has banned its use.

"The death penalty is degrading," he said, "and its very existence runs against 
what this country supposedly stands for."

Chambers — who has only the 2019 and 2020 sessions to serve before he's 
term-limited — said he does not believe in miracles and doubted that his effort 
to repeal capital punishment would be successful this year.

On Aug. 14, 2018, Nebraska carried out its 1st execution in 21 years and its 
1st by lethal injection. Carey Dean Moore, 60, was put to death for the 1979 
killings of Omaha cabdrivers Reuel Van Ness and Maynard Helgeland.

(source: Omaha World-Herald)

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

Nebraska senators seem to be paying less attention to latest death penalty 
debate



In recent years, debates on the death penalty have been solemn and deep in a 
legislative chamber that was hushed, serious and filled with nearly every 
senator paying rapt attention.

That wasn't the case Thursday. The difference from previous years on the topic 
was unmistakable.

At times it appeared only a handful of senators were listening to the debate. 
Others in the room were having conversations or on their computers or phones.

"Colleagues, LB44 is literally a life and death issue," said Lincoln Sen. Kate 
Bolz. "And I'm not sure that we're even listening to each other."

In previous debates she had been present for, she said, the analysis was deep, 
the attitude was solemn and the way the legislative body conducted itself was 
different.

"This debate deserves passion. It deserves moral questioning. It deserves 
serious debate," she said.

The bill (LB44), introduced by Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers, would repeal the 
death penalty, less than 3 years after a majority of Nebraskans voted to keep 
it, in spite of a 2015 vote of the Legislature to repeal, and an override of 
Gov. Pete Ricketts' veto of that bill.

Quickly following, 92 of 93 counties said no to repeal via Referendum 426.

The arguments for and against Chambers' bill Thursday boiled down to these:

* That it was inappropriate for the Legislature to be discussing a repeal of 
the death penalty after a majority of Nebraskans voted to keep the ultimate 
punishment. Repeal would be an override of the voice of the people, opponents 
of the bill said.

* That the death penalty in Nebraska is not carried out fairly, accurately and 
transparently, and with full information provided to the people of Nebraska, 
supporters said.

The issue of repeal of the death penalty is a moral one, not to be determined 
by the outcome of any election, Chambers said.

Debate occurred in the shadow of the 2018 execution by lethal injection of 
condemned prisoner Carey Dean Moore. It was the 1st for Nebraska in 20 years.

(source: Lincoln Journal Star)








WYOMING:

Campaign Calls for End to Death Penalty in Wyoming



Critics of Wyoming's death penalty will gather outside the Wyoming Supreme 
Court at noon on Tuesday to officially launch a campaign to end capital 
punishment in the state.

Sabrina King with the American Civil Liberties Union of Wyoming -- one of the 
organizations backing the Wyoming Campaign to End the Death Penalty in 2020 -- 
says repealing the death penalty will help eliminate racial and jurisdictional 
bias, reduce unnecessary waste of tax dollars and eliminate the risk of 
executing innocent people.

“Capital punishment is an intolerable denial of civil liberties and is 
inconsistent with the fundamental values of our democratic system,” said King.

“We know innocent people are sent to death row, we know the toll on victims’ 
families from the death penalty is immense, and we know having it in law does 
not serve as a deterrent to violent crime," she added.

The Wyoming Legislature in February voted down a bill that would have repealed 
the death penalty in the state. Had it passed, the bill would have replaced all 
sentences of death with a maximum sentence of life without the possibility of 
parole.

Wyoming currently has no convicts facing the death penalty since a federal 
judge in 2014 threw out a death sentence for murderer Dale Wayne Eaton, who 
spent 10 years on death row.

(source: KGAB news)

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

After recent failures, another effort to repeal Wyoming's death penalty takes 
root



8 states have abolished the death penalty in the past 2 decades. Capital 
punishment opponents in Wyoming have tried many times to follow suit, with a 
repeal bill having been introduced in the state legislature nearly every year 
this decade.

Each time, the effort has failed.

Most bills are dead on arrival, failing introduction by committee vote. In the 
2018 budget session, Laramie Democrat Charles Pelkey attempted to bring a death 
penalty repeal bill to the floor, but failed to achieve the two-thirds margin 
required for introduction.

Something different happened this winter. Backed by Cheyenne Republican Jared 
Olsen, a death penalty repeal bill – for the 1st time in history – slowly 
gathered the momentum it needed to clear the House, eventually passing onto the 
Senate by a healthy 15-vote margin.

But despite that unprecedented level of support, the Wyoming Senate shot down 
the bill as it neared the finish line.

Olsen, however, is not discouraged. In a Thursday interview with the 
Star-Tribune, Olsen said he will be doing all he can to ensure that 2020 will 
be the year Wyoming finally repeals the death penalty.

“We will bring a bill during the 2020 budget session to repeal the death 
penalty,” Olsen said. “We’re hoping between now and then to build more 
consensus and more support through education – we believe that is a missing 
component between failure and success. Those legislators who took the time to 
learn about the cost, learn about the moral considerations and really think 
about their decision, made the right choice. And those we maybe didn’t get – 
whether it was the full education component or who we didn’t spend the right 
amount time with – we think we can change a lot of those hearts and votes.”

Efforts to change those minds, he said, will begin next week.

At noon Tuesday on the steps of the Wyoming Supreme Court, Olsen – joined by 
ACLU of Wyoming Director Sabrina King – will be kicking off a statewide 
education campaign to gain support for ending the death penalty.

The 2019 repeal effort bore a number of notable differences from years past. In 
hearings and in the halls of the temporary capital in Cheyenne, lawmakers were 
lobbied by a mix of individuals from legal experts to religious representatives 
and, at one point, an exonerated inmate from Illinois’ death row. Those 
efforts, however widely supported, were largely confined to the Wyoming 
Legislature – one of the reasons King said the effort wasn’t ultimately 
successful.

“There is always a need for a good public discussion for the mobilization of 
people on the ground and in legislators’ districts to really make the eventual 
repeal of the death penalty a statewide-supported effort,” said King. “That’s 
what we’re trying to put legs to. We feel we know that support is in, but we 
want to bring people in and give them the ability to voice their opinion and 
say to their legislators, to say to the governor, ‘we want to repeal the death 
penalty. This is something we support. So let’s do it now.’”

Wyoming is the closest it's ever been to repealing the death penalty

King said on Thursday that the effort would focus on educating local leaders 
and Wyoming residents from the town and county level all the way up the ladder. 
In addition to receiving assistance from various religious and civil groups, 
the effort would have a dedicated social media campaign, a website and, further 
down the road, a campaign organizer with the explicit purpose of spreading the 
message of repeal statewide, King said.

“Our hope is, by launching the campaign and really moving this work forward, we 
can help formalize that coalition and really bring together a broad base of 
people around Wyoming who are interested in ending the death penalty and really 
try to shift the money, time and resources involved in that to other things,” 
said King. “It’s very rare when you have an issue so many people are behind 
where you could actually make that happen.”

Meanwhile, Olsen has planned other means of eliminating the death penalty, 
including prospects of introducing a bill within the Joint Appropriations 
Committee to eliminate a chunk of the roughly $1 million in funding it costs to 
keep the law on the books each year.

“I can’t say right now that my immediate strategy will be to reduce it to zero, 
but we will take a really hard look at making some adjustments to the funding 
during the 2020 budget session,” Olsen said.

Other options remain as well. Though a ballot initiative – a difficult prospect 
in Wyoming – is not on the table, Olsen pointed to a recent moratorium on the 
death penalty that was unilaterally implemented by California Gov. Gavin 
Newsome, something Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon could pursue if he chose to do so.

The legislative option, however, remains the most realistic one, and the only 
means of permanently eliminating the death penalty. In budget years, lawmakers 
need to gain a two-thirds majority on the floor to have non-committee bills 
heard. Olsen, given this year’s level of support, believes he can make that 
happen.

“Based on our sponsorship alone and our votes, we have the 2/3 we need, and 
there were some missing members who were committed ‘aye’ votes this year,” 
Olsen said. “We know we have the votes, and I feel we’ve grown the votes 
through our efforts.”

(source: Casper Star Tribune)








USA:

What the Supreme Court is doing behind closed doors

Recent late-night orders, an abrupt dismissal of a case after oral arguments, 
and long-pending appeals that have fallen into a black hole at the Supreme 
Court have cast fresh scrutiny on the inner workings of America's top tribunal.

The 9 justices hear arguments and issue signed rulings in about 70 cases each 
annual term. But that constitutes only part of their work. In an oak-paneled 
conference room just off the chambers of Chief Justice John Roberts, they cull 
through an estimated 7,000 petitions annually from people who have lost cases 
in lower courts. They also rule on motions to intervene in lower court 
proceedings, most consequentially related to scheduled executions. In deciding 
what to decide, through internal rules not made public but described here, they 
can often influence the nation's law as much as any signed opinion.

Clashes among the justices over some of these orders, and the internal rules 
that guide them, have spilled out into the public sphere. Earlier this month, 
Justice Stephen Breyer, in a dissenting statement signed by his three fellow 
liberal justices, suggested that the court majority is arbitrarily applying its 
rules, at least in death penalty cases.

University of Chicago law professor William Baude, who has chronicled the 
court's "shadow docket" over the years, said Breyer's complaint underscored 
that when justices offer scant explanations, it is difficult to know whether 
they are operating fairly or unfairly.

"You reach a point when members of the court start exposing internal procedural 
complaints because they're so frustrated with where the court is going," Baude 
observed. "That can undermine the court as court of law."

At a time when the Supreme Court is under greater scrutiny for potential 
partisanship, and Roberts has fought back against President Donald Trump's 
attacks on the judiciary, it remains difficult for the public to assess much of 
the court's work.

The mysteries are large and small, from ambiguous signals in capital cases to 
undisclosed rules governing the screening of petitions. The court declines to 
reveal, for example, how many votes are needed when someone who has lost in a 
trial court seeks to bypass the usual appeals court review and go right to the 
justices.

Former court insiders have told CNN it takes five votes for such extraordinary 
review, rather than the usual four that the court states are required to grant 
a regular petition and hear oral arguments.

The Trump administration has sought such action in a series of cases, including 
in the dispute over a proposed citizenship question on the 2020 census, which 
the justices accepted and heard on Tuesday.

Other unknowns surround pending cases. For months the justices declined to act 
in any public way on appeals over state abortion regulations and claims of 
workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation or transgender status. On 
Monday, they suddenly announced in a brief order that they would hear, next 
session, a trio of long-pending LGBTQ cases. They took no action on the 
abortion controversy.

The overall secrecy of the institution is reinforced by its declining to allow 
cameras of any type in the courtroom or to permit daily release of audiotapes 
from oral arguments on cases. Roberts turned down a request for same-day audio 
in Tuesday's major census case from members of the US House of Representatives 
and media entities such as CNN.

The room where it happens

Very little is made public about how the justices screen appeals, beyond the 
general rule that it takes the votes of four of the nine justices to accept a 
petition and schedule it for oral arguments. Insiders say that if only six or 
seven of the 9 justices are participating because some have recused themselves 
from a case, three votes are enough to grant a petition.

When they decide which cases to accept or reject, the justices meet alone, with 
no law clerks or administrative aides.

The nine sit in black leather chairs, neatly spaced around a rectangular table. 
The private conference room is distinguished by a black marble fireplace and a 
portrait of the great Chief Justice John Marshall.

Individual justices keep track of votes and the discussion, but the real 
note-taking task falls to the newest justice, Brett Kavanaugh. The junior 
justice is responsible for providing information to the clerk of the court for 
the orders' list.

Votes on whether to accept or reject a case are not made public. Rather, the 
clerk of the court compiles for public view a long list of the rejected 
petitions and a short one of those to be scheduled for oral argument. Dozens of 
cases each session, however, fall into a limbo of sorts, with action delayed 
for months. Some are quietly held for resolution in potentially related 
disputes already accepted for court review.

Insiders say it takes four votes to hold such cases. No public notice is made 
regarding those actions. However, if the court postpones a vote on a petition 
while the justices ask for a recommendation from the US solicitor general, the 
government's top lawyer before the court, that order -- which also takes four 
votes -- will appear on the public docket.

Roberts sets the agenda and begins the discussion. The other justices then 
speak in order of seniority. For most cases, the justices' first impression is 
set by a memo produced by a pool of law clerks. Seven justices have their 
clerks join forces to screen the "petitions for certiorari," as appeals are 
formally called, to determine which ones should be accepted for oral argument 
and full review.

Clerks to Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch do not participate in the 
so-called "cert pool" and separately cull the petitions to flag cases that the 
larger group might have rejected but would be of particular interest to them.

The justices have nearly complete discretion over which petitions they hear, 
and most are rejected outright. Before these weekly meetings, Roberts 
circulates a list of the handful of cases that he believes merit discussion.

These tend to be disputes involving a split in lower court opinions, causing 
inconsistencies across the country, or legal issues of clear national 
importance. The other justices may add items to the "discuss" list. Any 
petition that is not designated for discussion is automatically denied.

It is difficult to determine how many cases are discussed in the justices' 
cloistered confines. When questioned about various rules, the Supreme Court's 
Public Information Office referred to a book, "Supreme Court Practice," written 
by private appellate lawyers and published by Bloomberg BNA (list price: $525), 
that estimates about 90% of the cases fail to make the discuss list and are 
rejected outright.

Occasionally, the justices grant a petition and later realize the legal issue 
is not sufficiently ready for resolution. That happened this week when the 
court abruptly dismissed a case brought by Emulex Corp., a subsidiary of 
chipmaker Broadcom, testing whether investors can sue for negligent 
misstatements or omissions in connection with a tender offer.

The case, which had drawn dueling high-priced lawyers and nine "friend of the 
court" briefs, including from the Department of Justice and US Chamber of 
Commerce, had been argued just a week earlier, on April 15.

Yet after all the attention put to it, the court ended it all with a 
one-sentence order, saying that the case had been "improvidently granted." 
There was no explanation or recorded vote. Dismissal, according to insiders, 
required agreement among at least 5 justices.

Strategy

Overall, as the justices decide which cases to take up, their votes may 
sometimes be more strategic than straightforward. Because it takes four votes 
to accept a case but five to resolve it, some justices will not risk hearing a 
controversial matter if they cannot count on a 5th justice on their side.

Individual justices might choose to avoid a case they may not win or that seems 
ill-timed based on other considerations. Rarely do such calculations burst into 
public view. But earlier in the current 2018-19 session, Justice Clarence 
Thomas suggested his colleagues had spurned an appeal because it involved 
Planned Parenthood and "a politically fraught issue."

The dispute was not related to abortion rights. Rather, it centered on 
Republican-led state efforts to deny Medicaid money for Planned Parenthood 
services to poor patients. Lower courts judges have issued conflicting rulings 
on whether patients may sue states under federal law for cutting off Medicaid 
providers.

When the Supreme Court majority rejected a petition by Louisiana officials, 
Thomas, joined by Alito and Gorsuch, dissented. The trio needed only one more 
vote to accept the dispute and schedule oral arguments. Perhaps at a different 
time they would have found the fourth in Kavanaugh or even Roberts. But in this 
highly polarized atmosphere, the chief justice appears to be trying to avoid 
ideological litmus tests at the court.

"Some tenuous connection to a politically fraught issue does not justify 
abdicating our judicial duty," Thomas wrote. "If anything, neutrally applying 
the law is all the more important when political issues are in the background. 
... We are responsible for the confusion among the lower courts, and it is our 
job to fix it."

Dark of night

Tensions were even higher more recently in a series of orders related to 
prisoners seeking to elude scheduled executions.

As a preliminary matter, death penalty cases present distinct complications 
because the votes of four justices are enough to accept a petition related to a 
legal issue but 5 votes are needed to block an execution. In theory -- and 
sometimes in reality -- the court may muster the votes to review a prisoner's 
legal question but not to prevent his execution before a hearing.

The court's private rules say that if five justices vote to deny a stay of 
execution and four justices want to grant it and believe the petition has merit 
and should be heard, one of the justices who would let the execution proceed 
"may" change his or her vote for the requisite 5.

As cases have demonstrated in recent years, however, such "courtesy" votes, as 
the practice has been called, have not been consistently cast.

Rare question from Justice Thomas in jury selection case

The more recent string of contentious capital disputes began with a February 7 
case from Alabama. A 5-justice majority led by Roberts rejected a Muslim 
prisoner's request to have an imam with him in the death chamber. (Christian 
prisoners scheduled to die were allowed Christian ministers.)

The justices in the majority issued a simple two-sentence order letting the 
execution of Domineque Ray go forward without an imam at his side.

In a 3-page statement on behalf of dissenters, Justice Elena Kagan wrote, 
"Here, Ray has put forward a powerful claim that his religious rights will be 
violated at the moment the state puts him to death. The Eleventh Circuit 
[appeals court] wanted to hear that claim in full. Instead, this court 
short-circuits that ordinary process -- and itself rejects the claim with 
little briefing and no argument -- just so the state can meet its preferred 
execution date."

A separate Alabama case provoked even more dissension, with an order coming 
just before 3 a.m. on April 12 and lifting a stay of execution on an Alabama 
murder convict. The case again pitted the court's 5 conservatives against the 4 
liberals.

The conservative majority said that the prisoner, Christopher Lee Price, failed 
to meet a deadline for challenging the three-drug lethal injection that Price 
argued would cause him severe pain and suffering.

Breyer, joined by the three other justices on the left, wrote that the court 
was needlessly overriding lower court judges' views that the execution should 
be postponed and instead allowing "arbitrary" implementation of the death 
penalty.

He also chastised his colleagues for declining to wait just a matter of hours 
for a regularly scheduled meeting in their conference room that Friday morning, 
April 12.

"To proceed in this way calls into question the basic principle of fairness 
that should underlie our criminal justice system," Breyer wrote. "To proceed in 
this matter in the middle of the night without giving all members of the court 
the opportunity for discussion tomorrow morning is, I believe, unfortunate."

Beyond his complaint about court process, Breyer asserted, "What is at stake in 
this case is the right of a condemned inmate not to be subjected to cruel and 
unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment." He was joined by 
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Kagan.

In the majority were Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. The 
majority emphasized in their unsigned opinion the "last-minute" nature of 
Price's claim and the missed deadline.

They said nothing of Breyer's complaint regarding the absence of discussion. At 
least nothing that emerged in public view.

(source: CNN)