[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, LA., COLO., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Dec. 5



OHIO:

Readers frown on proposed death-penalty secrecy rules: What you're saying


Proposed new secrecy rules for Ohio executions didn't sit well with many 
cleveland.com readers.

According to our unscientific poll of more than 175 readers, 29 % indicated 
they support legislation that would shield the identity of small-scale drug 
manufacturers that prepare lethal-injection drugs for the state.

Nearly 49 % of those polled, meanwhile, indicated that they favor banning 
capital punishment altogether in Ohio. About 12 % of respondents said they 
oppose the bill and favor finding an alternative to lethal injections; roughly 
8 % favored the status quo.

A Quinnipiac University poll conducted in May showed that 43 % of Ohio voters 
favored the death penalty. 40 % supported life in prison with no chance of 
parole, while 9 % favored life in prison with a chance of parole.

In addition to keeping compounding pharmacies anonymous, physicians who testify 
about the state's execution method would be protected from having their state 
medical license revoked. The bill would also void contracts or agreements 
prohibiting the sale of lethal-injection drugs to the state.

Supporters of House Bill 663 say the secrecy provisions are needed to convince 
compounding pharmacies to make pentobarbital for the state - Ohio's 
lethal-injection drug of choice that European manufacturers have refused to 
continue selling for legal and moral reasons. However, critics said the bill 
would go too far in hiding how Ohio executes people. Lawsuits have been filed 
against similar confidentiality rules in a number of other states.

Commenters weighed in on the issue from a number of perspectives, in reaction 
to both the poll and news that the bill passed the Ohio House.

WhoDooVoodoo12:

"It's a sad commentary on our society when laws cannot be enforced because 
companies and individuals are fearful of vindictive reprisals from those who 
disagree with the laws."

Sapientissimus

"I vote to ban the death penalty and even full life in prison. It would take 
some better rehabilitation to make it work but for all the resources we put 
into other issues, I would advocate we go in that direction. As a culture we 
need to start improving our attitude on prolonging life, not shortening it."

Blacksquirrel: "Ohio has chosen to assign death to the most heinous of 
criminals. Trying to make carrying out this sentence 'more humane' is a crock. 
We have decided to kill this person for his or her crime. We must own our 
decision. ... Firing squad would do, and relieve us of this silly quest to find 
a humane death cocktail."

Dugwayboy:

"While I have no sympathy for criminals who take lives, Ohio's death penalty 
system is demeaning to Ohio's citizens. Secrecy by government is always 
suspect, and secrecy in the taking of a life is indefensible. This is a very 
Orwellian bill which deserves the death penalty in committee itself."

(source: Letters to the Editor, cleveland.com)






LOUISIANA:

Justices Take Up Low IQ Death-Penalty Case


The Supreme Court took up a case Friday where the 5th Circuit reinstated 
Louisiana's plan to execute a cop killer whom a federal judge found was 
"mentally retarded."

A jury ordered the death penalty for Kevan Brumfield in 1995 after finding him 
guilty of 1st-degree murder related to the death of Cpl Betty Smothers, an 
officer of the police department in Baton Rouge, La.

Though Brumfield initially challenged his conviction on the basis of insanity, 
he claimed mental retardation after the Supreme Court prohibited states from 
executing the mentally impaired with the 2002 case Atkins v. Virginia.

The trial court denied Brumfield an Atkins hearing, but the inmate finally 
obtained one in 2010 after a victory in federal court.

A federal judge for the Middle District of Louisiana granted Brumfield's 
petition for a writ of habeas corpus in 2012 on the grounds that he is mentally 
retarded and therefore ineligible for execution.

Though the court enjoined Louisiana from executing Brumfield, the 5th Circuit 
reversed earlier this year because it found that the Middle District did not 
give the state court's determination appropriate deference under the 
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.

"Based on the evidence in the record, we conclude that the state court did not 
clearly err in determining that Brumfield failed to satisfy his burden under 
Louisiana law of placing his mental condition at issue," the appellate court 
found.

Per its custom, the U.S. Supreme Court issued no comment in taking up the case 
Friday.

(source: Courthouse News)






COLORADO:

Challenge to death penalty rejected in Colorado theater massacre


The judge presiding over the Colorado theater-massacre case has rejected a new 
effort by attorneys for accused gunman James Holmes to have the state's 
death-penalty law declared unconstitutional, court documents showed yesterday.

Holmes, 26, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to charges of opening 
fire in a Denver-area theater in July 2012 during a midnight screening of the 
Batman film The Dark Knight Rises, killing 12 moviegoers and wounding dozens.

Prosecutors have charged Holmes with many counts of 1st-degree murder and 
attempted murder, and said they would seek the death penalty for the 1-time 
neuroscience doctoral candidate if he is convicted.

(source: Columbus Dispatch)






USA:

http://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/2014/12/the-true-legacy-of-atkins-and-roper-the-unreliability-principle-mentally-ill-defendants-and-the-deat.html


"The True Legacy of Atkins and Roper: The Unreliability Principle, Mentally Ill 
Defendants, and the Death Penalty's Unraveling"

The title of this post is the title of this notable and timely new paper by 
Scott Sundby now available via SSRN. Here is the abstract:

In striking down the death penalty for intellectually disabled and juvenile 
defendants, Atkins v. Virginia and Roper v. Simmons have been understandably 
heralded as important holdings under the Court's Eighth Amendment jurisprudence 
that has found the death penalty "disproportional" for certain types of 
defendants and crimes. This Article argues, however, that the cases have a far 
more revolutionary reach than their conventional understanding. In both cases 
the Court went one step beyond its usual 2-step analysis of assessing whether 
imposing the death penalty violated "evolving standards of decency." This extra 
step looked at why even though intellectual disability and youth were powerful 
mitigators, juries were not able to reliably use them in their decision making.

The Court thus articulated expressly for the first time what this Article calls 
the "unreliability principle:" if too great a risk exists that constitutionally 
protected mitigation cannot be reliably assessed, the unreliability means that 
the death penalty cannot be constitutionally imposed. In recognizing the 
unreliability principle, the Court has called into serious question the death 
penalty for other offenders to whom the principle applies, such as mentally ill 
defendants. And, unlike with the "evolving standards" analysis, the 
unreliability principle does not depend on whether a national consensus exists 
against the practice.

This Article identifies the 6 Atkins-Roper factors that bring the unreliability 
principle into play and shows why they make application of the death penalty to 
mentally ill defendants unconstitutional. The principle, which finds its 
constitutional home in the cases of Woodson v. North Carolina and Lockett v. 
Ohio, has profound implications for the death penalty, and if taken to its 
logical endpoint calls into question the Court's core premise since Furman v. 
Georgia, that by providing individualized consideration of a defendant and his 
crime, the death penalty decision will be free of arbitrariness.

(source: sentencing.typepad.com)