[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, VA., S.C., FLA., LA.

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 11



TEXAS----new (2014) execution date)

Execution date set for Garner's killer----Judge sets Dec. 11


The family of Vicki Garner last Friday came 1 step closer to justice when Judge 
Christi Kennedy of the 114th District Court ruled to set an execution date for 
Garner's killer, Robert Charles Ladd, in a hearing that took place in the Smith 
County courthouse.

The execution is scheduled to take place on Thursday, Dec. 11, after 6 p.m.

Garner's younger sister, Teresa Wooten of Mount Pleasant, attended the hearing 
with 8 additional family members. Wooten said it was a very emotional moment 
for the family.

"It was the 1st time we had seen Mr. Ladd since 2002," Wooten said. "This has 
been a long time coming."

Vicki Ann Garner, a member of the Mount Pleasant High School Class of 1977, was 
brutally murdered on Sept. 25, 1996 in Tyler. Ladd was convicted and sentenced 
to death less than a year later on Aug. 27, 1997.

Wooten said the journey has been a tough emotional road for the family Garner 
left behind.

"As we get closer to the date in December, it is not something we will 
celebrate in so much the death of Mr. Ladd," Wooten said. "It is the 
opportunity for us to realize justice for Vicki."

(source: Daily Tribune)

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

Executions under Rick Perry, 2001-present-----279

Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982-present----518

Perry #--------scheduled execution date-----name---------Tx. #

280------------Dec. 11------------------Robert Ladd-----------519

281------------Jan. 14------------------Rodney Reed-----------520

282------------Jan. 15------------------Richard Vasquez-------521

283------------Jan. 21-------------------Arnold Prieto--------522

284------------Jan. 28-------------------Garcia White---------523

285------------Feb. 4--------------------Donald Newbury-------524

286------------Feb. 10-------------------Les Bower, Jr.-------525

287------------Mar. 11-------------------Manuel Vasquez-------526

288------------Mar. 18-------------------Randall Mays---------527

289------------Apr. 15-------------------Manual Garza---------528

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)

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

What it's like to witness executions----Her interview Tuesday at 10 p.m. on 
Local 2


Few people have seen as many executions as Michelle Lyons. For 10 years she 
served as a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. It was 
her job to witness executions so she could answer questions from reporters 
around the world.

Lyons estimates she has witnessed nearly 280 people die and kept a journal.

"The inmate would lay on the gurney and be strapped to the gurney and the IV 
lines would be established," Lyons said. "You never knew what was going to be 
said in the last statement. There were times I saw a lot of anger from the 
inmate. There were times I saw sincere emotion and apologies."

In a TV interview with Local 2's Jace Larson, Lyons talked about the most 
difficult moments of her job and says her position on the death penalty has not 
changed.

1 tough moment was the execution of Cameron Willingham on Feb. 17, 2004.

"That was the worst execution I've ever seen. It was so incredibly awful the 
things that were coming out of his mouth and how foul his last statement was. 
It was directed at the victim's mother who happened to be his ex-wife."

The State of Texas publishes the last statements of inmates before they die. 
The statement for Willingham is only partially included. A note reads 
"[Remaining portion of statement omitted due to profanity.]"

(Read the published statement here: 
http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/death_row/dr_info/willinghamcameronlast.html)

Tuesday at 10, hear Lyons talk about the unexpected emotions she experienced 
after she left her position with the state.

(source: click2houston.com)

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

We Need Someone to Judge the Judges


Judge Edith Jones is no stranger to controversy. The 65-year-old jurist has 
served since 1985 on the notoriously fractious 5th U.S. Circuit Court of 
Appeals, and is known for her conservative and often controversial opinions. 
She's decided that a sleeping lawyer isn't necessarily a bad one for a criminal 
defendant to have, claimed that bankruptcy filings have increased because of a 
"decline in personal shame," and said that the legal system is corrupt in part 
because it has strayed from its religious underpinnings.

But it was a speech at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law last year 
that earned her a formal ethics complaint, filed by several Texas civil rights 
groups and a group of nationally known legal ethicists. In that speech to an 
audience of law students - billed as a federal death penalty "review" - Jones 
allegedly made a host of improper and racist statements that, according to the 
complainants, violated her duty to be impartial and damaged public confidence 
in the judiciary. According to multiple affidavits, Jones said, among other 
things, that minorities are more "prone" to commit violent crimes (when 
questioned about this, Jones hedged, saying she was talking about statistics 
and that, ???sadly," blacks and Hispanics commit more violent crimes than do 
others); that Hispanic nationals would rather be on death rows in the U.S. than 
in Mexican prisons (even though Mexico has outlawed the death penalty); and 
that questions of racism, mental retardation, and even actual innocence are 
simply "red herrings" raised by defense attorneys interested only in helping 
heinous murderers to avoid execution.

To bolster that last point, Jones allegedly said that inmates freed from death 
sentences have been released not because they were innocent, but because of 
"technicalities" - including cases where prosecutors hid evidence favorable to 
the defense - and offered an odd analogy, noting that "there were just as many 
innocent people killed in drone strikes as innocent people executed for 
crimes," according to several affidavits.

Just as controversial as Jones' statements, however, was the conclusion of a 
panel of federal judges who reviewed the sworn complaint: Since no one actually 
recorded her speech, the panel found, there was no way to prove that Jones 
actually said any of the things she's alleged to have said - even though some 
of the statements did indeed violate federal judicial ethics rules. Jones 
declined to comment for this story.

The opinion, released in mid-October, is a remarkable work of circular logic 
that calls into question whether the federal judiciary is capable of policing 
itself. The process for investigating the ethical lapses of federal judges is 
deliberately opaque and secretive, and it lacks the due process guarantees 
underpinning the justice system that those judges are charged with 
administering - leaving complainants unable to monitor or participate in the 
disciplinary process, let alone understand how decisions are made within it. In 
2013, 99 % of the more than 1,000 complaints against judges considered for 
action were simply dismissed.

On paper, the judicial review process is fairly straightforward: The chief 
judge of the circuit reviews any complaints and either takes corrective action, 
dismisses the complaint, or appoints a special committee to investigate. In 
Jones's case, the groups that filed the complaint - including the Texas Civil 
Rights Project, the National Bar Association's Dallas affiliate, and the League 
of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) - asked that the Fifth Circuit recuse 
itself from the process. Fifth Circuit Chief Judge Carl Stewart agreed, and 
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts subsequently tapped the D.C. 
Circuit to take up the complaint. It did so by empaneling a special committee, 
hiring an outside lawyer to investigate, and then concluding that Jones' 
behavior was within ethical bounds.

Moving the complaint to a theoretically impartial panel did nothing to cure the 
fundamental flaws of the current disciplinary system - flaws that are glaringly 
clear to anyone who reads the 71-page report concluding that Jones' speech was 
kosher. The complainants were not allowed to see what "evidence" Jones provided 
to the panel in order to defend herself, nor were they allowed to attend 
hearings or meetings the panel convened, even when Jones testified. In 
concluding that Jones did no wrong, the panel clearly granted greater weight to 
Jones' after-the-fact recollections about what she said (including, according 
to the report, repeated claims that she would never say such things) than to 
the 6 people who attended Jones' presentation and filed affidavits confirming 
what she said.

"The process we've encountered, and are subject to, is opaque, secretive, and 
dishonest," said Maurie Levin, one of the attorneys responsible for filing the 
Jones complaint. It's that lack of transparency that frustrates legal scholars 
and allows some judicial misconduct to go unchecked.

There are in-your-face cases that from time to time earn some public attention 
and disciplinary action. Texas federal district Judge Samuel Kent, for 
instance, pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice just prior to going to trial 
on charges that he'd sexually harassed and abused 2 court employees (even after 
being sentenced to prison, he kept receiving a paycheck until he was formally 
impeached). And Judge Alex Kozinski, the chief judge of the Ninth Circuit, was 
formally admonished for posting degrading pornographic images of women to a 
public website.

But the majority of complaints against federal judges never see the light of 
day: In 2013, 1,219 complaints filed and 1,153 were dismissed. Only 2, 
including the Jones complaint, were even referred for investigation. And with 
no statutory deadline for addressing the complaints (hundreds are regularly 
left pending at the end of each year), some seem to simply disappear into the 
ether. That???s what happened to a complaint filed by the Texas Civil Rights 
Project's Executive Director Jim Harrington last year against Houston federal 
district Judge Lynn Hughes. According to Harrington, Hughes "repeatedly made 
outlandish racial comments" during a hearing on an employment discrimination 
case involving a plaintiff of Indian descent, including quoting Eleanor 
Roosevelt that "staffs of one color always work better."

Hughes declined to comment on the status or the merits of the Harrington 
complaint (which he said he thinks he first learned about in a newspaper 
article), but said there's a reason the vast majority of complaints made 
against judges are dismissed. "What happens is a large number of people who've 
lost a case attribute that to something other than that their case wasn't very 
good or, in rare cases, the law is phenomenally stupid - and yet we have to 
apply it," he said. "If you saw the tenor of most complaints, you'd 
understand."

To date, Harrington hasn't heard back from the Fifth Circuit. "I think they 
take a match to them," he said of the judges' attitude toward ethics 
complaints. "That's the sad thing about the process. The judges are afraid of 
scrutiny."

Indeed, in 2006, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer headed up a committee 
tasked with reviewing the way the disciplinary system operates. While the 
committee's report concluded that there is "no serious problem" with the 
handling of most complaints about judges, it found an unacceptably high error 
rate of 30 % in the handling of "high-visibility" complaints that received 
national media attention. That, the report found, could lead the public to 
"question" the effectiveness of the disciplinary system and may "discourage the 
filing of legitimate complaints."

Ultimately, there is a relatively easy fix to the persistent problems within 
the system, argues law professor Ronald Rotunda: Create an inspector general 
over the federal judiciary. "We have inspectors general all over the place," 
says Rotunda. "[The] judiciary, in general, is the most transparent part of 
government. Everything that goes in is public, and everything that comes out is 
public. That is all to the good. So I don't know why we should have this 
particular situation" where judicial oversight still remains so opaque.

Judges, as one might expect, disagree. They have greeted the idea "the way 
Dracula would greet garlic," as Rotunda put it in a 2010 law review article on 
the subject.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg went so far as to compare the idea to Stalinism, 
saying at a 2006 American Bar Association meeting that an inspector general 
"sounds to me very much like the Soviet Union was ... That's a really scary 
idea." At the time, Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley was floating a plan 
to create just such a position; the proposal, as well as a similar measure 
proposed by then-House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, 
ultimately died.

But Rotunda and others insist that an inspector general pose no threat to 
judicial independence. Federal judges are among the most protected actors in 
government: They have lifetime appointments and their salaries are guaranteed. 
Adding an independent check to their behavior would not threaten those 
safeguards. Indeed, Rotunda suggests that creating an inspector general would 
actually help judges to defend against frivolous claims. "Transparency inspires 
more confidence than secrecy," he says.

Maurie Levin, one of the attorneys behind the complaint against Edith Jones, 
has appealed the D.C. Circuit's ruling. There is no timeline for the appeal to 
be considered.

(source: firstlook.org)






VIRGINIA:

Mother Awarded $550,000 for Wrongful-Death from Psychologist Who Testified in 
Prince Rams Custody Case----The psychologist claimed in July 2012 that 
unsupervised visits were safe for Prince Rams. Prince died at his father's home 
in Oct. 2012.


The family of 1-year-old Prince McLeod Rams, who died during an unsupervised 
visit with his father in 2012, has been awarded $550,000 in a wrongful death 
settlement from the psychologist who testified in court that it was safe to 
leave the boy with his father, Joaquin Rams, according to The Washington Post.

Rams was charged with the murder of his son in Jan. 2013. Prince's died on Oct. 
20, 2012.

Rams, who was initially allowed only supervised visits with his son, was 
awarded unsupervised visits after a July 2012 hearing. Margaret Wong, who 
specializes in child psychology on the staff of Ashburn Psychological Services, 
testified in that hearing that unsupervised visits would be safe for Prince, 
the Post reports.

Hera McLeod, Prince's mother, fought against unsupervised visits and presented 
a clinical psychologist at the hearing who claimed Wong's report ignored 
important evidence such as suspicions about Ram's involvement in the deaths of 
his mother and former girlfriend, according to the Post.

Wong's settlement with McLeod was entered into Fairfax on Oct. 17, the same day 
Virginia's Medical Examiner changed the official ruling of Prince's death from 
"drowning" to "undetermined."

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in the case against Rams, who 
maintains his innocence.

(source: patch.com)






SOUTH CAROLINA:

Horry County man's death sentence vacated, ordered to serve life in prison in 
1994 store owner's killing


For 20 years, the family of Hazel Weaver has sought answers about why she was 
shot twice in the head on the front porch of her Bucksport home and robbed.

Again, on Monday, they asked the same questions of the man who was sentenced to 
die for her killing.

But he didn't answer them.

Instead, Titus Huggins told Circuit Court Judge Larry Hyman he had nothing to 
say during a hearing at which he was sentenced to life in prison. A judge 
overturned his death sentence in 2005.

Huggins has been jailed since his arrest on March 10, 1994 and the 44-year-old 
man will remain jailed for at least another 10 years before he is now eligible 
for parole.

Huggins, who has been on death row since his conviction in 1996, was found 
guilty of murder, armed robbery and criminal conspiracy to commit murder in the 
Feb. 15, 1994, death of Hazel Weaver. A mistrial was declared in the 1st trial 
in 1995.

Hazel Weaver owned and operated a local store in Bucksport. She was found shot 
twice in the head on her front porch, which was about a block from her store, 
and $150 was missing.

Circuit Court Judge John M. Milling ordered Huggins' death sentence vacated 
after a post-conviction relief hearing because of ineffective trial attorneys 
and remanded the case for resentencing.

On Monday, 15th Circuit Solicitor Jimmy Richardson said he didn't want to seek 
the death penalty again because Huggins' convictions for murder, armed robbery 
and criminal conspiracy remain intact.

"Most of the appeals processes do not take this long," Richardson said after 
the hearing.

With the death penalty sentence vacated, Huggins is eligible for parole because 
the murder happened before laws changed in 1996, Richardson said. He can apply 
for parole annually after he has served 30 years.

2 other men were convicted of lesser crimes in Weaver's death and have served 
their prison sentences, Richardson said.

For Weaver's family, seeing Huggins in court again and learning he can apply 
for parole was unacceptable.

"He needs to stay in prison for the rest of his life. The boy needs the death 
penalty, lethal injection, the electric chair, a bullet just like he gave my 
mother wouldn't be good enough," said Marlon Weaver, one of Hazel Weaver's 
sons. "She knew them boys from the time they were children and they do this."

Marlon Weaver also said his mother barely stood 5 feet tall, while S.C. 
Department of Correction records show Huggins is 6 feet 3 inches tall.

"My mother was 5 feet tall and looking at this murderer, he had to shoot her 
point blank behind her left ear and when she fell on that porch he shot her in 
the eye," Marlon Weaver said. "For a measly $200, if he would've asked she 
would've given it to them."

Hazel Weaver's only sister, Rosalie Richardson, faced Huggins and asked why he 
shot her sister.

"You don't need to get out," said Rosalie Richardson, who is not related to the 
solicitor. "You killed her and you are going to pay for it one way or the 
other, you are going to pay."

The 81-year-old woman said after the hearing, "I only wished he would've opened 
his mouth and told me why he killed my sister. She was the best sister anybody 
could have."

(source: myrtlebeachonline.com)






FLORIDA----impending execution

Florida Supreme Court Rejects Stay for Chadwick Banks Ahead of November 13, 
2014, Execution----Chadwick Banks has been denied a request for a stay of 
execution by the Florida Supreme Court. The stay was requested, claiming that 
Chadwick's attorney during the trial failed to offer into evidence several 
mitigating factors.


Chadwick D. Banks' execution is scheduled to occur at 6 pm EST, on Thursday, 
November 13, 2014, at the Florida State Penitentiary near Raiford, Florida. 
43-year-old Chadwick is convicted of murdering his wife, Cassandra Banks and 
raping and murdering his 10-year-old step-daughter Melody Cooper on September 
24, 1992, inside of Cassandra's trailer. Chadwick has spent the last 20 years 
on Florida's death row.

In high school, Chadwick was a member of the band, serving as section leader 
his last 2 years. Chadwick was remembered as a good student in school, with no 
behavioral problems. He was the oldest of 7 children and often helped the other 
children, according his father. Chadwick had served in the Army, where he 
received a general discharge after assaulting a Korean officer with a deadly 
weapon while he was on duty. Prior to his arrest, Chadwick worked at Fiberstone 
Quarries as a production crew leader and was in charge of supervising 4 other 
employees. He was a good employee, always on time, and had received a raise a 
few days before the murder.

On the evening of September 23, 1992, Chadwick Banks was drinking malt liquor 
and shooting pool at a nightclub near where he lived with his wife, Cassandra 
Banks and her daughter from a previously relationship, Melody Cooper. Cassandra 
was with him for a while before returning home.

During the early morning hours of September 24, 1992, Chadwick was seen 
entering the trailer he shared with his wife. Cassandra was asleep in her bed 
as Chadwick entered and shot her in the head. She died without ever gaining 
consciousness. After killing Cassandra, Chadwick entered the room of Melody 
Cooper, his step-daughter. Chadwick raped Melody for approximately 20 minutes 
while she fought back before also shooting her in the head.

Approximately 1 hour after Chadwick was seen entering the trailer, a car was 
heard to "spin off" in front of the trailer. The bodies of Cassandra and Melody 
were discovered that morning. Chadwick was arrested a few days later.

Please pray for peace and healing for the family of Cassandra and Melody. 
Please pray for strength for the family of Chadwick. Please pray that Chadwick 
may come to find peace through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, if he 
has not already.

(source: The Forgiveness Foundation)

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

Trial underway for Brevard County man accused in wife's death----Man called 911 
claiming someone else killed wife, cops say


Opening statements began Monday in the murder trial of a Brevard County man 
accused of strangling his wife in a drug-induced rage.

David Brevick, 52, is charged with 1st-degree premeditated murder in the Aug. 8 
killing of his wife, Francia Vargas-Brevick.

Both the defense and state presented to jurors their version of what happened 
the night Vargas-Brevick was found lying injured and unresponsive in the 
couple's Rockledge home.

Brevick's defense team said Vargas-Brevick died from a cocaine overdose and 
suffocated after having a seizure.

However, prosecutors said she had very little cocaine in her system and died 
from manual strangulation at the hands of her husband.

Authorities also believe Brevick made a phony 911 call after strangling his 
wife saying that two men who broke into his their home were responsible for her 
death.

"Don't do this. You guys are going crazy. What is wrong you?" Brevick is heard 
in the recording.

When police arrived they found nobody inside except for Brevick and his wife, 
who prosecutors said was clinging to life. She was rushed to the hospital, put 
on life-support and died 2 days later.

"The evidence is going to show you that the alarm system that was in place in 
that house shows that there was no individuals in that house, other than 
himself in that master bedroom where his wife was strangled," said Assistant 
State Attorney Greg Konieczka.

However, the defense claims Brevick was sleeping at the time and woke up to his 
wife choking from a cocaine-induced seizure. Defense attorney Greg Eisenmenger 
told jurors that his client was hallucinating when making that 911 call and 
didn't have anything to do with his wife's murder.

"David Brevick still has memories of people who weren't there. However, the one 
thing that is clear is through all of his statements, all of the times, all of 
the rambling is that he did not do anything to hurt his wife," said 
Eisenmenger.

While the state is not pursuing the death penalty against Brevick, he would be 
sentenced to life in prison if convicted of first-degree murder.

(source: clickorlando.com)






LOUISIANA:

Capital defense attorneys say state's certification process unclear


Adamantly against the death penalty, attorney Richard Goorley says he has 
personally handled 30 cases while executive director of Capital Assistance 
Project of Louisiana, or CAPOLA, the group that handles death penalty defense 
services for clients who can't pay for a private attorney.

Goorley says his record is near perfect with only 1 death penalty conviction, 
which is under appeal, yet the group in charge of renewing his certification 
hasn't done so even though he submitted a renewal application in January.

"I've handled and tried more capital cases than everyone on that committee 
combined," Goorley said.

Goorley says he followed the rules when he submitted the appropriate paperwork 
to the Louisiana Public Defender's advisory committee, but he didn't know there 
was an issue with his certification until August when a Baton Rouge official 
came to Caddo Parish and testified on the stand that Goorley was only 
"provisionally certified."

"I'm not sure what it means, because they have rules what that means but 
they're not following those rules," Goorley said.

State Public Defender Jay Dixon says Goorley's claim of more capital experience 
than the entire advisory board is false, as is the allegation that the group 
doesn't follow their own rules.

"That is not true," Dixon said. "We have capital guidelines that we've had in 
place for a while. We have new capital trial guidelines that are in the process 
of being approved. We have rules as to how to apply and what needs to be 
presented to the committee to be certified. That is not true."

The board's application requires attorneys to list trial experience, include 
writing samples, and provide any mental or physical issues. The advisory 
committee makes a recommendation about an attorney's certification, but Dixon 
has the final say.

"They go through pages and pages of information that I reviewed as well. At 
this point, I have not disagreed with any thing they've recommended, but that's 
not to say I wouldn't," Dixon said.

A number of attorneys already have- or will- surrender their capital 
certification this year. Another was de-certified. That leaves only a few 
others eligible to take death penalty cases.

The state didn't provide a full list of certified lawyers from our viewing 
area, but they say they are committed to providing efficient counsel.

Ross Owen voluntarily gave up death penalty cases in 2012 to spend more time 
with his children, but he took one capital client in 2013 when the board asked 
him for help, as well as Tarika Wilson's case last month.

"I think this unjustly hurts poor people" Owen said the current judicial state 
of Caddo Parish. "If you had money, you wouldn't end up in the boat that Tarika 
is in, and that doesn't seem fair to me."

With CAPOLA all but officially closed, Owen is putting together the support 
staff to take Wilson's case to trial. The Caddo District Attorney's office 
plans to take at least two murder cases before the grand jury this month. If 
jurors return 1st degree murder indictments against Jake Robinson and Mark 
Colby, it's unclear who would take those cases, but Dixon says they would find 
adequate counsel.

"It's a stressful, stressful way to earn a living, and a stressful type of 
case," Owen said. "They're going to need more lawyers and they're just aren't 
enough now."

Area prosecutors have previously speculated this is the state's way of getting 
rid of the death penalty in Caddo Parish, an area that routinely seeks and gets 
the highest form of punishment. If there are no lawyers available, you can't 
take a case to trial.

Dixon says he works at the pleasure of the governor, and death penalty 
abolition does not fall in line with Gov. Bobby Jindal's (R-LA) policies.

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

Defense attorneys call Caddo Parish a death penalty "hot spot"


Caddo Parish assistant district attorney Dale Cox doesn't apologize for the 
office's capital conviction rate but says that's the reason for so many of 
office's current problems.

"The state board is very concerned about the Caddo Parish - number 1- because 
the district attorney's office seeks the death penalty here," Cox said. "Number 
2: jurors in Caddo Parish award the death penalty."

Once the Caddo Parish District Attorney's Office files a motion to seek the 
death penalty against a given suspect, the Louisiana Public Defender Board 
steps in and assigns a defense team. In northwest Louisiana, those services 
have traditionally been covered by Capital Assistance Project of Louisiana, or 
CAPOLA. That organization, however, lost its state contract in July after a 
series of convictions and future of some local cases is now in uncharted 
territory.

"It is their job to provide counsel for capital defendants and non-capital 
defendants," Cox said. "How the verdict turns out shouldn't be a concern of 
theirs."

Cox believes the state public defender board is targeting Caddo Parish and 
trying to prevent them from trying death penalty cases by any means possible. 
Tactics, he says, include cutting budgets and decertifying the only attorneys 
legally allowed to take capital cases.

LPDB Capital Case Coordinator Jean Faria recently testified that the agency 
reviewed CAPOLA work - and subsequently cut their funding - after jurors 
returned back-to-back death sentences. Marcus Reed was sentenced to death for 
killing 3 young brothers October 2013 and jurors returned the same fate for 
Rodricus Crawford just 1 month later.

Louisiana jurors sentenced 13 men to death between 2009 and 2014. Caddo Parish 
accounts for 46% of those cases.

When you look at the more than 80 people on death row in Angola, 1 in 5 was 
tried in a Caddo courtroom, more than any other parish.

Death penalty opponents say the statistics show that capital punishment is not 
a result of the crime committed, but instead of the geography in which it 
occurred.

Since reinstatement of the death penalty in the modern era, the south has 
accounted for 82% of executions. Within that region, there are some 
jurisdictions that sentences a disproportionately high number of people to die. 
A look at the 15 counties which have executed to most people since 1976 reveals 
9 in Texas alone.

Capital punishment opponents often point to East Baton Rouge Parish as a 
success story. The DA's office used to seek the death penalty on a regular 
basis but doesn't anymore. DA Hillar Moore says the office's policy has not 
changed, but he says he encountered many of problems Caddo prosecutors face 
now. Moore says they fought the state board on funding and consistently saw 
death qualified attorneys de-certified. When faced with up to 5 years of 
pre-trial motions, Moore says many families opt instead to let the suspect 
plead to 2nd degree murder and secure a life sentence.

Cox says the state board successfully prevented East Baton Rouge from taking 
cases to the jury, but he's determined to move forward in Caddo.

"If the ideology on the other side were haunted by the facts like I am, were 
haunted by the pictures of the child, their autopsy photographs, the 
photographs that are taken at the hospital by the family members who grieve 
beyond description, I think some of the rhetoric might be toned down a bit," 
Cox said.

Death penalty opponent says the American Judicial system assures all accused of 
the most serious crimes deserve a competent defense, often adding arguments 
about highly publicized instances of wrongful convictions and the debate over 
the morality of the death penalty itself. While prosecutors carry their own 
passion, defense attorneys say they seek to prevent further bloodshed.

(source for both: KTBS news)