[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., GA., UTAH

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 20


NORTH CAROLINA:

DA to seek death penalty against man accused of killing 3


The district attorney in Morganton will seek the death penalty against Donald 
Kincaid.

Kincaid was indicted on 3 counts of murder by a grand jury Monday.

He was arrested in connection with a triple homicide in Morganton last month. 
He was previously charged with killing 1 of the victims, his former girlfriend 
Barbara Johnson.

(source: WSOC TV news)






GEORGIA----new execution date

Execution date set for man in killing of GA deputy


A Georgia death row inmate convicted of killing a sheriff's deputy is to be 
executed next month.

The Georgia attorney general's office said in a news release Robert Wayne 
Holsey is to be executed at 7 p.m. on Dec. 9.

A jury in February 1997 convicted Holsey in the December 1995 slaying of 
Baldwin County sheriff's deputy Will Robinson.

Prosecutors said Holsey robbed a Milledgeville convenience store and the clerk 
immediately called police with a description of Holsey and his car. Minutes 
later, Robinson stopped a red Ford Probe at a motel. Prosecutors say Holsey 
shot Robinson as the deputy approached his car. Robinson died of a head wound.

An order filed in Morgan County Superior Court Thursday set a 7-day execution 
window beginning Dec. 9 and ending Dec. 16.

(source: Associated Press)






UTAH:

Firing Squad: Death Penalty Option Advances In Utah, But Under Specific 
Circumstances, Reports Say


The death penalty is one of the most contentious issues in America. The 
ideology tends to range from whether it is moral to whether the state has the 
right to put a person to death. The death penalty itself used to have a range 
of options as to how the state, or government, could put you to death.

The guillotine, hanging, and the firing squad are among the most known, but 
certainly not the only means in which the death penalty has been carried out. 
Surprisingly, the use of a firing squad to serve out a death penalty sentence 
still exists today.

After 2004, Oklahoma remained the lone state that still carried out the 
practice. However, 1 former death penalty by firing squad state is advancing 
legislation that will remove its ban on the practice. Utah banned death by 
firing squad in 2004, but was mulling it over earlier this year, according to 
the Inquisitr.

The New York Post reports that Utah is in fact pushing ahead with bringing back 
their death penalty option of a firing squad.

"After a 20-minute discussion, an interim panel of Utah lawmakers approved the 
idea on a 9-2 vote Wednesday. The proposal still needs to go through the full 
legislative process once lawmakers convene for their annual session in 
January."

One Democrat and One Republican opposed the measure. Though their opinions on 
the death penalty itself differed, they both feel that there was no reason to 
advance such legislation. Currently, Utah does allow the death by firing squad 
for those sentenced prior to the 2004 ban on the practice.

Though Utah originally dropped the repeal due to media attention, Republican 
Rep. Paul Ray feels the reason to advance the measure would be if the state 
"cannot obtain the lethal injection drugs 30 days before the scheduled 
execution," according to the Daily Mail. ABC News reports that Rep. Ray feels 
that there at least needs to be an option.

"We have to have an option. "If we go hanging, if we go to the guillotine, or 
we go to the firing squad, electric chair, you're still going to have the same 
circus atmosphere behind it. So is it really going to matter?"

The New York Post reports that the move was spurned by the lack of availability 
of the 3-drug cocktail they would normally use for a lethal injection form of 
death penalty. Though states have turned to other drugs to carry out death by 
lethal injection, they constantly face challenges in the courts.

Advocates for death by firing squad have suggested it is more humane because 
the death is much quicker. However, opponents suggest the opposite. Only one 
botched firing squad execution has been brought up by opponents that happened 
in 1879. Wallace Wilkerson took 27 minutes to die when the officers missed his 
heart.

The measure will be brought into a full session of Utah's legislature in 
January, 2015. Death by firing squad, as a form of death penalty, was last used 
in 2010.

(source: inquisitr.com)