[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, OHIO, MO., NEB.

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 24



TEXAS:

Will Texas Kill an Insane Man?


On Dec. 3, Texas plans to execute an inmate named Scott Panetti, who was 
convicted in 1995 for murdering his in-laws with a hunting rifle. There is no 
question that Mr. Panetti committed the murders. There is also no question that 
he is severely mentally ill, and has been for decades.

During his capital murder trial, at which he was inexplicably allowed to 
represent himself, Mr. Panetti dressed in a cowboy suit and attempted to 
subpoena, among others, John F. Kennedy and Jesus Christ. A standby lawyer said 
his behavior was "scary" and "trance-like," and called the trial "a judicial 
farce."

It was not an act. Mr. Panetti, now 56, was first diagnosed with schizophrenia 
when he was 20, and in the years before the murders he was hospitalized several 
times for delusions and psychotic episodes.

In this respect, he is no different from the estimated 350,000 inmates around 
the country with mental illness - 10 times the number of people in state 
psychiatric hospitals. But Mr. Panetti is not just another insane prisoner; his 
name is synonymous with the Supreme Court's modern jurisprudence about mental 
illness on death row. In Panetti v. Quarterman, decided in 2007, the justices 
held that it is not enough for a defendant simply to be aware that he is going 
to be executed and why - the previous standard the court had used in permitting 
the execution of the mentally ill. Rather, he must have a "rational 
understanding" of why the state plans to kill him.

Noting Mr. Panetti's "well-documented history of mental illness," the court 
held that capital punishment serves no retributive purpose when the defendant's 
understanding of crime and punishment is so distorted that it "has little or no 
relation to the understanding of those concepts shared by the community as a 
whole."

For example, Mr. Panetti understood that the state claimed the reason for his 
death sentence was the murder of his in-laws, but he believed the real reason 
was "spiritual warfare" between "the demons and the forces of the darkness and 
God and the angels and the forces of light."

But the justices refused to set precise guidelines for determining whether 
someone is competent enough to be executed, and they did not overturn Mr. 
Panetti's sentence. Instead, they sent the case back to the lower courts for a 
fuller reconsideration of his current mental state.

By any reasonable standard - not to mention the findings of multiple 
mental-health experts over the years - Mr. Panetti is mentally incompetent. But 
Texas, along with several other stubborn states, has a long history of finding 
the loopholes in Supreme Court rulings restricting the death penalty. The state 
has continued to argue that Mr. Panetti is exaggerating the extent of his 
illness, and that he understands enough to be put to death - a position a 
federal appeals court accepted last year, even though it agreed that he was 
"seriously mentally ill."

Mr. Panetti has not had a mental-health evaluation since 2007. In a motion 
hastily filed this month, his volunteer lawyers requested that his execution be 
stayed, that a lawyer be appointed for him, and that he receive funding for a 
new mental-health assessment, saying his functioning has only gotten worse. For 
instance, he now claims that a prison dentist implanted a transmitter in his 
tooth.

The lawyers would have made this motion weeks earlier, immediately after a 
Texas judge set Mr. Panetti's execution date. But since no one - not the judge, 
not the district attorney, not the attorney general - notified them (or even 
Mr. Panetti himself), they had no idea their client was scheduled to be killed 
until they read about it in a newspaper. State officials explained that the law 
did not require them to provide notification.

On Nov. 19, a Texas court denied the lawyers' motion. A civilized society 
should not be in the business of executing anybody. But it certainly cannot 
pretend to be adhering to any morally acceptable standard of culpability if it 
kills someone like Scott Panetti.

(source: Editorial, New York Times)

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

Show your support for Rodney


Monday and Tuesday of this week will be national call-in days in solidarity 
with Rodney Reed, who is facing death in two month's time in the Texas 
execution chamber for a crime he didn't commit. Reed's supporters have called 
for a phone, fax and e-mail jam to the office of the Bastrop County District 
Attorney. On Tuesday, activists will be on hand at the Bastrop County 
courthouse for an important hearing.

In this edited version of a statement for the Campaign to End the Death 
Penalty, Lily Hughes explains the facts of Reed's case--and the urgent need to 
stand with him.

Texas death row prisoner Rodney Reed has been given an execution date of 
January 14, 2015. The U.S. Supreme Court recently declined to hear an appeal 
from Reed, although his case has attracted widespread attention because of 
shocking evidence that suggests he was framed.

What you can do

With Rodney Reed facing an important hearing, his family and supporters are 
calling for a phone, e-mail and fax jam to the office of Bastrop County 
District Attorney Bryan Goertz.

Please ask that all the DNA testing in Rodney's case be completed and that the 
execution date be dropped. Call 512-581-7125, fax 512-581-7133 and e-mail 
gayle.wilhelm at co.bastrop.tx.us.

At the same time, please take to social media especially on Monday and Tuesday 
to spread the word about Rodney's case. Tweet and post articles on Facebook 
about Rodney's case using the hashtag #Justice4Rodney. You could also include 
other hashtags like #evidencematters, #nodeathpenalty.

Instagram users should take solidarity pictures on the day of action to post on 
the Justice4Rodney Instagram page and in the album at the Free Rodney Reed 
Facebook page. Post them with hashtag #justice4rodney and let us know where 
you're from.

For the hearing on November 25, supporters want to pack the courthouse to show 
that we stand with Rodney and that we won't allow for the state of Texas to get 
away with murdering him. The hearing begins at 9 a.m.

Anti-death penalty activists will car pool from Austin--meet at 8 a.m. in the 
parking lot at the corner of Angelina and 12th Street. E-mail 
lily at nodeathpenalty.org about joining the carpool. For more information, 
contact the Austin Campaign to End the Death Penalty.

The state agreed to limited DNA testing which is ongoing, and Reed's lawyers 
have made a motion for more expansive DNA testing, which will be decided on at 
hearing on Tuesday, November 25th. These DNA tests could be the basis for a new 
appeal.

Rodney's supporters were appalled and dismayed by the latest denial in the 
courts, this time by the highest court in the land. The sheer bulk of evidence 
collected over the years merits a reversal of Reed's conviction--or at least 
the opportunity for another trial where all the evidence can be presented.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Rodney Reed was convicted of the 1996 rape and murder of Stacey Stites. At the 
time, Stites was engaged to Jimmy Fennell Jr., a police officer in the nearby 
town of Giddings. At the same time, she was having an affair with Reed. Both 
Stites and Fennell are white; Reed is Black. Rodney was tried by an all-white 
jury in a small Texas town.

The only evidence linking Reed to the crime was semen DNA. But no evidence of 
rape was found--and Reed admitted to having sexual relations with Stites days 
before. Today, the medical examiner who testified for the prosecution in the 
original trial, Robert Bayardo, has said publicly that the state misconstrued 
his statements, using Reed's DNA to place him at the scene of the murder. But 
the state has refused to listen to their former witness.

Meanwhile, substantial evidence points to another killer: Jimmy Fennell Jr. 
Fennell is currently serving time after being convicted of kidnapping and 
sexually assaulting a woman he detained while on duty in Georgetown, Texas. The 
evidence linking Fennell, not Reed, to the murder is troubling:

-- At new hearings for Reed in 2006, a witness testified to seeing Stites and 
Fennell together in the early morning hours of the day of her murder.

-- Another witness testified that Fennell once said he would strangle his 
girlfriend with a belt if he found her cheating on him--the exact manner in 
which Stites was killed.

-- Fennell was an original suspect and failed multiple lie detector tests when 
asked if he had strangled Stites.

-- DNA found at the crime scene was linked to 2 police officers who Fennell 
worked with. Prosecutors failed to give this evidence to the defense during the 
original trial.

-- The original investigation found no fingerprints of Reed's in the truck 
that investigators say was used to dump Stites' body, only those fingerprints 
of Stites and Fennell.

-- Before the defense could have access to the truck or request further 
testing of any of this forensic evidence, police returned the truck to Fennell. 
He sold it the very next day.

Since the time of Reed's last evidentiary hearing, still more new facts have 
come to light, including the affidavit about the forensic evidence provided by 
the former medical examiner. Yet this crucial evidence has been dismissed by 
the state courts, most recently by the federal 5th U.S. Circuit Court of 
Appeals, despite the fact that a life hangs on the line.

Because of the troubling evidence that he was framed and railroaded, Rodney 
Reed's case has been the subject of national media attention, attracting 
articles in The Nation and elsewhere. More than 12,000 people have signed an 
online petition supporting him, and he is the subject of a documentary State 
vs. Reed: A Question of Justice on Texas' Death Row (you can watch it on 
YouTube). The Intercept website recently published an-depth investigation 
titled "Is Texas Getting Ready to Kill an Innocent Man?"

The backdrop to this case is the epidemic of wrongful convictions in Texas. The 
example of Cameron Todd Willingham--who was proven to be innocent of the 1991 
murder of his family, but only after he was executed--shows that the rush to 
execution has left a trail of broken lives in its wake.

With all the evidence pointing to a police officer as the real murderer, Reed's 
case paints a particularly troubling picture about a rigged system. Will Texas 
execute another innocent man?

(source: SocialistWorker.org)






OHIO:

Death penalty expresses 'society's outrage' over heinous crimes: John Murphy, 
Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association


The death penalty is needed to fulfill 2 fundamental objectives of the criminal 
law: deterrence and retribution.

The U.S. Supreme Court has explicitly found that the death penalty is neither 
cruel nor unusual punishment. The Court also found that the death penalty "is 
undoubtedly a significant deterrent."

Various studies in recent years at Emory University, the University of North 
Carolina, the University of Colorado, and Pepperdine University, have concluded 
that the death penalty does deter. The studies found that each execution, on 
average, is associated with 3 to 5 fewer murders.

Beware the argument that the death penalty is not a deterrent because it has 
been on the books for over 30 years and we still have a lot of murders. We can 
write anything on the books, but it will not deter if it is not effectively 
enforced, and taking 15-plus years to enforce it, which is common in Ohio, 
seriously undermines the deterrent effect. We could realize so much more 
benefit from the full deterrent effect if it were more expeditiously enforced.

Nor do I believe that life without parole has the same deterrent effect as a 
properly enforced death penalty. Further, there really is no such thing as life 
without parole because the legislature could repeal it tomorrow and decide to 
reduce all of the prisoners' sentences retroactively. And there is always the 
Governor's powers to pardon offenders and to commute sentences. There is only 
one way to insure that a prisoner will not be released at some time in the 
future.

In Gregg v. Georgia, the Supreme Court concluded that "[i]n part, capital 
punishment is an expression of society's moral outrage at particularly 
offensive conduct. This function may be unappealing to many, but it is 
essential in an ordered society that asks its citizens to rely on legal 
processes rather than self-help to vindicate their wrongs."

This rationale remains valid today. The fact is that citizens who obey the law 
need to see that our criminal justice system can and will deal effectively with 
those who do not, and that includes an element of retribution, or "just 
desserts". This is a legitimate function of our criminal justice system.

Some have argued that the death penalty should be repealed because it could be 
mistakenly applied to an innocent person. Theoretically that is true, of 
course, and is true of any penalty. But when we look at real cases it becomes 
clear pretty quickly that in Ohio, at least in this respect, our system is 
working. In almost all cases there really is no question that we have the right 
person.

We have an elaborate system of "super due process" applicable to death cases 
that is designed to ensure as much as humanly possible that we do not execute 
the wrong person. But to repeal the death penalty would be to lose its 
deterrent effect. Therefore, by acting to avoid any possibility of wrongful 
conviction we would in effect be condemning a much larger number of innocent 
persons to "wrongful execution" by those who were not deterred. And those 
victims would not get any due process.

We need the death penalty to express society's outrage at especially horrible 
crimes and also to save innocent lives.

(source: Guest columnist John Murphy is a former assistant prosecutor in 
Franklin County, Ohio, and is currently the executive director of the Ohio 
Prosecuting Attorneys Association. He writes in support of Ohio's death 
penalty----cleveland.com)






MISSOURI:

Accused spree killer indicted in deaths of retired couple


A Jackson County grand jury on Friday handed down 2 1st-degree murder 
indictments again Howell, 34, according to online court records. A judge had to 
sign off on the indictments, and Howell was served with the indictments this 
weekend. Once that occurred, the public was notified about the indictments 
about 9 p.m. Sunday by the Jackson County Prosecutor's Office.

The indictments replace earlier assault charges in connection with the attacks 
on George and Ann Taylor in their South Kansas City home last September. The 
Taylors were brutally assaulted and died some days later in a Kansas City 
hospital. Initial assault charges were filed prior to the Taylors' passing.

The 5 residents were killed in the Woodbridge area of South Kansas City on 
Sept. 2.

As a result of the grand jury's actions on Friday, Howell is now facing 12 
felony counts in connection with the crimes: 5 counts of murder in the 1st 
degree, 1 count each of 1st degree burglary, stealing a motor vehicle and 
unlawful possession of a firearm, and 4 counts of armed criminal action. The 
grand jury issued indictments that supersede the charges originally filed by 
the prosecutor's office.

Kansas City police found the Taylors beaten inside their home on Woodbridge 
Lane. Officers also found 3 other victims in their yards or driveways at nearby 
residences.

The horror began unfolding when Howell allegedly attempted to steal a Jaguar 
owned by George and Ann Taylor, who officers found badly beaten in their 
basement.

Lorene Hurst was killed along with her son, Darrel, who was making one of his 
frequent visits to his mother when the tragic events unfolded. Also killed was 
Susan Choucroun, 69. Prosecutors allege that some of those killed by Howell 
witnessed his crime spree, and he sought to silence them.

Howell was arrested later on Interstate 29 near NW 72nd Street. He is suspected 
of assaulting 3 motel guests.

Howell has an extensive juvenile and adult criminal record including 1st-degree 
murder, kidnapping, robbery, assault and animal abuse charges in both Kansas 
and Missouri. His 1st criminal conviction occurred when he was 12.

As an adult, he beheaded a cat named Toby during a home invasion robbery in 
Johnson County that involved drugs. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison for 
those crimes.

He was previously accused of killing 2 people in 1998, but a Jackson County 
jury acquitted him.

Prosecutors have not said publicly whether or not they will seek the death 
penalty in the September killings. It typically takes Jackson County 
prosecutors months to determine whether to seek the death penalty. Prosecutors 
traditionally seek indictments by grand juries in potential death penalty 
cases. The indictments also mean that a preliminary hearing on the charges 
isn't necessary and prosecutors can hold back releasing some evidence until a 
later date.

Prosecutors have requested Howell be held without bond. He is scheduled to be 
arraigned Monday at 10 a.m on the indictments.

(source: KCTV news)






NEBRASKA:

Repealing death penalty would make us 'smart on crime'


As a retired captain of the Lincoln Police Department with more 25 years of law 
enforcement experience, I pay close attention to policy discussions concerning 
public safety.

An issue that will surely emerge in the coming legislative session is whether 
or not Nebraska should repeal its death penalty. Some might be surprised to 
learn a veteran police officer supports repealing the death penalty; but my 
professional experience has shown me that our state's death penalty doesn't 
keep us any safer. Its exorbitant cost actually detracts from programs that 
would promote the overall health, safety and welfare of our communities.

I've spent my adult life working around and thinking about violent criminals. I 
assure you, the death penalty does not affect a criminal's thought process. 
Very few consider the consequences of their actions and believe they will never 
be caught. I have never met a criminal who expected to be caught, or was 
deterred by the slight possibility he would be sentenced to death instead of 
spending the rest of his life in prison.

I am not alone in this thinking. In 1995 and again in 2008, national surveys 
were conducted among police chiefs. They were asked to rank the effectiveness 
of crime prevention programs in decreasing violent crime. In both surveys, they 
ranked the death penalty dead last. A full 99% of the police chiefs said 
initiatives such as more officers or better lighting in high crime areas would 
make a more significant contribution than the death penalty in keeping their 
communities safe.

These rankings and priorities are important. Reality dictates that we can't 
have every crime-fighting tool we'd like. We have to make smart, informed 
choices with our limited resources. The death penalty, while being virtually no 
deterrent to crime, is tremendously expensive. Nebraska has balked at 
conducting a cost study of our system, but every state that has researched the 
numbers has shown the death penalty is far more expensive than life 
imprisonment without the possibility of release.

The United States Supreme Court has dictated capital cases must be handled 
differently, so they are especially complicated and time consuming. The vast 
majority of defendants in capital cases have appointed counsel. That means when 
seeking the death penalty, the state bears the significant expense of 
prosecuting and defending the accused.

The millions of dollars we've spent on the death penalty would have been much 
better invested in more police officers, additional resources or training for 
our current officers. The cheaper, more intelligent alternative for our state 
is life without the possibility of parole. Repealing the death penalty does not 
mean we are 'soft' on crime. It means we are smart on crime.

Although the death penalty is on the books in Nebraska, we cannot use it. 
Lethal injection is our only legal method to carry out an execution but one of 
the required drugs is not available. Concerns about wrongful convictions and 
the difficulty (or perhaps the impossibility) of finding a legal execution 
method means we pay a premium to prosecute capital cases, but the few criminals 
who receive death sentences will not be executed. Our most tenured inmate has 
been on death row for more than 34 years. We haven't had an execution in more 
than 15 years. We've already stopped using the death penalty in Nebraska, now 
we should stop paying for it. Let's invest in tools our law enforcement 
officers really need.

(source: Letter to the Editor; Former Lincoln Police Capt. Jim Davidsaver in 
July was named the emergency management director of Lancaster County----Lincoln 
Journal Star)