[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., FLA., MO., OKLA., NEB., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 28



TEXAS----imminent execution

US Supreme Court denies last appeal from ex-gang member facing execution for 
2000 deaths


The U.S. Supreme Court denied the last-chance appeal of a former gang member 
scheduled for execution Tuesday evening after his defense attorneys argued that 
the man, who was convicted of killing rival gang members 14 years ago in Texas, 
is mentally impaired.

The court denied a stay for Miguel Paredes in a brief order released Tuesday. 
Paredes, 32, was among three men convicted in the September 2000 shooting 
deaths of three people with ties to the Mexican Mafia at a home in San Antonio. 
The victims' bodies were rolled up in a carpet, driven about 50 miles 
southwest, then dumped and set on fire. A farmer investigating a grass fire 
found the remains.

Prosecutors alleged that Paredes, who turned 18 6 weeks before the slaying, was 
the most aggressive shooter when the 3 victims showed up to collect drug money.

Paredes' execution would be the 10th this year in Texas, the nation's most 
active death-penalty state. With no other lethal injections scheduled this 
year, the annual total would be the lowest since three were carried out in 
1996. But at least 9 are scheduled for early 2015, including 4 in January.

Paredes' attorney, David Dow, said the execution should be stopped because 
Paredes had "a significant mental disease" that may have affected his judgment 
when he told his previous lawyer 10 years ago not to investigate his family 
background. Dow also told the Supreme Court that Paredes' previous lawyer was 
deficient for not investigating the inmate's medical history.

In a response filed Tuesday morning, state lawyers said Paredes "presented no 
evidence that he is or ever has been mentally ill or incompetent," and that his 
earlier attorney couldn't be considered deficient when he "abided by Paredes' 
explicit instructions." Lower courts have sided with the state, which also 
noted that the latest appeal was filed after a deadline.

Dow and the Texas Attorney General's Office didn't immediately return messages 
seeking comment Tuesday.

Prosecutors told jurors that Paredes was suspected in several other crimes, 
including other killings and drive-by shootings. Defense attorneys argued that 
he grew up in a gang-infested neighborhood, and the only way to survive was to 
join a gang.

Paredes was convicted of fatally shooting Nelly Bravo and Shawn Michael Cain, 
both 23, and Adrian Torres, 27. Prosecutors said the 3 were shot when they 
tried to collect drug money at the home of John Anthony Saenz, a leader in 
Paredes' gang.

"Evidence showed Miguel seemed to be the most aggressive and an active 
shooter," said Mary Green, the Bexar County district attorney who prosecuted 
Paredes.

Police got a break in the case when paperwork carrying Saenz's name was found 
in the debris with the three burning bodies.

Saenz, 32, claimed self-defense at his trial and avoided the death penalty when 
jurors sentenced him to life. The third suspect, Greg Alvarado, 35, pleaded 
guilty and also is serving life in prison.

(source: Associated Press)






NORTH CAROLINA:

Group to honor men for opposing death penalty


2 Durham political leaders will be honored in November for their work against 
the death penalty.

State Sen. Floyd McKissick Jr. and former Durham Mayor Pro Tem Howard Clement 
III will receive leadership awards from People of Faith Against the Death 
Penalty.

The awards will be made at the group's 20th anniversary banquet, starting at 6 
p.m. Nov. 14 at the Friday Center at UNC in Chapel Hill. McKissick will be 
honored for sponsoring the N.C. Racial Justice Act of 2009 in the N.C. Senate.

Clement successfully championed the group's 1999 resolution for a moratorium on 
executions, making Durham the 1st major city in the state and 1 of the 1st in 
the nation to call for a suspension of executions. In 2012, with Clement's 
support, Durham became the 1st major city in North Carolina to pass a 
resolution calling for repealing the death penalty.

A banquet reception at 6 p.m. will be followed by dinner and the program 
starting at 7:15 p.m. Tickets and sponsorship information are available at 
http://pfadp.org.

People of Faith Against the Death Penalty was founded as an interfaith 
nonprofit organization in 1994. It became a national organization in 2004.

(source: The Herald-Sun)






FLORIDA:

Jury recommends death penalty for man convicted of killing wife in Seminole 
County; Dwayne White convicted of 1st-degree murder last week


A jury recommend the death penalty Tuesday afternoon for a man convicted of 
killing his wife.

Dwayne White was convicted last week of 1st-degree murder in the 2011 stabbing 
death of his estranged wife, Sarah Rucker, outside a Miami Subs shop in 
Longwood.

The testimony in the penalty phase took just a couple of hours. The prosecution 
had a victim's advocate read a letter written by Rucker and White's oldest 
daughter who is in pharmacy school.

"How are my siblings going to go through life without her? How are they going 
to wake up every day knowing my mother was killed by their father, who for some 
reason they also loved?" read Pamela Theiss, victim's advocate.

White chose not to take the stand.

During closing statements, the defense played an excerpt from a 911 call Rucker 
had made during an earlier confrontation with White on the day she was killed. 
The defense suggested to jurors they remember those screams when they consider 
the suffering Rucker endured.

"Do you think he was smiling as he was cutting her throat and reaching around 
time after time pulling that knife from her left throat over to his right 
side?" said Jeffy Dowdy, defense attorney.

Ultimately the decision will be made by Judge Kenneth Lester. It is unclear 
when Lester will give his ruling.

(source: WESH news)






MISSOURI----impending execution

Missouri prepares for 9th execution of 2014


Missouri officials were preparing on Tuesday to execute a man who wasn't able 
to appeal his conviction in federal court because his attorneys missed a filing 
deadline.

Mark Christeson was scheduled to die at 12:01 a.m. CDT Wednesday for the 
killing of a woman and her 2 children in 1998.

Christeson had 2 appeals pending with the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday. One 
challenges the state's planned use of a made-to-order execution drug produced 
by an unidentified compounding pharmacy. The other argues that he deserves the 
chance to appeal his case in federal courts, which is the norm for inmates 
sentenced to death.

Christeson would be the ninth person executed by Missouri this year, which 
would equal the state record set in 1999. That could be exceeded next month, as 
Leon Taylor is scheduled for execution Nov. 19 for killing a gas station 
attendant in suburban Kansas City 20 years ago.

In addition to the court appeals, Gov. Jay Nixon was weighing a clemency 
request.

In Maries County, a south-central Missouri county with just 9,000 residents, 
there is little argument with the death sentence, prosecutor Terry Daley 
Schwartze said.

"No matter how anybody feels about the death penalty, you can't find a person 
around here who doesn't feel it's the right result for this case," Schwartze 
said. "It's so very awful."

When he was 18, Christeson and his 17-year-old cousin, Jesse Carter, came up 
with a plan to run away from the home outside Vichy where they were living with 
a relative.

On Feb. 1, 1998, Christeson and Carter took shotguns and went to a home about a 
half-mile away where Susan Brouk, 36, lived with her 12-year-old daughter, 
Adrian, and 9-year-old son, Kyle. They planned to steal Brouk's Ford Bronco, 
Schwartze said.

The cousins tied the hands of the children with shoelaces. Christeson forced 
Brouk into a bedroom and raped her. When they went back into the living room, 
Adrian recognized Carter and said his name.

"We've got to get rid of 'em," Christeson told Carter.

Court records show that Christeson and Carter forced Brouk and the children 
into her Bronco and took electronics and other items. They drove to a pond.

After kicking Brouk in the ribs, Christeson cut her throat, then cut Kyle's 
throat and held him under the water until he drowned. Carter held Adrian while 
Christeson pressed on her throat until she suffocated. Carter pushed her body 
into the pond. With Brouk struggling to stay alive, the men tossed her into the 
pond, where she drowned.

Brouk's sisters discovered a few days later that Brouk and the children were 
missing. A Missouri State Highway Patrol helicopter spotted one of the bodies 
in the pond, leading to a search that found all 3.

Meanwhile, Christeson and Carter drove to California, selling Brouk's household 
items along the way. A detective in Riverside County, California, recognized 
Christeson and Carter from photos police had circulated, and the men were 
arrested 8 days after the killings.

Carter was sentenced to life in prison without parole after agreeing to testify 
against Christeson.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Death Row Inmate Waits to Know if Request for a Stay Will Be Granted


A Missouri death row inmate is waiting to find out if he'll get an 11th-hour 
reprieve.

Lawyers for Mark Christeson say his execution - set to take place at one minute 
past midnight Wednesday morning - should be postponed due to mistakes made by 
Christeson's previous team of attorneys nearly a decade ago.

They've filed a request with the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay, citing the 
original attorneys' failure to place a timely request for a federal review, 
which is standard procedure in death penalty cases.

The original petition was denied by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, prompting 
the request to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Several former judges are backing the appeal.

Christeson was convicted of breaking into a southern Missouri woman's home in 
early 1998, raping her, then killing her and her 12-year-old daughter and 
9-year-old son.

He was 18 at the time.

His cousin and co-defendent is serving life in prison for the crime.

Legal experts say it's rare for anyone to face execution without having their 
case appealed in federal court.

(source: KMOX news)

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

Missouri death row inmate bids to change lawyers hours before execution


A death row inmate in Missouri is struggling to change his lawyers just hours 
before he is set to be executed, in a last-ditch effort to persuade the US 
supreme court to postpone the judicial killing on grounds that his previous 
attorneys were incompetent.

In a highly unusual 11th-hour exchange of briefs before the nation's highest 
court, Mark Christeson, 35, has presented documents to the justices that 
suggest he wants to take on new legal representation and ditch his previous 
lawyers. The state of Missouri is resisting the move.

If the attempt fails, Christeson will almost certainly be put to death by 
lethal injection at 1 minute past midnight in 1 of 2 executions scheduled to 
take place in the US on Tuesday night. He was put on death row for the January 
1998 murders of Susan Brouk, 36, her daughter, Adrian, 12, and her son, Kyle, 
nine. He was 18 at the time of the crimes.

In its final hours and minutes, the case is coming down to claims that 
Christeson was grossly let down and abandoned by his existing court-appointed 
lawyers who have represented him since 2004. Legal documents lodged with state 
and federal courts show that the two Missouri-based lawyers, Eric Butts and 
Philip Horwitz, failed to meet a crucial deadline for filing a petition that 
would have secured Christeson a federal review of his conviction.

As a result, Christeson was denied the review - and with it his final 
substantive hope of avoiding death - on grounds that his request had been 
"untimely".

In recent days, 15 former federal and state judges have submitted a joint brief 
organised by the Constitution Project in which they say that Butts and Horwitz 
were "not up to the task before them" and accuse the lawyers of "apparent 
abandonment and misconduct".

Horwitz and Butts have yet to respond to specific questions from the Guardian. 
Horwitz said that he was unable to answer as the case was still in litigation.

The record shows that Christeson has been trying to switch his legal 
representation from Butts and Horwitz to 2 new out-of-state lawyers, Joseph 
Perkovich and Jennifer Merrigan, who have been advising him on the case. But so 
far all courts that have dealt with the case have refused to allow Perkovich 
and Merrigan to officially take over as Christeson's counsel.

As a result, Christeson has been left in a state of apparent legal limbo in 
which he is still represented by lawyers who allegedly failed him at a crucial 
stage in his case, setting up a conflict of interest in which all parties are 
trapped. In their submission the former judges wrote that "Cases, including 
this one are falling through the cracks of the system."

On Tuesday morning Justice Samuel Alito of the US supreme court ordered both 
sides in the case to present briefs regarding whether or not Merrigan and 
Perkovich should be allowed to step in at this late stage as Christeson's 
official lawyers. In their brief, Merrigan and Perkovich reproduce a letter 
typed for Christeson in prison by a fellow inmate in June.

In it Christeson related how his existing lawyers, Horowitz and Butt, 
apparently tried to persuade him that the new lawyers "did not have my best 
interest in mind and that I would be better off with attorneys from Missouri".

But Christeson went on to say, "I respectfully disagree. I personally feel that 
attorneys Joe Perkovich and Jennifer Merrigan should be allowed to represent 
me. I truly believe that they do have my best interest in mind and more so then 
[sic] Horowitz and Butts."

In another hand-written letter to Merrigan he said: "I really believe you and 
Joe were meant to represent me."

In its brief, the state argues that there is no evidence that Christeson wishes 
to change lawyers. No retention letter authorising the appointment of the 
out-of-state attorneys had been put into the record.

Unless the supreme court allows the change of lawyers to go ahead, Christeson 
will have no chance of arguing before the justices that his incompetent legal 
representation denied him the right to a federal review. And without that, his 
chances of avoiding lethal injection are minutely slim.

(source: The Guardian)



OKLAHOMA:

Death penalty option for decaptitation cases


A state senator said Monday he's pursuing legislation to ensure that anyone 
convicted of beheading a victim could be sentenced to death or life without 
parole.

A case in Oklahoma inspired Sen. Brent Steele, R-Bedford, to check Indiana law 
to see if decapitation would be an aggravating circumstance that could lead to 
the death penalty. Steele said he learned it would not.

"One of the most horrendous crimes one can think of would be to have your 
spouse or child beheaded," Steele said in an email to constituents on Monday.

"Decapitation with a hunting knife wouldn't lend itself to even having an open 
casket," he said. "All human decency is stripped from that violent act, whether 
it is motivated in a jealous rage of a mad spouse or inspired by some religious 
fanaticism, which our government is at a loss to call it what it is."

In the Oklahoma case, prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Alton 
Alexander Nolen, 30, who has been charged with 1st-degree murder in the death a 
54-year-old woman at the plant where he'd been fired. Nolen is accused of 
stabbing the woman and then beheading her.

Police said Nolen is a practicing Muslim who had been trying to convert 
co-workers to the religion, something Steele appeared to seize on.

"As a society, we cannot prevent a person from being mean to the core or 
committing atrocities in the name of religion, but we can up the cost for 
unspeakable behavior such as beheading," he said.

In Indiana, prosecutors can seek the death penalty or life without parole in a 
murder case if they can prove one of 16 aggravating circumstances. The most 
common is the commission of another serious felony, such as rape or attempted 
murder, at the time of the original offense.

Other aggravating circumstances include burning, torturing or mutilating a 
victim before killing them and dismemberment after death. Steele, an attorney, 
authored the bill in 1995 that added those circumstances to the law.

But Steele said the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency told him that 
"decapitation technically isn't mutilation and it isn't dismemberment after 
death" and therefore the death penalty might not be an option. So Steele said 
he asked LSA to draft legislation to add decapitation or an attempted 
decapitation to the list of crimes punishable by life without parole or the 
death penalty.

The bill can be considered when lawmakers return in January to the Statehouse 
for the 2015 legislative session.

(source: nuvo.net)






NEBRASKA:

Death penalty 'in limbo' for now----Officals say other crises have 'diverted' 
state from resolving lethal injection program's problems

Attorney General Jon Bruning expects that another year will pass before 
Nebraska can be ready again to carry out its death penalty.

The state's top justice official blames the delay on the shortage of execution 
drugs, the state prison sentencing fiasco and the November elections.

The 3 events combined to leave Nebraska without a means of executing the 11 men 
now on death row, he said.

They also have put efforts to find an alternative on hold.

"Death row is sort of in limbo today," Bruning said. "I wish we had been 
prepared to try to provide the answer this summer and fall, but we ended up 
being diverted."

He commented on the status of Nebraska's death penalty in an interview last 
week.

The state lost its ability to carry out an execution earlier this year, when 
its supply of sodium thiopental expired.

Nebraska's execution protocol calls for sodium thiopental to be the 1st of 3 
drugs administered to kill condemned prisoners.

Until 2009, the 3-drug combination was the most common method of carrying out 
lethal injection around the country. It has never been put to use in Nebraska.

The state has not executed anyone since 1997, before it switched methods from 
the electric chair to lethal injection.

Supplies of sodium thiopental dried up after an American drugmaker stopped 
manufacturing it and the European Union, urged on by anti-death-penalty 
activists, banned its export for executions.

Nebraska bought its last supply of the drug from a broker in India.

Bruning said there are several alternatives Nebraska could pursue to overcome 
execution barriers. But state officials may not have an easy road to that end.

State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, an adamant opponent of the death penalty, 
said he will fight every attempt to make executions possible again.

"I would fight tooth and nail, or fang and claw, against what Bruning is 
talking about," he said. "It's not going to be an easy thing for anything to be 
done that will facilitate carrying out judicial executions."

1 option would be sticking with the 3-drug method and having sodium thiopental 
made at a compounding pharmacy.

Nebraska could buy from a private pharmacy, hire someone to compound it or join 
with a consortium of other states to have it compounded, Bruning said.

Another option would be switching to a different execution drug or combination 
of drugs, as have many other death penalty states.

Before making such a switch, state officials would have to change the 
Department of Correctional Services' rules and regulations. Those rules 
currently spell out the 3-drug protocol.

Bruning said he would recommend broader rules that would not specify what drug 
or drugs are to be used and would leave that decision up to the Corrections 
director for each execution.

"The advantage to that is, when you pick one option, like Nebraska has, then 
the anti-death penalty litigation machine lines up against whatever the 
scarcest of those (drugs) is," he said. "They can create a bottleneck."

But Chambers said the Corrections director should not be allowed to make that 
kind of life-and-death decision, considering the numerous Corrections 
Department failures that have come to light this year.

"That kind of authority cannot be entrusted to a slipshod, slapdash, 
incompetent operation such as that," he said.

Chambers also wondered whether current law gives too much policy-making 
authority to Corrections officials. By law, the department chooses the 
execution drugs, then spells out its method in rules.

Bruning said a rules change would be "very doable." It could be completed 
within 90 days and would not need legislative approval, he said.

The state could have been well on its way to rewriting the rules and deciding 
what execution drug or drugs to use if the prison sentencing problems had not 
intervened, Bruning said.

The World-Herald revealed in June that state Corrections officials were not 
properly calculating mandatory minimum sentences and, as a consequence, were 
letting inmates out early.

The department's top 2 attorneys retired after being blamed for the problem. 
The 2 ignored 2 Nebraska Supreme Court rulings on the sentencing issue.

Other department officials have been busy dealing with fallout from the 
revelation, including a legislative investigation into the miscalculations, 
Bruning said.

Now, with barely 2 months left in his term of office, he said it will fall to 
the new governor and attorney general to decide "if and when" they want to 
address the state's death penalty.

Bruning did not seek re-election this year, choosing to run for governor 
instead. He was defeated in the GOP primary.

James Foster, a Corrections spokesman, said Director Mike Kenney plans to work 
with the new administration on identifying the steps needed to prepare for 
carrying out an execution.

He did not say whether the department is looking at any changes in the current 
protocol, which follows the injection of sodium thiopental with one of 
pancuronium bromide, which causes paralysis, and finally potassium chloride, 
which stops the heart.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the most common alternative 
drug is pentobarbital, which has been used in 14 states.

A sedative, pentobarbital is often used to euthanize animals. But supply 
problems cropped up last year after the drug's Danish manufacturing company 
refused to sell it for executions.

Other states have tried combinations of midazolam, hydromorphone and other 
drugs. 3 such executions have gone awry, with the inmates taking a prolonged 
time to die.

(source: Omaha World-Herald)






USA:

Charleston murder suspect 'death penalty-eligible'


A Charleston man could face the death penalty after a federal grand jury 
indicted him Tuesday on a murder charge in the death of a police informant.

Federal authorities haven't said if they will pursue the death penalty for 
Marlon Dewayne "Ice" Dixon, 38.

Dixon is accused of killing Branda Mae Delight Basham, 21, in retaliation for 
her cooperation with police. Basham's body was found on railroad tracks on the 
West Side in July.

Dixon shot and killed Basham to prevent her from testifying or continuing to 
provide information against him, according to federal prosecutors.

"We rely on witnesses and confidential informants to be able to get to the root 
of this drug trade," U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin said.

His office also took the case because of its focus on eradicating the heroin 
epidemic in Southern West Virginia, Goodwin said.

Dixon faces up to life in prison or the death penalty, but Goodwin said it will 
be up to the U.S. Department of Justice as to which of those to pursue.

"It has not yet been determined, but the charges are, as we would say, death 
penalty-eligible. It's ultimately the [U.S.] attorney general's call as to 
whether we seek the death penalty.

"There is a review process within the DOJ that looks at a number of factors 
under the indictment," Goodwin said.

West Virginia abolished capital punishment at the state level in 1965, but the 
federal government can still ask for it. The last time federal prosecutors in 
West Virginia sought the death penalty was in 2010, when Mingo County drug 
dealer George "Porgy" Lecco was convicted of ordering the killing of a federal 
drug informant, Carla Collins. A jury decided not to give Lecco the death 
penalty, and a federal judge sentenced him to life in prison instead.

The 7-count indictment charges Dixon with murder, 3 counts of distributing 
heroin, 2 counts of tampering with a witness by killing her, and being a felon 
in possession of a firearm. An indictment means that a grand jury has 
determined that enough evidence exists to warrant a jury trial.Dixon has a 
lengthy criminal history. According to the indictment, Dixon was convicted in 
federal court of distributing cocaine in 1999 and again in 2006. He was 
convicted in 2007 of malicious wounding in Kanawha Circuit Court.

Basham was shot 3 times July 12. Her body was found near Breece and Madison 
streets on Charleston's West Side.Dixon was arrested about a month later. He 
was charged with 1st-degree murder in Kanawha County and has been held without 
bond in South Central Regional Jail ever since.

According to a criminal complaint on file in Kanawha Magistrate Court, Dixon 
can be seen on surveillance footage wiping down the front door knob and door at 
a woman's home on the day Basham was shot.

A witness told police, according to the complaint, that Dixon showed up that 
night and asked her to wash his clothes, which she did.

She also said she received a phone call from Dixon after the police executed a 
search warrant and Dixon asked if the police got his shoes.

She said Dixon started yelling at her and said, "There is probably blood on 
them!"

After obtaining a search warrant, Charleston detectives found blood on both the 
door and a pair of Dixon's athletic shoes, they wrote in the complaint.

The same witness said Dixon was carrying a black pistol in his waistband the 
night of the slaying and also told her Basham was killed because she wore a 
wire and was working as an informant for the police, the complaint states.

Phone records allegedly show Dixon was the last person to communicate with 
Basham.

After the shooting, while police were searching for Dixon, he allegedly posted 
to Facebook and sent text messages to the police department.

(source: Charleston Gazette)

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

Why Most Americans Say They Still Favor The Death Penalty


Most Americans favor the death penalty, citing as justification proper 
punishment and saved taxpayer dollars in a new Gallup poll.

A strong majority - 63 % - of those Americans polled said they favor the death 
penalty in cases of murder. Asked to state why in their own words, 35 % cited 
the biblical concept of an "eye for an eye," 14 % said the penalty "saves 
taxpayers money" and 14 % said "They deserve it."

Others said they support it because it's a deterrent for future crime or will 
prevent that person from committing the crime again, or that it helps the 
families of the victims. 3 % of those polled simply said they "believe in the 
death penalty."

Gallup conducted this same poll in 1991, 2001 and 2003. In 1991, 1/2 of 
Americans who support the death penalty cited "eye for an eye" as 
justification, 13 % cited taxpayer savings and no one said "they deserve it."

That year the 2nd most popular reason for support of the penalty was 
deterrence, with 19 % saying "They will repeat the crime." This year just 7 % 
referred to the concept.

Of Americans who oppose the death penalty, 40 % said it's "wrong to take a 
life." Other popular justifications involved religious beliefs and wrongful 
convictions.

(source: Daily Caller)