[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., KAN., ARIZ., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 10



TEXAS----impending execution

Texas appeals court rejects inmate's lawsuit over expired execution drugs


A highly debated execution is set to move forward today in Texas.

Willie Trottie, 45, is facing execution for the 1993 shooting deaths of his 
estranged common-law wife, Barbara Canada, 24, and her brother, Titus, 28, at 
their home. He would be 8th Texas prisoner executed this year. His attorneys 
alleged in a federal lawsuit the sedative intended for his lethal injection is 
expired and its use could cause him unconstitutionally "torturous" pain.

The lawsuit, rejected by a federal judge in Houston and before the 5th U.S. 
Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday, was merely another attempt to force Texas 
prison officials to reveal its drug provider, they said. State lawyers argued 
the pentobarbital planned for Trottie was effective through the end of this 
month.

Texas, like several other states with capital punishment, has addressed the 
refusal by mainstream drug companies to sell drugs for executions by turning to 
compounding pharmacies, which operate under less stringent supervision. Also 
like some other death penalty states, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice 
has refused to identify its supplier, a practice the courts so far have upheld.

Maurie Levin, the lead attorney for the drug lawsuit, said the pentobarbital 
for Trottie would come from a supply Texas obtained earlier this year and that 
scientific literature on compounded drugs suggests they lose effectiveness 
after a week or a month depending on factors like storage and sterility.

"All they're saying is: Take our word for it - Sept. 30," Levin said, calling 
Texas prison officials "untrustworthy."

The lawsuit sought a court order identifying the drug source, the compounding 
date, how it was transported and how it's been stored, and a reprieve for 
Trottie so the legality and constitutionality of the process can be 
adjudicated.

The arguments were "nothing more than rank speculation," assistant Texas 
Attorney General Fredericka Sargent said in a court filing.

The death penalty has come under increased scrutiny since executions recently 
went awry in Oklahoma and Arizona, states that use drug combinations for 
capital punishment. Texas uses only pentobarbital.

"Whatever happened in those states has nothing to do with what happens in 
Texas," Sargent said.

At least 1 other appeal to halt Trottie's punishment was headed to the U.S. 
Supreme Court after the 5th Circuit rejected arguments from another legal team 
that argued defense lawyers at Trottie's trial were deficient for not 
adequately addressing his assertion that Titus Canada's death was in 
self-defense.

Trottie didn't deny the shootings but questioned the circumstances that led to 
his conviction.

"I shot my brother-in-law in self-defense and I shot my wife by accident," he 
told The Associated Press in a recent interview. "There's no doubt I committed 
this crime. The dispute is the sequence of how it happened."

Trottie said Titus Canada fired 1st and he was defending himself. Trottie also 
said his gun "went off," killing his wife, during a struggle with her and her 
sister.

Johnny Sutton, the lead prosecutor at Trottie's November 1993 trial, said 
Barbara Canada began recording Trottie's threatening phone calls to her after 
their breakup.

"I had him on tape saying exactly what he was going to do, and then, of course, 
he did it," Sutton said.

(source: ABC news)

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

Texas inmate seeks last-minute halt to execution


The U.S. Supreme Court was considering last-minute appeals from a Texas death 
row inmate scheduled for execution Wednesday, more than 2 decades after he was 
convicted in the slayings of his former common-law wife and her brother.

Willie Trottie, who turned 45 on Monday, has acknowledged shooting Barbara 
Canada, 24, who had a protective order against him, and her brother, Titus 
Canada, 28, at their parents' home in Houston in 1993. Trottie said the 
shootings were accidental and in self-defense, and not worthy of a death 
sentence.

"I'm ready whichever way it goes," Trottie said in a recent interview with The 
Associated Press. "If God says, 'yes,' I'm ready."

His attorneys appealed to the nation's highest court, arguing that Trottie's 
lawyers at his 1993 trial were deficient for not addressing his self-defense 
theory and for failing to produce sufficient testimony about Trottie's abusive 
childhood with an alcoholic mother.

State attorneys scoffed at the argument, saying Trottie's self-defense claim 
was absurd and had been rejected in earlier appeals.

But Trottie's attorneys are also argued in a separate civil rights lawsuit that 
the dose of pentobarbital scheduled to be used during the lethal injection 
Wednesday evening was past its effectiveness date. That could subject Trottie 
to unconstitutional "tortuous" pain, attorney Maurie Levin said in a lawsuit 
rejected Tuesday by a federal appeals court. The suit was being taken to the 
Supreme Court, she said.

The state argues that the drug doesn't expire until the end of the month and 
that tests showed proper potency. They argued the appeal seeking details of the 
drug was merely another attempt to force prison officials to disclose the 
compounding pharmacy that provides its execution drugs, something the courts 
repeatedly have refused to order.

Trottie's lethal injection would be the 8th this year in Texas, and the first 
in the nation's most active death penalty state since recent executions went 
awry in Oklahoma and Arizona. Unlike those states, where a drug combination is 
used for capital punishment, Texas uses a single lethal dose of pentobarbital, 
a powerful sedative.

Evidence showed that Barbara Canada had called police several times about 
Trottie and obtained a protective order to keep him away after she said he shot 
out the tires of her car and threatened to kill her if she didn't return to 
him.

He called her May 3, 1993, renewing the death threat, then showed up at her 
parents' house and opened fire with a semi-automatic pistol, according to 
investigators. Titus Canada also had a gun and wounded Trottie, who then 
cornered his ex-wife in a bedroom and shot her 11 times before returning to the 
wounded brother and shooting him twice in the back of the head.

Trottie drove himself to a hospital, where police arrested him.

"There's no doubt I committed this crime," Trottie recently told the AP from 
prison. "The dispute is the sequence of how it happened."

Trottie said Titus Canada fired first, and that his gun "went off" during a 
struggle, killing his wife.

Trial prosecutor Johnny Sutton said the claims were "absolutely ridiculous."

"He hunted them down," Sutton said. "They already were worried about him. He 
was making threats."

Connie Willliams, Trottie's lead defense attorney, acknowledged that it was a 
hard case to defend.

"It was very difficult to defend on the facts," he said. "There were 
eyewitnesses. He went there with a gun ... to do what he thought he had to do."

If carried out, Trottie will be the 2nd death-row inmate executed in the U.S. 
on Wednesday. Earl Ringo Jr. received a lethal injection just after midnight in 
Missouri for a 1998 robbery and double murder.

Trottie is among at least 10 convicted killers in Texas with execution dates in 
the coming months. Next week, an Arlington woman, Lisa Coleman, 38, is set to 
die for the starvation and torture death of her female roommate's 9-year-old 
son in 2004.

(source: Associated Press)






NORTH CAROLINA:

Torture, Not Justice----The wrongful conviction of 2 North Carolina brothers 
highlights the injustice of the death penalty.


Soon after taking the oath of office in 2009, President Barack Obama banned 
torture - or more precisely, certain forms of torture - by U.S. interrogators 
dealing with prisoners and detainees in armed conflicts. But nothing stopped 
what amounted to the torture of 2 North Carolina men who spent decades in 
prison, one of whom was awaiting a state-sponsored execution, for a crime they 
did not commit.

Henry McCollum and his brother, Leon Brown, were both teenagers with 
intellectual disabilities in 1983 when they were arrested for the rape and 
murder of an 11-year-old girl. They were brow-beaten by police, who gave them 
the impression that if they just signed a statement, they would be able to 
leave the police station. They were confused and scared, as any person - 
especially a young person facing all those authority figures - would be. They 
did not get to leave the station. "I just made up a story and gave it to them. 
My mind was focused on getting out of that police station," McCollum reportedly 
told the Raleigh News & Observer. Both were convicted of the crimes, and both 
were sentenced to death. Brown's death conviction was later re-litigated, 
resulting in a sentence of life in prison.

DNA evidence, unearthed by the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission, 
exonerated the 2 men and put the crime on another man, a serial rapist and 
murderer. McCollum and Brown were then released from prison.

This is what passes for a happy story in a nation that continues to execute 
people - and botch the process, sometimes, which adds to the horror of it all - 
despite the fact that there have been cases of wrongful convictions. An April 
study by the science journal PNAS found that more than 4 % of inmates sentenced 
to death are probably innocent. We are supposed to be joyful that the men were 
finally set free, that justice was eventually done.

But what justice can been squeezed out of a situation where two men lost 30 
years of their lives? What can become of men who must have wondered how they 
could live in the United States of America, be charged and convicted of a crime 
they didn't commit and die for the mistake?

McCollum not only had to face his own impending execution, but he had to watch 
as dozens of men were hauled off for their own state-sanctioned killing, 
McCollum's lawyer, Ken Rose, noted. How is that not torture?

It would be easier, too, if we could write it all off to virulent racism or 
some affirmative effort to punish innocent people. But mistakes happen, and 
human beings under pressure to respond to public outrage over a terrible crime 
are themselves hindered by their own biases. Yes, African-American men are much 
more likely to face execution than white men. But it's not because juries are 
racist. The disparity starts much earlier: Police are under tremendous pressure 
to make a collar. Prosecutors are under tremendous pressure to hold someone 
accountable. They tend to respond more aggressively (seeking the death penalty) 
in cases which provoke more public outcry. Once the conviction is achieved and 
the sentence handed down, authorities don???t like revisiting the case, since 
questioning the facts after the trial could undermine public confidence in the 
system.

But it is exactly cases such as McCollum's and Brown's that should make us 
question the system constantly. Eyewitness testimony is often unreliable, and 
not because people are lying. It's because people remember things differently. 
Evidence can be lost, suppressed or just not found in time. Some mistakes will 
inevitably happen. When we have a death penalty, there is simply no way to 
reverse the error. Had Rose not been so relentless in fighting for his clients' 
lives and freedoms, they'd still be there, with McCollum waiting for his 
wrongful death.

McCollum himself is remarkably lacking in bitterness toward the people and the 
system that caused this terrible injustice and deprived him of the prime years 
of his life. When he was released, he told reporters: "[T]hey took 30 years 
away from me for no reason, but I don't hate them. I don't hate them one bit."

The rest of us should not be so forgiving. Civilized nations do not torture and 
murder. If Guantanamo Bay and other post-Sept. 11, 2001, abuses can lead to a 
ban on torture, surely McCollum's case can cause states to rethink the death 
penalty.

(source: US News and World Report)






KANSAS:

Prosecutors to seek death penalty in slaying of Topeka police officer


A 30-year-old man has been charged with capital murder in the shooting death of 
a Topeka police officer.

Shawnee County District Attorney Chad Taylor announced Wednesday that he had 
filed the charge against Ross Preston Lane, who was being held without bond. 
Kansas law allows the death penalty for the slaying of a law enforcement 
officer.

Police Cpl. Jason Harwood was shot to death Sunday after stopping a car in east 
Topeka.

Lane also was charged with possessing a stolen firearm and criminal possession 
of a firearm as a past felon.

Another 30-year-old man, Anthony Allen Ridens Jr., was charged with obstructing 
apprehension of a felon and possession of a stolen motorcycle.

(source: Associated Press)






ARIZONA:

Jodi Arias hires new attorney in death defense


Jodi Arias won't represent herself in the penalty phase of her murder trial 
after all.

She said she was going to represent herself in the case Aug. 4, but changed her 
mind Wednesday.

It is unknown who will represent her.

Arias, 34, was convicted of 1st-degree murder last year in the 2008 killing of 
Travis Alexander, but jurors couldn't reach a decision on sentencing. Under 
Arizona law, while Arias' murder conviction stands, prosecutors have the option 
of putting on a 2nd penalty phase with a new jury in an effort to secure the 
death penalty. She could also be sentenced to life in prison.

Arias, who long clashed with her defense lawyers and tried to fire them 
previously, asked Judge Sherry Stephens last month to let her serve as her own 
lawyer during the second penalty phase. Stephens granted the request but said 
there would be no delays.

"I do not believe it is in your best interest ... I strongly urge you to 
reconsider," Stephens told Arias before granting the motion.

Her latest move may come as a shock to some. A few experts believed Arias stood 
a good chance representing herself, not because of her skill, but because it 
could spare her life.

"It's actually probably a good idea to represent herself," said San 
Francisco-area defense attorney Daniel Horowitz. "She looks like a vicious 
psychopath with a ridiculous defense."

However, Horowitz noted, the jury "may find her pathetic."

"If she can get just one juror to bond with her on some level, even if they 
hate her, they're getting to know her, and it's harder to kill someone you 
know," he said.

(source: KTAR news)






USA:

Blacks Commit Less Crimes than Whites Think


Whites often overestimate the amount of crime committed by Blacks and 
"associate blacks and Latinos with criminality," beliefs that are widespread 
and also held by Whites who work in the criminal justice system, according to a 
new report on racial perceptions of crime by The Sentencing Project.

The report said, "White respondents in a 2010 survey overestimated the actual 
share of burglaries, illegal drug sales, and juvenile crime committed by 
African Americans by 20-30 %."

Despite recent advances in sentencing policies and a reduction in the number of 
prisons nationwide, the report said that racial perceptions of crime continue 
to endure as "a driving force of criminal justice outcomes."

According to The Sentencing Project, Black men are six times more likely to be 
locked up behind bars than White men, and 1 in every 10 Black men in their 30s 
is in prison or jail on any given day, trends often driven by, "criminal 
justice policies and practices, and not just crime rates," the report said.

Media depictions that often portray Whites as victims and Blacks as criminals 
fail to challenge deep-rooted racial bias held by White audiences, missing a 
valuable opportunity to foster positive dialogue between the races. Homicide is 
most often an intra-racial crime, but journalists at a major newspaper in 
Columbus, Ohio, for example, were more inclined to cover cases in which White 
women were the victims or Black men were offenders and avoided cases in which 
Blacks were murdered by Whites and White women murdered White men, according to 
the study.

Police officers also pursued Blacks more aggressively on the reality TV shows 
"Cops" and "America's Most Wanted."

When Whites perceive that Blacks commit more crime, they are also more likely 
to push for tougher crime laws such as mandatory minimum sentences and policies 
associated with the War on Drugs. Whites also outpace minorities when it comes 
to support for the death penalty.

Although the support for the death penalty peaked at 80 % in 1994, a 2013 Pew 
Research Center study showed that 63 % of Whites still supported the death 
penalty for convicted murderers compared to 36 % of Blacks who supported the 
death penalty.

A 2014 brief published by the National Academy of Sciences revealed that about 
300 innocent defendants have been sentenced to death since 1973, and because 
are Blacks are convicted of murder at higher rates than Whites, researchers 
believe that innocent Blacks are also overrepresented on death row.

According to the report, "implicit racial bias has penetrated all corners of 
the criminal justice system," and contributed to disparities in police stops, 
prosecutorial charging, and sentencing.

The continued implicit and explicit bias perpetuated by law enforcement 
officials results in less cooperation from low-income and marginalized 
communities, which further limits the effectiveness of the criminal justice 
system and ultimately endangers the public safety of all Americans, not just 
Blacks and Latinos.

"Racial perceptions of crime have even led to the deaths of innocent people of 
color at the hands of fearful civilians and police officers," stated the 
report.

The study recommended that lawmakers study the racial impact of new crime 
policies before implementation and provide better resources to defend poor and 
minority offenders in court. In recent years, states have also "opted out of 
the federal welfare and food stamp ban for people with felony convictions" and 
acted to make it easier for people with criminal records that have repaid their 
debt to society to find jobs.

The report also found that, "increasing racial diversity in criminal justice 
settings also reduces biased outcomes and tempers punitive sentiment" and 
"all-white juries are far more likely to sentence offenders to death" in 
capital trials.

Recent events in New York City, Ferguson, Mo., Los Angeles, Calif., and 
Beavercreek, Ohio, where unarmed Black men were killed by police under 
controversial circumstances, underscore the lingering effect of negative racial 
stereotypes and perceptions the criminal justice system, according to the 
report.

Nazgol Ghandnoosh, a research analyst at The Sentencing Project and the 
report's author, said, "Unless we tackle these issues head-on, we'll continue 
to have more Fergusons and a criminal justice system that's on overdrive."

(source: Forward.com)