[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, MINN., COLO., ARIZ.

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 30



OHIO:

DeWine: Executions on hold until legislators change law


Ohio will not resume executions next year unless legislators enact 2 key 
changes in state law, Attorney General Mike DeWine said yesterday.

"You're not going to see a death penalty take place until the General Assembly 
takes action," DeWine said during a joint meeting with David Pepper, his 
Democratic opponent in the Nov. 4 election. The session with Gannett newspaper 
editors in Ohio was streamed live on the Internet.

The execution issues deal with providing anonymity for "compounding pharmacies" 
and immunity protection for physicians who help the state with legal support 
for executions, DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney said.

Tierney said DeWine thinks two pieces of legislation, not yet final, must be 
passed in order to meet stipulations set down by U.S. District Judge Gregory 
Frost. Frost halted all lethal injections in Ohio until early next year because 
of concerns about the drugs and how they are used.

Convicted killer Ronald Phillips is set to die on Feb. 15, followed by 5 other 
executions next year.

Ohio and most other states have exhausted their options for purchasing 
chemicals used in lethal injections, largely because manufacturers, many of 
them European, will not sell drugs for executions. States are now turning to 
compounding pharmacies, which combine materials into compounds on demand for 
customers.

The proposal would allow the pharmacies to do that without being cited as the 
source, Tierney said.

Pepper spokesman Peter Koltak said Pepper agrees that Ohio's death penalty 
should be "free from constitutional concerns." He said, "Future legislation on 
Ohio's death penalty should be given thorough and thoughtful consideration."

Ohio Public Defender Tim Young declined to comment.

Ohio's only execution this year occurred on Jan. 16 when Dennis McGuire, 53, 
struggled, gasped and choked for 20 minutes after being injected with a 
combination of drugs - midazolam and hydromorphone - which had not previously 
been used in any U.S. execution. McGuire was put to death for the 1989 murder 
of 22-year-old Joy Stewart, newly married and pregnant.

(source: Columbus Dispatch)






MINNESOTA:

Death penalty politics enters the governor's race

Gov. Mark Dayton and Jeff Johnson AP, MPR News file Minnesotans haven't heard a 
governor pledge support for the death penalty in over a decade, but if 
Republican gubernatorial candidate Jeff Johnson wins in October, that could 
change.

Johnson, who first proposed reinstating capital punishment for some violent 
crimes during his unsuccessful bid for attorney general in 2006, said he still 
supports it. His views contrast with those of Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat does 
not think Minnesota needs the death penalty.

When Johnson was a state legislator, he supported a broad death penalty bill 
that failed to pass during the 2004 session. That was the year then-Gov. Tim 
Pawlenty pushed to reinstate capital punishment, following the kidnapping and 
murder of college student Dru Sjodin.

During his bid for attorney general 2 years later, Johnson narrowed his death 
penalty focus to those convicted of murdering a child as part of a sex crime. 
At the time, he described it as "proper punishment."

"I think it's a question of allowing a jury of someone's peers to have that as 
an option," said Johnson, a Hennepin County commissioner. "Might it be a 
deterrent? Yes, but that would not be my reason for proposing it. It's an issue 
of justice."

Johnson is not bringing up the death penalty this year as he campaigns for 
governor, and he said it's not one of his top priorities. But in a recent 
interview, Johnson said his position on the issue hasn't changed.

"I would still support the death penalty for someone who kills a child as part 
of a sex crime," he said. "It's not something that I'm going to advocate as 
governor. I've got some pretty specific goals and that's not one of them. But 
it's something I would support if it happened to come up."

Capital punishment is just one of many issues where Johnson and Dayton, who is 
pursuing a second term, have differing views.

Dayton is not flatly opposed to the death penalty. As a U.S. senator, he voted 
to expand the use of the federal death penalty for acts of terrorism and the 
killing of law enforcement personnel. "Well, I'd say there are circumstances 
where personally I think, yes, that person deserves the death penalty for a 
terrible crime committed," the governor said.

But Dayton is not interested in ending Minnesota's century-long prohibition on 
capital punishment. For one thing, Dayton said after comparing Minnesota's 
relatively low murder rate to the higher rates in death penalty states, he's 
not convinced that it's a deterrent. He said he's also concerned about the 
impact of lengthy appeals on victims' families and the cost to the state.

"From no death penalty to a death penalty in Minnesota would be an enormous 
undertaking, a very costly undertaking," he said. "We'd need a special prison 
facility. We'd need a special execution chamber. The question is, who is that 
benefiting?"

Minnesota abolished capital punishment in 1911, 5 years after a botched hanging 
that would be the state's last execution.

There are currently 32 states with a death penalty. During the past decade, the 
list shrunk by six states, largely due to concerns over wrongful executions.

Hannah Nicollet, the Independence Party candidate for governor, is strongly 
opposed to capital punishment. She said she would never enact such a law. 
Nicollet said the state should lock up dangerous criminals, not kill them.

"I would not want to have that kind of mistake on the hands of law 
enforcement," Nicollet said. "We've had a lot of people executed over the years 
who've been exonerated after the fact. I wouldn't want to be responsible for 
that as a state."

Legislators have also shown little appetite for bringing back the death 
penalty. There have been several bills introduced over the years, usually in 
the wake of a high-profile crimes, but they haven't made much headway. That was 
the case in 2004, when despite Pawlenty's public support, a Minnesota Senate 
committee soundly rejected a bill to put the death penalty question to voters 
as a constitutional amendment.

(source: mprnews.org)






COLORADO:

Sir Mario Owens: Defense Claims Government Misconduct in Death-Penalty Case


Dexter Harris has provided the police with information on so many murders 
committed by other people that it's hard to keep it all straight. Yesterday 
morning, grilled in great detail in Arapahoe County District Court about his 
role as a confidential informant and key witness in the 2008 death sentences 
doled out to Robert Ray and Sir Mario Owens, Harris pleaded a bad memory - and 
conceded that he was "probably high" on cocaine during at least some of his 
previous court appearances in the convoluted case.

"It's been a long time, man," Harris grumbled on the stand, after complaining 
that defense attorneys had "placed my life in danger repeatedly" by forcing him 
to testify about his jailhouse snitching.

The hearing before Judge Gerald Rafferty was the first opportunity attorneys 
for Owens have had to present evidence in open court in support of their claim 
that the high-profile trials of their client and Ray were tainted by government 
misconduct. The alleged bad behavior includes a failure to disclose information 
to the defense and supposed "incentives" awarded to reluctant witnesses to 
persuade them to testify - for example, as we first reported in 2011, the 
highly unusual decision by prosecutors to donate a car to one witness and pay 
for auto insurance, while failing to report that arrangement to the defense 
before trial.

In separate trials, Owens and co-defendant Ray were both sentenced to death for 
the 2005 murders of Vivian Wolfe and her fiance, Javad Marshall-Fields; 
Marshall-Fields had been expected to testify against the 2 men in another 
homicide investigation. Their prosecution, one of several death-penalty cases 
pursued by former Eighteenth Judicial District Attorney Carol Chambers, was 
conducted in an atmosphere of exceptionally stringent security, with attorneys 
subject to gag orders, many court motions filed under seal, witness names 
purged from documents and transcripts denied to news organizations - all 
ostensibly to protect witnesses from possible intimidation and reprisals. 
Although Judge Rafferty finally made a redacted version of the court records 
publicly available earlier this year, many details, including the identity or 
location of some witnesses referred to by names such as "Source 56," remain 
secret.

Defense attorneys have contended that the security measures put them at a 
serious disadvantage, hampering their ability to interview witnesses or impeach 
them. At yesterday's hearing, Owens attorney Jim Castle told Rafferty that his 
team was still learning new details about the degree to which Harris was 
involved in assisting police in various drug and homicide investigations. 
Meanwhile, Harris, who'd previously admitted to having "some misgivings" about 
the testimony he'd provided at trial against Ray and Owens, accused the defense 
team of trying to intimidate him and extracting information from him under 
duress.

Now 53 and serving a 64-year sentence for aggravated robbery, Harris was in the 
Arapahoe County jail on domestic violence charges in 2006 when, he says, the 
much younger Ray found out they knew some of the same people in the Gangster 
Disciples and began boasting to him about the Marshall-Fields homicide.

"He was trying to explain his case to me," Harris testified yesterday. "We were 
affiliated with the same gang. It wasn't remorseful statements. He was trying 
to find ways to beat the case."

At the time, Harris conceded, he was feeling the pains of cocaine withdrawal 
and was eager to get out of jail -- but unable to make bond. "I'm going to get 
the fuck out of here any fucking way I can," he told his wife during one phone 
call. About two weeks later, he wrote a letter to the Arapahoe County District 
Attorney, claiming to have "vital information" about the Marshall-Fields 
slaying and other homicides.

After meeting with Aurora police detectives, Harris was able to obtain a 
personal recognizance bond. He assisted Aurora PD in an attempted undercover 
drug buy (that evidently led to no arrests), received lodging and King Soopers 
gift cards from the government as a protected witness, and continued to get 
high and rack up probation violations and new charges. He also provided 
information to police concerning 2 other homicides - apparently derived from 
other jailhouse braggarts - but it's not clear if that led to any real breaks 
in those cases.

Castle was openly skeptical of Harris's claim that he came forward with his 
information because he doesn't condone murder. "Why do all these people charged 
with murder and attempted murder tell you all these details about their cases?" 
he asked.

Harris smiled. "You would have to ask them," he said.

Owens sat motionless at the defense table throughout much of the morning - like 
Harris, shackled and wearing orange Arapahoe County jail scrubs. Testimony in 
his bid for post-conviction relief is expected to continue through the rest of 
this week.

(soruce: westword.com)






ARIZONA:

Jury selection begins in penalty retrial of Arias


About 2 dozen potential jurors who said they could not be impartial were 
dismissed Monday in the penalty retrial of convicted murderer Jodi Arias, as 
prosecutors again seek a death sentence in the Arizona case that became a 
tabloid TV sensation.

About 300 prospective jurors reported to the courthouse in Phoenix, with more 
to come if an impartial panel cannot be found among the 1st group. A previous 
jury deadlocked on punishment.

Jury selection began as a sister of victim Travis Alexander sat in the 
courtroom.

Arias, 34, glanced back at the media at one point and smiled just before jurors 
started arriving.

More than 20 people were excused within the first 20 minutes of questioning 
after saying they had followed the case and would not be able to make a 
decision based only on information presented at trial.

Some said they had seen so much coverage of the trial that they couldn't put it 
out of their minds.

The retrial, expected to last until mid-December, will not be televised live 
this time after the judge ruled that no video footage can be broadcast until 
after the verdict.

Arias acknowledged killing Alexander in 2008 at his suburban Phoenix home and 
claimed it was self-defense. He suffered nearly 30 knife wounds, had his throat 
slit and was shot in the head.

Prosecutors argued it was premeditated murder carried out in a jealous rage 
when Alexander wanted to end their affair.

Arias, a former waitress, was found guilty last year. The murder conviction 
will stand as lawyers spar once again over whether she should die for the 
crime.

If the new jury fails to reach a unanimous decision, the death penalty will be 
removed as an option and a judge will sentence Arias to spend her life behind 
bars or to be eligible for release after 25 years.

Arias' 5-month trial began in January 2013 and was broadcast live, providing 
endless cable TV and tabloid fodder, including a recorded phone sex call 
between Arias and the victim, nude photos, bloody crime-scene pictures and a 
defendant who described her life story in intimate detail over 18 days on the 
witness stand.

Alexander's family sat in the front row of the courtroom throughout the trial, 
often sobbing, looking away from horrific photographs, and wincing as Arias 
described the victim as an abusive boyfriend who wanted nothing but sex.

It was a far cry from the man Alexander presented himself to be publicly - a 
devout Mormon in search of his soul mate

(source: Associated Press)

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

The real cost of the death penalty in Arizona


KTAR reporter Cooper Rummell takes a look into Arizona death penalty costs in a 
2 part special.

In Arizona, 119 inmates call death row home, and the majority of them have been 
locked up for several decades.

The last 10 Arizona inmates who were executed spent an average of more than 20 
years in a Florence super maximum security facility within Arizona State Prison 
Complex Eyman called the Browning Unit.

"Our clients are in their cells for all (day), except they get out three times 
a week for one hour," Natman Schaye, senior capital trial counsel of the 
Arizona Capital Representation project, said.

Schaye helps Arizona's death row inmates with both their state and federal 
appeals. He said it is a lengthy process that begins once a jury sentences an 
inmate to death.

"You then have a direct appeal," he said. "Then there is a post-conviction 
(review) back in state court that is looking at whether the trial was done 
correctly. That gets appealed again, and then it goes to federal court. So, it 
goes on and on."

Debra Milke's case is a prime example of the lengthy appeals process associated 
with capital cases in Arizona. Milke was sentenced to death for the murder of 
her 4-year-old son in January of 1991. After dozens of appeals, a federal judge 
overturned her conviction in 2013.

The former death row inmate's co-counsel, Lori Vopel, explained Milke is now 
awaiting retrial and has two pending appeals with the U.S. Supreme Court.

"It can be very, very long and drawn out," Vopel said. "Even though we won in 
our 1st round of appeals, in Debra's case, she was on death row for 23 years."

On top of the long process, capital adjudication fees and death row housing 
costs eventually add up to millions of dollars in taxpayer money. When a 
prosecutor seeks the death penalty, a defendant is guaranteed 2 defense 
attorneys. That results in approximately double the cost for taxpayers.

In the Jodi Arias case, the bill has been exponentially increasing since the 
sentencing phase mistrial.

"She's only gotten through the guilt-innocence determination phase and her 
defense costs are already over $2 million," Chuck Laroue, a Death Penalty 
Alternatives for Arizona board member, said.

Laroue said Arias' trial has certainly lightened taxpayers' wallets. Now, jury 
selection for her sentencing phase retrial is underway.

"And the taxpayer is the one that is shouldering the burden of the financial 
costs on this," he said.

The numbers are staggering when a death sentence is given. Inmates sit on 
Arizona's death row for an average of 23 years before execution. At $81.11 per 
day, the state spends an average of $680,918.45 in housing fees per death row 
inmate.

In total, death row housing fees cost the Arizona Department of Corrections 
$3,523,012.85 each year.

"It is a much higher level of security than your standard department of 
corrections unit - even your high-security unit," Laroue said.

The housing costs, however, do not even begin to cover capital adjudication 
fees, according to Death Penalty Alternatives President Dan Pietzmeyer.

"The primary costs are trial costs, litigation costs and appeals costs," 
Pietzmeyer said.

A sentence of life without parole guarantees savings for taxpayers.

"It is far, far more expensive to seek to execute (an inmate), whether or not 
you execute them," he said.

The cost of housing an inmate in general population comes in at less than $60 
dollars per day and there's a limited appeals process, which trims court costs.

"It is probably 6 to 7 times higher for a death penalty case than it is for a 
life without parole (sentence)," Laroue said.

Laroue said he believes the state of Arizona needs to conduct a study to find 
out what the death penalty costs.

"There's actually been some analysis done in Arizona, but it hasn't been that 
comprehensive," Laroue said.

Before the state carries out another execution, Laroue said it is only fair 
that Arizona conduct an analysis to determine exactly how much taxpayer money 
is spent each year killing inmates.

"We know from other studies that if you compared the actual costs from the 
investigation to the time that an execution is actually carried out, it is 
probably 6 to 7 times higher for a death penalty case than it is for a life 
without parole (sentence)," he said.

(source: KTAR news)

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

A way to sentence Jodi Arias and spare taxpayers


A vast majority of adult men and women in the Valley would be perfect 
candidates for the Jodi Arias sentencing trial jury and all of them are being 
rejected.

And for the worst reason.

They are over qualified.

Instead, the jury selection system is set up to have the least knowledgeable 
individuals living here make the most difficult choice one human being can make 
about another: Life or death.

It's a waste of time and a huge waste of money. And there's a simple solution.

Arias will pay a very dear price for killing her lover, Travis Alexander.

All of the rest of us will pay a significant price as well, having to bankroll 
an entire rehashing of Arias' original trial for what is, essentially, no good 
reason. There should not even be a sentencing trial. But since there will be, 
why must it drag on for so long?

The original proceedings were followed daily by millions of people all over the 
country and the world.

The long-suffering jurors from that trial found Arias guilty of having killed 
Alexander in a especially cruel manner, qualifying her for the death penalty.

It was an awful crime scene. Alexander was found dead in a shower. His throat 
was slit. He had almost 30 stab wounds and he was shot in the head.

But during the penalty phase the original jury couldn't decide if Arias should 
be sentenced to life in prison or sent to death row.

Prosecutors could have ended it there, taking the death penalty off the table 
and shipping Arias to prison.

They didn't, however, and now we must have a sentencing trial that covers all 
of the same ground, and then allow another jury to try and come up with a 
unanimous decision about life or death.

According to the reports from the Arizona Republic's Michael Kiefer, hundreds 
of prospective jurors are being turned away because, essentially, they know too 
much about the case and have formed an opinion.

So what?

The justice system is not trying to determine if Arias is guilty.

That has been determined.

Why should knowing about the trial or having an opinion about it matter? If 
anything, wouldn't that be a huge timesaver?

Instead, the sentencing trial isn't expected to begin until late October and it 
isn't expected to end until almost Christmas. And that's only if prosecutors, 
defense attorneys and the judge can find 18 individuals in Maricopa County who 
don't know much about the case and haven't formed an opinion (or who have the 
acting skills to pretend not to know much.)

Why? Rather than redo the old trial why not select from among the thousands of 
qualified men and women in the Valley who followed it the 1st time? There is no 
question about Arias's guilt, after all, only on how severe her punishment is.

So, why not make the sentencing trial a simple argument between the prosecutor 
and the defense attorneys. Allow each of them to present witnesses. Alexander's 
friends and family on one side. And anyone the defense might like to speak in 
favor of sparing Arias' life.

It would not give the advantage to the defense or the prosecution. It would not 
favor life in prison or the death penalty.

But it would spare us.

(source: Colum; EJ Montini, azcentral.com)