[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., LA., ARK., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

April 6



TEXAS----impending execution

Kent Sprouse of Texas Scheduled to be Executed on April 9, 2015



Kent William Sprouse's execution is scheduled to occur at 6 pm CDT, on 
Thursday, April 9, 2015, at the Walls Unit of the Huntsville State Penitentiary 
in Huntsville, Texas. 42-year-old Kent is convicted of murdering Pedro Moreno 
and 28-year-old Ferris Police Officer Harry Marvin "Marty" Steinfeldt III, on 
October 6, 2002, in Ferris, Texas. Kent has spent the last 11 years of his life 
on Texas' death row.

Kent, originally from Boone, Missouri, had graduated from high school and 
worked as a welder, builder, and laborer prior to his arrest. Kent's mother 
testified that he became paranoid in 2001, believing that the CIA and FBI were 
after him. She had him committed to a mental institution for 72 hours in April 
or May of 2002. After his release, she stated that his condition appeared to 
worsen. Kent had also abused drugs for an extended period of time. Kent did not 
have a prison record in Texas.

On October 6, 2002, Kent Sprouse stopped at a gas station and food mart in 
Ferris, Texas. He was observed to be carrying a shotgun, which he later fired 
in the direction of the pay telephones, where 2 men were standing. When 
approached by a bystander, Sprouse claimed the gun was not real. Sprouse asked 
the man, Brad Carroll, to help him start his vehicle. Brad initially agreed, 
but upon seeing boxes of gunshot in Sprouse's vehicle, Brad determined that the 
gun was real and left. As he was leaving, he heard another shot and observed 
Sprouse pointing his weapon at a man lying on the ground, bleeding. Brad 
observed a police vehicle pull in as he was leaving and heard 2 more gunshots.

The 1st shot heard by Brad, struck Pedro Moreno, who was filling his vehicle 
with gas. Officer Harry Steinfeldt III, dressed in a police uniform and driving 
a police vehicle, responded to the shooting at the gas station. Officer 
Steinfeldt first noticed Pedro on the ground, before turning towards Sprouse's 
vehicle. Sprouse shot at Officer Steinfeldt, who returned fire after 
collapsing. Shortly thereafter, Officer Brad Lindsey arrived on the scene and 
arrested Sprouse without incident. Pedro and Officer Steinfeldt both died from 
their injuries.

Sprouse was also taken to the hospital, as he had received injuries during the 
shooting. Hospital staff reported that he was uncooperative while receiving 
treatment. Sprouse also admitted to have taken marijuana and methamphetamines 
within 48 hours of the incident. While receiving treatment, Sprouse made 
repeated references to the "2 cops" who "got whacked."

During his trial, Sprouse and his attorneys alleged that he was suffering from 
paranoid delusions at the time of the crime and was schizophrenic.

Please pray for peace and healing for the families of Pedro and Officer 
Steinfeldt. Please pray for strength for the family of Kent Sprouse. Please 
pray that if Kent is innocent or lacks the mental competency to be executed, 
evidence will be presented prior to his execution. Please pray that Kent may 
come to find peace through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, if he has 
not already found one.

(source: theforgivenessfoundation.org)

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

Condemned Tyler man loses at Supreme Court



An East Texas man on death row for the slaying of a 93-year-old woman a decade 
ago at her home in Tyler has lost an appeal at the U.S. Supreme Court.

The justices Monday, without comment, refused to review the case of 31-year-old 
Clifton Lamar Williams.

Williams was condemned for the July 2005 beating, strangling and stabbing of 
Cecelia Schneider. Her body was set on fire and her car and purse containing 
$40 were stolen. DNA and fingerprint evidence linked the Tyler man to her 
slaying.

Prosecutors said he used the money to buy crack cocaine.

Appeals lawyers contended Williams had deficient legal help at his 2006 Smith 
County trial and that he was mentally impaired, making him ineligible for the 
death penalty.

Williams doesn't yet have an execution date.

(source: Associated Press)








NORTH CAROLINA:

North Carolina judge allows possible death penalty in Muslims' killings



A North Carolina judge ruled on Monday that a man accused of killing 3 young 
Muslims in February could face the death penalty if convicted of murder.

Craig Hicks, 46, was indicted on 3 counts of 1st-degree murder in the shooting 
deaths of a newlywed couple who were his neighbors in Chapel Hill and the 
wife's sister, a college student.

During a brief court hearing, prosecutors from the Durham County District 
Attorney's Office offered evidence of aggravating factors to make their case 
for pursuing the matter as a capital case.

The Feb. 10 deaths of Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, a University of North Carolina 
dental student; his wife, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21; and her sister, Razan 
Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, a student at North Carolina State University; drew 
international attention and inspired the hashtag #MuslimLivesMatter on social 
media.

Their families contend that Hicks, a paralegal student who presented himself on 
Facebook as an atheist, was fueled by hatred toward the victims because of 
their Muslim faith.

Federal and local authorities are investigating whether a hate crime was 
committed, and more charges could be added against Hicks, District Attorney 
Roger Echols said.

For now, he said, "1st-degree murder is the highest crime you can be convicted 
of and that is our focus."

Police have said a dispute over parking may have prompted the killings.

Hicks kept pictures and notes on his computer about parking activity in the 
lots around his condominium about 2 miles from the University of North Carolina 
campus in Chapel Hill, according to police search warrants.

(source: Reuters)








LOUISIANA:

Louisiana Denies Compensation to Dying Exonerated Death Row Prisoner as Former 
Prosecutor Apologizes



After 3 decades on death row in Louisiana, Glenn Ford was freed in March 2014 
based on new evidence clearing him of the 1983 fatal shooting a jewelry store 
owner. Ford is African American and was tried by an all-white jury. In 2000, 
the Louisiana Supreme Court ordered an evidentiary hearing on Ford's claim that 
the prosecution suppressed favorable evidence related to 2 brothers initially 
implicated in the crime. Then in 2013, an unidentified informant told 
prosecutors that one of the brothers had admitted to shooting and killing the 
jewelry store owner. Shortly after Ford's release last year, he received a 
second death sentence: stage three lung cancer, which has now advanced to stage 
4 and spread to his bones, lymph nodes and spine. His attorney says he has 
entered hospice care in New Orleans. Ford filed a federal lawsuit claiming 
prison officials and medical authorities knew he had cancer in 2011, but denied 
him treatment. Glenn Ford is one of the longest-serving death row prisoners 
ever to be exonerated. Under Louisiana law he can ask for a maximum of $330,000 
in compensation. But last week a judge denied his request, saying Ford was 
involved in 2 lesser crimes. We are joined by the lead prosecutor in Ford's 
murder trial, Marty Stroud, who has come out in favor of his compensation. In a 
3-page letter to The Shreveport Times, Stroud said he no longer supports the 
death penalty, and apologized to Ford. "I apologize to Glenn Ford for all the 
misery I have caused him and his family," he wrote.

AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to another exoneration, this time in Louisiana. In 
March 2014, Glenn Ford was freed after 3 decades on death row. He walked out of 
the Angola penitentiary when a judge vacated his murder conviction and death 
sentence. His exoneration came after new evidence emerged clearing him of the 
1983 fatal shooting of a jewelry store owner. Glenn Ford is African-American. 
He was tried by an all-white jury. In 2000, the Louisiana Supreme Court ordered 
an evidentiary hearing on Ford's claim that the prosecution suppressed 
favorable evidence related to 2 brothers initially implicated in the crime. 
Then in 2013, an unidentified informant told prosecutors one of the brothers 
had admitted to shooting and killing the jewelry store owner. Last year, Glenn 
Ford briefly spoke to reporters as he left the prison a free man.

GLENN FORD: [indecipherable] It feels good. I was locked up almost 30 years for 
something I didn't do. My son, when I left, was a baby, now they grown man with 
a baby.

AMY GOODMAN: Shortly after Glenn Ford's release, he received a 2nd death 
sentence: stage 3 lung cancer, which has now advanced to stage 4, spread to his 
bones, lymph nodes, and spine. His attorney says he has entered hospice care in 
New Orleans. Glenn Ford filed a federal lawsuit claiming prison officials and 
medical authorities knew he had cancer in 2011, but denied him treatment. In 
February, Glenn Ford spoke to the Times Picayune about his life after death 
row.

GLENN FORD: Mainly trying to get keep my health together. That and wondering 
what's going to happen after I get denied this compensation. I don't know what 
next year going to be about, though.

AMY GOODMAN: Glenn Ford is one of the longest-serving death row prisoners ever 
to be exonerated. Under Louisiana law, he can ask for a maximum of $330,000 in 
compensation. But last week, a judge denied his request, saying Ford was 
involved in 2 lesser crimes. This comes as the lead prosecutor in Glenn Ford's 
murder trial has come out in favor of his compensation. In a 3-page letter to 
the Shreveport Times Marty Stroud said he no longer supports the death penalty, 
and apologized to Glenn Ford. He wrote, "I apologize to Glenn Ford for all the 
misery I have caused him and his family. I apologize to the family of the 
victim for giving them the false hope of some closure. I apologize to the 
members of the jury for not having all of the story that should have been 
disclosed to them. I apologize to the court in not having been more diligent in 
my duty to ensure that proper disclosures of any exculpatory evidence had been 
provided to the defense."

Well for more, Marty Stroud joins us, himself, from Shreveport, Louisiana. We 
had hoped to be joined by Glenn Ford, but he is too ill in Hospice care. Marty 
Stroud, how was Glenn Ford convicted? You were the prosecutor.

MARTY STROUD: He was convicted - the short answer is, on the basis of the 
evidence presented and the jury found that the evidence established beyond a 
reasonable doubt in their minds that he was guilty of 1st-degree murder. One of 
the problems in the case, however, was that his attorneys had been appointed by 
the court - neither of them had ever tried a capital case, in fact, may never 
have tried a case at all. So looking back on it, though they gave it their best 
effort, they simply were not skilled in this particular area and Mr. Ford did 
not have the benefit of adequate counsel by any stretch of the imagination.

AMY GOODMAN: When did you realize you may have sent an innocent man to death 
row, Marty Stroud?

MARTY STROUD: Well shortly after the case, as it is working its way through the 
appeal, I became concerned about the lack of funding that was afforded to Mr. 
Ford in the case, and the lack of visibility to have competent counsel due to 
the manner in which counsel are appointed in Louisiana. So for the first few 
years, I was concerned about the trial itself. I still believed that Mr. Ford 
was guilty at that time, however, I had doubts about the fairness of his trial 
and I thought that he should be afforded a new trial. As the case continued and 
going through the appellate process, I testified on one, maybe 2 occasions. I 
was asked about evidence and police reports that I don't remember seeing. That 
caused concerns for me.

As we proceeded ,or as the case proceeded, it was then developed through other 
investigations that a confidential informant had come forward and advised the 
authorities of another individual who allegedly committed the crime. And at a 
hearing, or meeting with the investigators, I was told that had we know the 
evidence at the time Mr. Ford not only would have been convicted, but it would 
have been insufficient to cause arrest warrant to issue, which is a very 
stunning statement to make. 30 years after the fact.

AMY GOODMAN: So he would not only perhaps have not gone to death row, he would 
not even have been arrested.

MARTY STROUD: That is correct. And as you know, the standard for an arrest is a 
lot less than the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. It was stunning. 
And that particular information was set forth, I believe, in the motion to 
dismiss the case against Mr. Ford. And that's quite ??? it's a disturbing fact 
to me because that is really a stark statement to make, and it - and there is 
no way you can get around it. I mean, that's - probable cause is a lesser 
standard than prove beyond a reasonable doubt. And the state had indicated in a 
pleading to the judge that there was not - in effect, what was not even 
probable cause to arrest Mr. Ford, much less to try and convict him and send 
him to death row.

AMY GOODMAN: Marty Stroud, describe the scene, the courtroom. You had an 
African-American man who was the defendant, and an all-white jury. Now, you 
determined that, right? You were the lead prosecutor.

MARTY STROUD: I was. The jury was selected. At the time I did not believe that 
I intentionally discriminated against African Americans in the selection of 
jurors. At the time the case was tried, there was a different standard than you 
have now with - under, I believe it was Swanson vs. Alabama, but I guess I 
forget. It's early in the morning, so my mind is not working on all cylinders. 
However, Swain vs. Alabama.

The standard, the evidentiary standard was that the defense would have to prove 
that the office had a history of systematic exclusion of African-Americans, and 
none of that standard, I felt, I mean, the court found that there had been no 
intentional discrimination thereafter. The Supreme Court reversed Swain and in 
the Batson case indicated that, if a system is established, for example, if 
prosecutor or a defense attorney - it applies both ways - starts excluding 
people of race or gender or some other prohibited purpose, even under the 
preemptory challenge part of it, that the prosecutor then had to come forward 
and give race-neutral reasons for the exclusion of African-Americans or 
whatever minority has [indecipherable].

AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to Glenn Ford, himself, being interviewed by The 
Shreveport Times. He was asked to describe what death row did to him 
emotionally.

GLENN FORD: It separates you. It separates you from you from everything and 
everybody. And it's the link that it separates you, the - can you imagine going 
27 years, got no human contact? Without seeing family, loved ones, so-called 
friends? And then one day after 30 years with no new contact, with no worry 
about anyone bumping into you, one night you're sleeping on death row, next 
morning you're in the free world. And that is how overwhelmed I still - I still 
am.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Glenn Ford. He first became a resident of Louisiana's 
death row in 1985. Was only released just last year after his exoneration. He 
now is dying in hospice care of cancer. Have you, Marty Stroud, had a chance to 
talk to him? Have you been able to apologize to him?

MARTY STROUD: Well, I have apologized publicly and I'm in the process of 
meeting with him, if it's OK with his attorneys. And if he wishes to see me, 
and I believe he does, to apologize to him personally. As I said in my apology, 
I have - I offer - I really have no excuses for my conduct other than I was 
grossly immature at the age of 33, and certainly not, I believe, qualified to 
try capital case. Because at that young age, I was not aware or concerned with 
the implications of a death penalty. I like to think now that 30 years later, 
I'm somewhat wiser. But I also know it doesn't really help Mr. Ford any.

AMY GOODMAN: And what about, as we wrap up, the compensation issue? The fact 
that he was just denied compensation for these 30 years, wrongly, behind bars 
on death row?

MARTY STROUD: The problem here is not so much the judge as it is the 
legislature. The legislature passed a statute that said, basically, that if you 
had prior convictions and had served - I mean had had a record, that under the 
statute, you might not be entitled, if you have certain types of offenses, to 
qualify for any type of compensation. The problem I have with that statute is, 
regardless of your prior criminal record, if you have been convicted and sent 
to jail on a crime that you did not commit, and you have to spend - and I have 
been saying that he was in a 12 by 12 cell, the gentleman I heard just before 
said he was in a 5 by seven cell, and so I thought I was talking low numbers. 
And I may actually have overstated the area that Glenn Ford had. But 
nevertheless, the statute would prevent you from receiving any compensation and 
that is insane.

AMY GOODMAN: We just have 30 seconds. How has Glenn Ford's case changed your 
view of the death penalty?

MARTY STROUD: I am 100% against the death penalty. It is barbaric. And the 
reason it is barbaric, is that it is administered by human beings and we make 
mistakes. We are not infallible. Sister Prejean, in her book, "Dead Man 
Walking" said we can't trust the the government to fix potholes, how in the 
world's name can we trust them to impose a fair and impartial procedure for the 
death penalty? And we as human beings simply cannot do that. We're not God.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you for being with us, Marty Stroud, lead 
prosecutor in the 1984 trial in which Glenn Ford was sentenced to death for the 
murder of a Shreveport, Louisiana man. After 30 years on death row, Ford was 
released after the state admitted new evidence proves he was not the killer. He 
now lays dying in hospice care. We'll link to Marty Stroud's 3-page letter to 
the Shreveport Times calling the state to compensate Ford. This is Democracy 
Now! When we come back, we are going to speak with a representative of the 
American Pharmacist Association on a new policy against supplying lethal 
injection drugs in death penalty cases. Stay with us.

(source: Democracy Now!)








ARKANSAS:

Confusion Over Next Step for AR Death Penalty



A new law passed by the legislature sets protocols for carrying out the death 
penalty in Arkansas. We've learned there's some confusion as to how the process 
will play out, and opponents are vowing for more legal challenges.

"Without question there's going to be litigation," said Little Rock attorney 
Bill James.

James has defended around 10 death penalty cases and counts himself among the 
lawyers who'd like to see capital punishment gone.

"There are some very smart lawyers against the death penalty that are going to 
do everything they can to stop it," said James.

After legislation passed setting new death penalty protocols, the attorney 
general's office came up with a list of 8 death row inmates who've exhausted 
their legal options and are ready to be executed.

"There's nothing about what the legislature has done that's going to stop the 
litigation," said James.

One of the main points of contention will be the drugs used for the lethal 
injection. The new legislation gives the Arkansas Department of Correction 
options of using a barbiturate or a 3-drug cocktail.

The attorney general's office says it's waiting on ADC to pick which one it 
will use before sending the list of 8 to the governor to set execution dates, 
but ADC says it's waiting for the attorney general's office to review the 
legislation and advise on how to proceed.

"We are aware that defense attorneys already have drafted a lawsuit that they 
plan to file when this bill is enacted," ADC spokeswoman Cathy Frye said in an 
email Friday. "We therefore have no immediate plans to develop a protocol."

As the state stumbles to find its way forward on this controversial issue, 
death penalty opponents are hoping something stops it.

"That would certainly be our fear now that we would start seeing executions 
carried out in the state of Arkansas," said Stephen Copley, chair of the 
Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

The new legislation also contains a clause granting anonymity to suppliers of 
lethal injection drugs, but ADC still may have trouble finding them. Many drug 
companies refuse to sell for use in executions, and this week the American 
Pharmacists Association told members no to sell for that purpose.

(source: NWAhomepage.com)








CALIFORNIA:

Scott Peterson hurrying death-penalty appeal



Scott Peterson will take the next step in his death-sentence appeal in less 
than 4 months, the California Supreme Court said today.

That would represent a relatively quick response to the prosecution's latest 
brief, filed in January. The Modesto man's camp has said that Peterson, 42, 
wants to expedite a legal process that can take decades, while his wife's 
survivors say he could end up on a fast track to the death chamber if the 
strategy backfires.

An appeals prosecutor in January said Peterson's yearning to be free from 
marriage and impending fatherhood prompted him to murder his 27-year-old 
pregnant wife, Laci, and their unborn son, Conner, at Christmastime 2002. Scott 
Peterson said he had been fishing in a newly purchased boat in San Francisco 
Bay and returned to an empty house, and the badly decomposed bodies of mother 
and fetus washed ashore nearly 4 months later.

A blockbuster trial stretching much of 2004 featured testimony from his 
girlfriend, Fresno massage therapist Amber Frey, and ended with a guilty 
verdict and his arrival on death row in March 2005. Peterson's appeal attorney, 
Cliff Gardner, filed his appeal 7 years later - considered fast - and told the 
Supreme Court he will respond to prosecutors' January brief by July 27.

Peterson's 2012 appeal says that evidence was weak and claims that Judge Alfred 
Delucci, who since has died, made several missteps warranting a new trial. The 
state Attorney General's Office responded that Peterson, "fueled by the 
trifecta of selfishness, arrogance and wanderlust, decided to take matters into 
his own hands" and murdered Laci and Conner.

California has not had an execution in 9 years, and 753 condemned prisoners 
were on death row as of March 9.

(source: Modesto Bee)








USA:

Bishops say Tsarnaev should not receive death penalty



Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley and fellow Massachusetts Roman Catholic bishops 
say it would be against the church's teaching to apply the death penalty to 
Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

The statement Monday said Tsarnaev, "will never again have the ability to cause 
harm." The bishops said "society can do better than the death penalty."

The church opposes the death penalty in almost all cases, a position the 
bishops said was restated by Pope Francis last month.

The statement came just before a federal court jury received Tsarnaev's case. 
His lawyer has acknowledged he took part in the 2013 bombings, but said he was 
influenced by his older brother.

Tsarnaev's punishment will be decided in a 2nd trial phase if he's convicted.

3 people were killed and more than 260 wounded in the attack.

(source: Boston Herald)

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

Higher Courts Let Prosecutors Get Away with Murder----Most death row 
exonerations can be traced to prosecutor misconduct. Why aren???t higher courts 
interested?



For anyone studying the bubbling issue of prosecutor misconduct, the LAT states 
- Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas - form a good lab. March alone brewed up:

- belated charges against a prosecutor in Texas, where the defendant was 
executed a decade ago;

- soul-searching in Louisiana, where a prosecutor bemoaned his win that sent an 
innocent man to prison;

- and absolution in Arkansas, where the state's Supreme Court informed me that 
a prosecutor who withheld critical evidence from a man on trial for his life 
did not violate any rules of professional conduct.

The Texas case centered on Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 
for the arson murder of his 3 young daughters. Now the State Bar of Texas has 
filed a formal petition accusing the prosecutor of obstructing justice by 
making false statements and concealing evidence favorable to Willingham's 
defense.

"Before, during and after the 1992 trial, [Jackson] knew of the existence of 
evidence that tended to negate the guilt of Willingham and failed to disclose 
that evidence to defense counsel," the bar said.

It won't help Willingham, who protested his innocence to the end. But the move 
suggests that at least some Texans are paying attention.

Next door in Louisiana, a former prosecuting attorney reflected on a conviction 
he'd won that kept a man on death row for 30 years - and held himself 
accountable.

"As a prosecutor and officer of the court, I had the duty to prosecute fairly," 
attorney A.M. "Marty" Stroud III wrote to a Shreveport newspaper. "Part of my 
duty was to disclose promptly any exculpatory evidence relating to trial and 
penalty issues of which I was made aware. My fault was that I was too passive. 
I did not consider the rumors about the involvement of other parties..."

"The bureaucratic response appears to be that nobody did anything intentionally 
wrong, thus the state has no responsibility. This is nonsensical."

Stroud agreed that Louisiana owed significant monetary compensation to the man 
whom he'd helped convict. Yet, he wrote, "The state does not accept any 
responsibility for the damage suffered by one of its citizens. The bureaucratic 
response appears to be that nobody did anything intentionally wrong, thus the 
state has no responsibility. This is nonsensical."

Noting that evidence that would have cleared the defendant was available at the 
time of the trial, Stroud wrote: "The easy and convenient argument is that the 
prosecutors did not know of such evidence, thus they were absolved of any 
responsibility for the wrongful conviction."

Stroud dismissed that argument. And he refused to absolve himself.

Last year, 125 men and women were released from prison because they were 
wrongfully convicted, according to a report by the National Registry of 
Exonerations. 2/3 of those cases were overturned because prosecutors either 
reopened investigations themselves or cooperated with other investigators to 
ensure that justice was done.

But supreme courts, who bear the ultimate responsibility for the conduct they 
will accept from attorneys, have stood by like indulgent parents, tolerating 
outrageous behavior and even ruling that others must too.

(In the infamous Louisiana case of Connick v. Thompson, the U.S. Supreme Court 
decided in 2011 that a prosecutor could not be held liable for withholding 
evidence in a murder case because the defendant, who was a month from execution 
before the withheld evidence was discovered, had not shown that the 
prosecutor's office displayed "deliberate indifference" to its duties.)

Echoes of that protectionism can be heard in the Arkansas case of Tim Howard, 
who will be retried later this month for a double murder that occurred 18 years 
ago near where these 3 states join. As I wrote here before, Howard is being 
retried because after he was sentenced to death, investigations turned up 
potentially exculpatory evidence that had been withheld from his attorneys.

I know firsthand how loath state officials have been to hold his prosecutor 
accountable. 4 years ago, when I learned of the withheld evidence, I wrote an 
article for my newspaper first. Then, as a citizen, I wrote a letter to the 
state supreme court's Committee on Professional Conduct, complaining about what 
the prosecutor, Tom Cooper, had done.

Supreme courts routinely sanction lawyers for offenses as minor as misspelled 
words in briefs or as serious as defrauding clients or showing up drunk in 
court. I thought that withholding evidence in a death case constituted a gross 
violation of the court's Rules of Professional Conduct.

While I didn't say as much in my letter, I viewed Cooper's failure to turn over 
key evidence as horrific neglect, at best. To my mind, it rose to the same 
level as that of a surgeon who killed by failing to sterilize an instrument, or 
a driver who ran over a kid while texting. Given the high stakes of a capital 
trial, there seemed no kinder way to spin it.

The director of the court's Office of Professional Conduct promptly notified me 
that he would wait for a court to rule on whether the misconduct I alleged - 
and which the state's attorney general by then had tacitly acknowledged - had 
actually occurred.

The letter also informed me, in all caps and bold type, that I must not 
disclose the nature of my complaint to anyone, including, ironically, members 
of the news media. If I did, the letter warned, I could be held in contempt of 
court and "punished by fine or jail."

While Howard's case wound its way back to court for a ruling, I reflected on 
the Arkansas Supreme Court's threat. I concluded that it was unlawful, a 
violation of First Amendment.

I wrote to the committee explaining my concern, but after receiving no response 
I filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the state Supreme Court's 
Committee on Professional Conduct. That was in 2011.

Arkansas's attorney general represented the committee. My attorney, Jeff 
Rosenzweig, argued that the boiler-plate letter I'd received, which went to all 
persons filing complaints about attorneys, constituted prior restraint and 
struck at the heart of free-speech protections - protections that were voted 
into the Bill of Rights particularly so that citizens could discuss their 
elected officials.

The state never did admit error. But in January 2013, we settled. I withdrew my 
lawsuit and the court ordered that henceforth the content of complaints could 
be discussed.

The following November, the judge hearing Howard's claim about the withheld 
evidence concluded that misconduct had indeed occurred, though he softened his 
ruling by opining that the misconduct had been "inadvertent." Nevertheless, he 
vacated Howard's conviction, opening the way for the new trial that will take 
place this month.

As soon as the judge announced his finding of misconduct, I wrote again to the 
Office of Professional Conduct. Pointing out that a court had now made a 
finding of misconduct, I would renew my complaint against Cooper.

16 months passed without a response. During that time I learned that, of the 
hundreds of attorneys the committee has sanctioned during the past 25 years, 
not 1 has been a prosecutor.

I began to think that my letter about Cooper, like my earlier ones about the 
First Amendment, would be totally ignored. But in the middle of March, just 3 
days after my article about Howard's upcoming trial appeared here, a letter 
from the director of the Office of Professional Conduct arrived at my office.

Could it be? A judge had found misconduct serious enough to warrant a new trial 
for a man who'd spent 16 years on death row, and would the state Supreme 
Court's Committee on Professional Conduct finally break with its long tradition 
and actually punish a prosecutor instead of threatening those who dared to 
complain about one?

Nope.

This latest letter advised me that, though my complaint against Cooper was 
"carefully reviewed," "sufficient evidence" had not been found that Cooper - 
the former prosecutor who is now a judge - had violated even 1 tiny rule of 
professional conduct.

No doubt most defendants facing a judge would love to murmur the word 
"inadvertent" and be graciously forgiven. But that doesn't work in America's 
courts - unless you're a prosecuting attorney.

(source: Mara Leveritt, The Daily Beast)

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

Why more Americans want to kill the death penalty----Today only 55 % of 
Americans support the death penalty, down from 80 % in 1994. If moral concerns 
about killing begin to merge with doubts about the government's ability to get 
convictions right, could the death penalty be on its way out?



Editor's Note: This article is part of "The Ten Today," a series that examines 
the Ten Commandments in modern society. This story explores the sixth 
commandment, "Thou shalt not kill."

The use of the death penalty took a tumble in 2014. Just 35 executions were 
conducted in the U.S. last year, the fewest since 1994, and just 72 people were 
sentenced to death, the fewest in 40 years, according to the Death Penalty 
Information Center.

Public support for the death penalty has been on a steady downward curve since 
it reached a high of nearly 80 % of Americans supporting it in 1994, according 
to Pew Research Center data. Today, 55 % support capital punishment, Pew found, 
with large variations in ethnic groups. Blacks and Latinos are much more likely 
to oppose it.

Roughly 1/2 of death penalty supporters cite proportionality (the punishment 
fits the crime) as their primary reason, according to a 2011 Pew poll. 15 % 
favor capital punishment because, they say, life in prison costs more. (Though 
most analysts agree it does not.) But most notably, Pew found that 2 popular 
grounds for support from 20 years before - deterrence and preventing the person 
from committing new crimes - are now cited by only 6 % and 5 % of Americans, 
respectively.

The drop in support for the death penalty seems to coincide with a wave of 
exonerations that followed the advent of DNA forensics. In fact, that same Pew 
poll found that 27 % of those who oppose the death penalty cite a flawed legal 
system, up from 11 % in 1991. Meanwhile, the percentage who gave moral or 
religious reasons for opposing the death penalty dropped to 43 % from 58 %.

Those shifts have been mirrored in state-level policy. In the past decade, six 
states abolished capital punishment, bringing the total of non-death penalty 
states to 18. With public opinion on a steady slide, many observers now see it 
as a just a matter of time before more states follow suit. Death penalty 
opponents ranging from agnostic law professors to religious leaders are doing 
what they can to nudge those doubts along. Just this month, Pope Francis issued 
an emphatic statement: "Today the death penalty is inadmissible," he wrote, "no 
matter how serious the crime committed."

Aligning the Catholic flock with its leadership on this issue has not been 
easy, but Catholic leaders like Anthony Granado, a policy adviser at the U.S. 
Council of Catholic Bishops, are increasingly hopeful. Granado hopes religious 
arguments over the ethics of the death penalty - traditionally a liberal cause 
- can merge with growing unease about the government's ability to get 
convictions right, playing into conservatives' distrust of government to create 
a powerful coalition that could lead to more changes in policy.

"These are people who don't trust the government to pick up their trash on 
Tuesday," Granado says, "let alone kill anyone."

Proving innocence

As the Pew data show, doubts about flawed government decision-making are now a 
central issue driving the debate. Part of this is due to a cottage industry 
that has grown up around proving innocence, leading to 7 prisoners who at one 
point had been on death row being exonerated and released just last year, the 
Death Penalty Information Center reports.

We may never know how many people have been mistakenly convicted of capital 
crimes, says Samuel Gross, a law professor at the University of Michigan, but 
in an article he co-authored last year he offered a very precise estimate of 
how many death row inmates are being exonerated compared to other inmates.

Defendants on death row receive extraordinary case reviews over many years, 
Gross said. Often that means multiple teams of advocacy groups. Pro bono 
lawyers and law professors with student clinics will comb the files for any 
type of error. But most defendants do not stay on death row. Many are granted 
life sentence for various reasons, and that scrutiny then disappears, and 
exonerations fall off as well.

Gross and his co-authors wanted to figure out how many of those moved off death 
row would have been exonerated if they had stayed on track for execution over 
the decades of intensive review. So they took a strong statistical sample of 
death penalty cases that got moved off death row and compared them to those 
that stayed on.

"If this intense scrutiny had been applied for a long enough time, for decades, 
for everyone sentenced to death in our sample," Gross said, "then the rate of 
exoneration would have been 4.1 %." And Gross believes this actually 
understates the number of wrongful convictions.

Most of these, Gross hastens to add, are not DNA exonerations, though these 
receive the most press. DNA is usually only available with sex crimes, and is 
increasingly dealt with at the trial level. Most false convictions are based on 
false or erroneous testimony, and not infrequently involve prosecutor 
malfeasance.

The most notorious case Gross points to involved a man named John Thompson in 
New Orleans who came within nine days of execution before a team of legal 
experts combing through old evidence boxes discovered that the prosecutors had 
hidden blood evidence that would have, and then did, exonerate him.

"No one disputes that Thompson was innocent," Gross said. The prosecutor who 
hid the evidence, Gross adds, since died of natural causes.

Gross says that a "fair number" of cases have followed this pattern: a convict 
whose innocence is now unquestioned barely gets exonerated in the face of a 
pending execution. "And most of these would almost certainly have served life 
sentences if they had not been given a death sentence," Gross said.

The paradox lurking in Gross's analysis, seemingly unavoidable but still 
maddening, is that abolishing the death penalty would lead to lower scrutiny 
for error, and thus keep more innocent people behind bars for life.

But that's a tradeoff Gross would be willing to accept, and he hopes that 
greater awareness of prosecutor malfeasance and eyewitness unreliability will 
continue to grow doubts about the irreversible sanction.

Real people

David Dow, a law professor at the University of Houston, says that of the 120 
pro bono death penalty cases he has handled in the past 25 years, he is 
confident that 7 were wrongly convicted, a ratio very close to Gross's 
findings. Of those, Dow said, 2 were executed, 2 walked free, and 3 are still 
caught up in the system.

But wrongful conviction is usually far from Dow's mind, and he knows nearly all 
of his clients are guilty. Dow says he was not against the death penalty when 
he started representing death row inmates. "I was not strongly in favor," he 
says, "but I was not very emphatic either way." As time went on and cases and 
experience piled up, he said he had 2 related "moments" that changed his mind.

The 1st he calls the "legal moment." He had expected that the death penalty 
would be given out predictably and fairly, with the most horrific murders 
getting the worst punishment. "Instead I found that it's a total crap shoot," 
he said, "and the dice are heavily loaded against perpetrators who are poor, 
and especially if their victims are white."

Dow says he could not rationalize starkly different treatment based on wealth 
in the criminal justice system, especially on the ultimate penalty.

Dow's 2nd insight, his "human moment," came when he realized the people he was 
working with had changed since the time of their conviction. Many of them had 
committed their crimes when they were still quite young, Dow said, often 
between the ages of 18 and 22, before the prefrontal cortex - the section of 
the brain responsible for moral judgment and self-control - is fully developed, 
as neurologists now tell us.

"By the time we do execute them," Dow said, "the conversations I have just 
before execution are so different than when they arrived on death row, it's 
like you are talking to a completely different person."

In addition, there is the question of back stories. Dow says 76 % of inmates on 
death row were in the juvenile system. And almost all of them, he found, came 
from traumatized childhoods of abuse and neglect. "It's easy to confuse 
explanation with excuse," Dow said. "But it's also very easy to think of people 
on death row as not being human beings."

In a TED talk filmed in 2012, Dow laid out the story of a death row inmate he 
had defended who never knew his father and whose schizophrenic mother had tried 
to kill him with a butcher knife when he was 5 years old.

Dow believes that if people were honest, they would recognize the societal 
failings that set up the dominoes toward violence. This, he hopes, would lead 
more focus on prevention and less on retribution.

"There are a lot of things we could do," Dow said, "to prevent kids from going 
there."

Gospel of Life

Humane considerations like Dow's drive much of the opposition to the death 
penalty. But the policy is also under increased fire from religious groups.

Foremost among religious voices opposing the death penalty is the leadership of 
the Catholic Church, prominent Catholic leaders having long held that 
Christianity does not condone the penalty unless absolutely necessary to 
protect society. Not all religious philosophies agree; in Mosaic law, for 
instance, capital punishment for certain crimes was not considered a violation 
of the sixth commandment to not kill. But Catholic leaders refer to their 
opposition to abortion and capital punishment as part of a "seamless garment" 
of the Gospel of Life, offering what some believe is a uniquely consistent 
philosophical position that opposes both abortion and the death penalty 2 
stances often at odds in U.S. politics. Because of this, many think the 
Catholic position could bridge the ideological chasm of left and right.

As in other matters, Catholic opinion in the pews does not necessarily match 
the perspective at the pulpit. Catholics have consistently favored the death 
penalty in roughly the same ratios as the general population. The recent Pew 
poll showed that 59 % of white Catholics are in favor, while 54 % of Hispanic 
Catholics are opposed. White Protestants were capital punishment's strongest 
supporters among religious groups, with both evangelicals and mainline 
Protestants hovering at just over 60 % support.

The logic of the official Catholic position has begun to make inroads among 
Catholics who oppose abortion and some of their Protestant allies, says Anthony 
Granado.

The key, he said, is that the church's position must be "presented as 
consistent with the church's teaching about the dignity of human life, rather 
than as a policy issue du jour, or as a cause of the left. If it is tied very 
clearly to the Gospel of Life, then pro-life Catholics are more willing to 
accept it."

Pro-life evangelicals, however, could still be a challenge for Granado.

The official position of the Southern Baptist Convention cites Genesis 9:6, 
which embraces the death penalty for murder because "Whoever sheds man's blood, 
his blood will be shed by man, for God made man in His image." The statement 
offers measured support for "the fair and equitable use of capital punishment 
by civil magistrates as a legitimate form of punishment for those guilty of 
murder or treasonous acts that result in death," but only when there is "clear 
and overwhelming evidence of guilt" and when it is applied "justly and as 
fairly as possible without undue delay, without reference to the race, class, 
or status of the guilty."

But Granado has hopes of persuading his pro-life allies, and says he has seen 
shifts in perspective among political conservatives who align with Catholics on 
abortion and family issues but bring their own instinctual and growing distrust 
of government to the table.

He hopes that over time, skepticism about government may become wedded to moral 
concerns about killing per se. "(Conservatives) are starting to think there may 
be something to (the Catholic position). They've seen exonerations, innocent 
people convicted, and they don't generally trust Caesar anyway."

Granado has worked with conservative activists who have become death penalty 
opponents. They remain outliers for now, but he hopes their skepticism could 
eventually bear fruit, making the bandwagon to abolition a more powerful force.

(source: Democracy Now)