[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ARK., OKLA., NEB., N.DAK., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Dec. 5



ARKANSAS:

AR Supreme Court Issues Stay in Lethal Injection Case


The Arkansas Supreme Court has issued a stay of a ruling issued by a Pulaski 
County Circuit Court Judge Thursday on lethal injections.

Judge Wendell Griffen ruled that Arkansas' death penalty drug secrecy law 
violates the state constitution.

The state requested the stay in the case which involves a lawsuit filed by a 
group of death row inmates. Their suit challenges the 2015 death penalty law 
and a clause that allows Arkansas to keep the drugs used in its lethal 
injection process a secret.

Wendell's ruling stated that the provision making the drugs secret violates the 
state constitution and declared it null and void immediately.

The state had argued it needed to keep lethal injection drug information secret 
because if drug sources were revealed, it would make it difficult to purchase 
the execution drugs.

The Supreme Court issued a temporary stay and set a 25-day briefing schedule on 
the issue of whether a stay should remain in effect while the larger issues are 
tried before Judge Griffen.

(source: Arkansas Matters)






OKLAHOMA:

DOC Director Robert Patton Announces Resignation


Newly obtained court documents from a 2011 federal lawsuit against the Arizona 
Department of Corrections, show a string of departures from execution rules and 
a lack of record keeping by Robert Patton in 2011.

Oklahoma Department of Corrections Director Robert Patton announced his 
resignation Friday afternoon. His resignation takes effect January 31, but he 
will be on accrued leave beginning December 25.

Patton has already accepted a position in Arizona to be closer to family.

"I appreciate the members of the board of corrections for their continued 
support during my time as director," Patton said in a statement. "It has been 
an honor to serve this agency, the state of Oklahoma and to work with the 
talented people who make up the department. It has also been a privilege to 
work with Governor Fallin and her staff on initiatives to improve corrections 
within the state."

Patton has served as director since January 2014. During his time in Oklahoma, 
he has led initiatives aimed at improving the DOC for its employees, the public 
and offenders housed at statewide facilities.

"Since joining the DOC, Director Patton has initiated positive change within 
the organization. He has stabilized the agency's budget, reformed internal 
operations to be more efficient, and launched a recruiting effort that has 
resulted in increased staffing levels of correctional officers," said Oklahoma 
Board of Corrections Chairman Kevin Gross.

But as director, Patton has also seen his share of controversy especially 
surrounding the execution of Richard Glossip. In September, Glossip was granted 
a stay of execution due to a chemical called potassium acetate being delivered 
to the prison for the injection, instead of potassium chloride that Oklahoma 
guidelines call for.

In the months since, Patton's past was called into question over Oklahoma 
executions.

An interim director will be named prior to Patton's last day in the office. The 
board of corrections will immediately launch a national search to fill the 
position.

(source: The Oklahoman)






NEBRASKA:

Neb. Governor Suspends Efforts to Obtain Death Penalty Drugs


Nebraska's governor says the state will stop trying to obtain lethal injection 
drugs until voters decide whether to keep capital punishment.

A statewide vote is scheduled for November 2016.

The state has been struggling to import 2 drugs that are required for its 
lethal injection protocol.

Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts said Friday that his administration will also 
wait to carry out executions. No executions had been scheduled.

Lawmakers abolished capital punishment in May over Ricketts' veto, but a 
statewide petition drive gathered enough signatures to suspend that decision 
and put the issue on the ballot.

Nebraska bought $54,400 in foreign-made drugs from a distributor in India, but 
the federal government has said they can't be imported legally.

Ricketts says he's also talking with state officials about changing the drug 
protocol.

(source: Associated Press)






NORTH DAKOTA:

Time for the ND Legislature to reconsider death penalty?


Mike McFeely's column in Sunday's editions of The Forum, "Panic after Paris, 
silence after Colorado Springs," (Nov. 29) got me to thinking.

The column concerned the worldwide panic that took place following the Paris 
terrorist massacres, and the deafening silence following the shootings at a 
Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs, Colo.

I would like to take a different direction. Headlines like these tend to fuel 
speculation about reinstating capital punishment in North Dakota. Outside of 
the Dru Sjodin case (which became a federal matter since Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. 
committed his crimes across state lines), there really haven't been any 
noteworthy particularly heinous, cruel or vile homicides in North Dakota that 
would rise to the level of being a potential death penalty case in other states 
that have capital punishment on the books.

North Dakota has not carried out a judicially ordered execution since the 
hanging of murderer John Rooney in 1905. North Dakota had a death penalty until 
the U.S. Supreme Court in the Furman v. Georgia case struck down the death 
penalty across the country as being unconstitutional in 1972.

Following the court's ruling, the 1973 Legislature repealed the vestiges of the 
death penalty in North Dakota: a law under which no one had been sentenced to 
death. There have been efforts in subsequent legislative sessions to reinstate 
capital punishment and all have failed.

Meanwhile, our neighboring state of South Dakota has carried out 3 executions 
since 2007, with the last one prior to that taking place in 1947. 6 decades 
passed between 1947 and 2007. 2 states that share a common border, and perhaps 
some common bonds since the Dakota Territory was split and North Dakota and 
South Dakota were born in 1889 - one has a death penalty and one does not.

Many would argue that if the death penalty were ever reinstated in North 
Dakota, it would take many decades for the first execution to occur, if it ever 
did occur. Also, it would cost the state millions of dollars and countless 
hours of manpower to defend the seemingly endless number of appeals to state 
and federal courts that death row inmates and their attorneys often avail 
themselves of, in order to avoid or at least delay the inevitable.

Certainly, money is a considering factor - it always is. However, with the 
uptick in violent crimes and homicides that we have seen over the past many 
years in our part of the country, perhaps the time has come for North Dakota to 
dust off the subject of the death penalty.

I'm not necessarily in support of reinstating capital punishment, but perhaps 
the time has come for state lawmakers to have this discussion once again when 
the 2017 legislative session convenes.

(source: Letter to the Editor, Rick Olson----The Forum)






CALIFORNIA----new death sentence

Eddie Ricky Nealy given death penalty for 1985 killing of Fresno Girl


A judge handed Eddie Ricky Nealy a death sentence for the 1985 rape and murder 
of 14-year-old Jody Lynn Wolf.

Nealy is also on trial for raping a woman in September 2001. Nealy has been in 
the Fresno County Jail since April 2007.

Judge Arlan Harrell said "A judgment of death, not life without parole, is 
warranted," during Nealy's sentencing.

(source: ABC news)

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

California death penalty agency gets new chief


Longtime California state Public Defender Michael Hersek has been named chief 
of the state agency that leads defense of California's death row inmates in the 
appellate courts.

In a move announced on Friday, Hersek replaces Michael Laurence, who stepped 
down as director of the state Habeas Corpus Resource Center this fall after 
heading the agency since its creation in 1998. Hersek already has been heavily 
involved in death penalty law for many years as head of the state defender's 
office since 2004, but now takes over a staff of about 30 attorneys that works 
only on the late, crucial stages of trying to contest death sentences in the 
California Supreme Court and federal courts.

For Laurence and others involved in the work, the resource center is considered 
far short of what California needs to handle the appeals of the 750 inmates on 
death row, as the agency and public defender's office do not have enough 
lawyers to meet the appellate caseload. The agency was created to help 
accelerate the state's notoriously slow death penalty appeals process, but the 
improvement has yet to materialize -- death penalty cases still go unresolved 
in California for decades.

Hersek was first named state public defender in 2004 by former Gov. Arnold 
Scharzenegger, and reappointed twice by current Gov. Jerry Brown. Brown will 
have to name his replacement.

Before his appointment, Hersek was a deputy state public defender and also 
previously a staff attorney with the state Supreme Court.

Laurence, meanwhile, has been one of the nation's leading death penalty lawyers 
for decades, dating back to his representation in the late 1980s and early 
1990s of Robert Alton Harris, a convicted killer who was the state's first 
death row inmate executed after the state restored capital punishment in 1978. 
Harris was put to death in 1992.

Laurence most recently has been representing death row inmate Ernest Dewayne 
Jones in a case that argues California's death penalty is unconstitutional 
because of prolonged delays in the system. A federal appeals court recently 
rejected those claims, but the case is expected to be appealed further.

(source: Mercury News)






USA:

Justice Anthony Kennedy to Receive Human Rights First's Beacon Prize


Human Rights First Friday announced that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy 
will receive the organization's Beacon Prize in honor of his leadership in 
interpreting and applying the law to advance human dignity and freedom, and his 
commitment to maintaining the Court's role as a beacon for the rule of law 
around the world. The prize will be bestowed on December 9 during an evening 
gala at the National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. The event 
marks the culmination of the organization's annual Human Rights Summit, which 
takes place that same day at the Newseum.

"In so many landmark decisions throughout his career, most recently in his 
momentous majority opinion legalizing same-sex marriage, Justice Kennedy has 
been a pivotal voice in making the promise of our Constitution real in the 
lives of people seeking freedom and justice," said Human Rights First President 
and CEO Elisa Massmino. "This award also celebrates Justice Kennedy's keen 
understanding that American jurisprudence is not a 1-way broadcast. The 
influence of the Supreme Court extends beyond our shores, as foreign courts - 
in mature democracies contemplating evolving norms as well as in nations 
struggling to establish the rule of law - look to this quintessentially 
American institution as a guidepost."

Animated by principles of liberty and freedom, Justice Kennedy's opinions have 
had a tremendous impact in the United States. He has a keen understanding of 
the importance of international law and the global influence of rulings from 
America's highest court. Writing for the majority in Boumediene v. Bush, 
Justice Kennedy addressed the influence of the United States in setting norms 
for how other nations combat terrorism in the post-9/11 era: "Security subsists 
too in fidelity to freedom's 1st principles. Chief among these are freedom from 
arbitrary and unlawful restraint and the personal liberty that is secured by 
adherence to the separation of powers." And in Roper v. Simmons, his landmark 
decision striking down the death penalty for juveniles, he wrote that, "[I]t is 
proper that we acknowledge the overwhelming weight of international opinion 
against the juvenile death penalty."

Justice Kennedy's commitment to liberty and the inherent dignity and rights of 
the individual, and his understanding that the eyes of the world are on the 
court, were in full view in his Obergefell v. Hodges decision. He wrote: "The 
nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times. The 
generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth 
Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its 
dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting 
the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning. When new 
insight reveals discord between the Constitution???s central protections and a 
received legal stricture, a claim to liberty must be addressed."

The Beacon Prize will be presented by William D. Zabel, chairman of Human 
Rights First and founding partner of Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP. Zabel played a 
key role in the landmark 1967 Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia that put an 
end to race-based bans on marriage. He and Justice Kennedy were classmates at 
Harvard Law School.

The Beacon Prize is awarded annually to an individual or organization whose 
work embodies the best in the tradition of American leadership on human rights. 
Starting with Eleanor Roosevelt's leading role in shepherding the Universal 
Declaration of Human Rights, Americans - government officials and private 
individuals - have nurtured and shaped the human rights movement, turning the 
principles enumerated in the Universal Declaration into action. The name of the 
award echoes the words of leaders from President Ronald Reagan to President 
Barack Obama who have hailed the United States as a beacon for all those 
seeking freedom. The Beacon Prize invokes this description as a challenge: 
America's beacon shines brightest when our country leads by example and when 
its actions match its ideals. The Beacon Prize celebrates those whose actions 
to promote human rights have brought the United States closer to this ideal.

Previous recipients have included Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Dianne 
Feinstein (D-CA), Senator Bob Dole (R-KS), and Ambassador Christopher J. 
Stevens (posthumously).

(source: Human Rights First)