[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----UTAH, ARIZ., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Dec. 16



UTAH:

Poll Shows Majority of Utahns Support the Death Penalty


A majority of Utahns still favor the state having the death penalty, a new 
UtahPolicy poll shows.

But while 67 % prefer the ultimate sanction for being convicted of aggravated 
murder, finds Dan Jones & Associates, that majority appears to be shrinking 
over time.

Way back in the 1980s - I recall - a Dan Jones poll for the Deseret News found 
that 90 % of Utahns favored the death penalty.

Of course, some states, like Nebraska, have done away with the death penalty, 
opting instead for life without the possibility of parole.

Jones finds in his newest Utah survey that 26 % of Utahns favor life without 
parole instead of the death penalty.

2 % mentioned some other kind of ultimate penalty while 5 % didn't know.

Utah was one of the last states to do away with hanging and firing squad as a 
means of execution while going with lethal injection instead.

But just last year the Utah Legislature approved of the firing squad in case 
proper lethal injection drugs couldn't be obtained.

There are religious overtones in Utah in favor of the death penalty.

While not formal LDS doctrine, the Mormon society has traditionally upheld the 
belief of blood atonement - giving one's blood in repentance if you spilled 
wrongly the blood of another.

Jones finds in the religion breakout:

-- 77 % of those who said they are "very active" in the LDS Church favor the 
death penalty, 17 % want life without parole, 1 % mentioned something else, and 
5 % of faithful Mormons didn't know.

-- 53 % of Catholics favor the death penalty, 35 % said life, 6 % mentioned 
something else, and 6 % didn't know.

-- 50 % of Protestants favor death, 45 % said life without parole, 0 % 
mentioned something else, and 5 % didn't know.

-- Of those belonging to some other religion, 54 % favor the death penalty, 35 
% said life, 4 % mentioned something else, and 6 % didn't know.

Those who said they have no religion disagree with those carrying a faith: 59 % 
favor life without parole, only 37 % favor the death penalty, 2 % mentioned 
something else, and 2 % didn't know.

So not accepting the Old Testament's eye for an eye clearly plays out here.

Women are a bit more compassionate than men, Jones finds:

-- 71 % of men want the death penalty, 26 % said life.

-- 64 % of women favor death, 27 % said life without parole, and the rest were 
uncertain what they wanted.

Republicans are gun ho - 84 % favor the death penalty, only 11 % want life 
without parole.

Political independents: 59 % favor death, 36 % say life without parole.

Democrats are the exception: 61 % favor life without parole, 30 % say keep the 
death penalty.

Historically, racial minorities are against the death penalty, with black 
people convicted of murder much more likely to get capital punishment than 
white people across the nation.

Jones finds that racial minorities in this new poll are less likely to support 
the death penalty - but a majority of them still favor execution.

Utah is so overwhelmingly white that in every poll Jones only samples a small 
number of racial minorities to get an accurate overall sampling of the 
citizenry - so the margins of error in the minority samples are huge, and not 
very statistically accurate.

In his latest poll, Jones questioned 624 adults from Nov. 5-14 with a margin of 
error 3.92 %.

(source: utahpolicy.com)






ARIZONA:

Lawsuit set to challenge Arizona secrecy on death penalty


An Arizona federal court will soon hear a case that would force state officials 
to identify execution staff and the source of execution drugs used to carry out 
the state's death penalty, a US public defender told The Independent Tuesday.

Most states where capital punishment is legal withhold the identities of people 
involved in executions and drug providers - either with laws that punish the 
publication of information on parties to executions or policies that maintain 
executioners and drug providers are exempt from laws requiring that officials 
disclose their activity.

States like Oklahoma have imposed laws barring access to the information, 
saying that they are protecting the safety of people involved in executions. 
But death penalty opponents say the states are afraid that activists will 
pressure drug suppliers to stop selling the drug to Corrections Departments 
across the US amid an apparent shortage.

A lawsuit filed by public defender Dale Baich last year challenged the 
constitutionality of Arizona's secrecy over capital punishment ahead of the 
execution of inmate Joseph Rudolph Wood, arguing that he and other plaintiffs 
had a 1st Amendment right to know how the state would execute them.

Wood, who had been convicted of murdering his girlfriend, was executed on July 
23, 2014 in a botched execution that took nearly two hours. Witnesses to the 
execution did not know that executioners administered 15 times the amount of 
lethal injection drug prescribed by Arizona Corrections Department protocol.

Mr Baich has since amended the lawsuit, seen by The Independent, that will now 
include free speech advocates First Amendment Coalition of Arizona as 
plaintiffs and, in addition to unveiling the parties involved in executions, 
take on the state's use of the sedative Midazolam in executions. Judges will 
hear the lawsuit at a status conference on January 12.

Midazolam is the sedative used in the botched executions of inmates like 
Oklahoma's Clayton Lockett, who witnesses say died after more than 40 minutes 
of writhing in pain. The drug's use was challenged in US Supreme Court case 
Glossip v. Gross, but the Supreme Court ruled the drug did not amount to cruel 
and unusual punishment.

Dan Peitzmeyer, spokesman for local advocacy group Death Penalty Alternatives 
for Arizona, said he hopes Mr Baich???s litigation will start a precedent for 
greater transparency into the death penalty across the nation.

"Citizens have a right to know what their government is doing," Mr Peitzmeyer 
told The Independent.

He offered Wood's botched execution with 14 more rounds of lethal injection 
drug than usual as an example of what he calls a lack of oversight and 
accountability. "Protocol doesn???t mean a damn thing. The Department of 
Corrections does what they want to do," he said.

The Arizona Corrections Department and Attorney General's Office did not 
immediately respond to requests for comment from The Independent.

(source: The Independent)

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

Rector attorney files new challenge to death penalty


The attorneys for a Bullhead City murder suspect are again asking prosecutors 
to remove the death penalty against their client.

In a motion filed late Tuesday afternoon, Justin James Rector's attorneys, 
Gerald Gavin and Ron Gilleo, asked Superior Court Judge Lee Jantzen to dismiss 
the possible sentence of death because prosecutors cannot constitutionally 
impose the death penalty.

In Arizona, a jury in a death penalty case determines if the defendant is 
guilty or innocent of 1st-degree murder. If a defendant is convicted of that 
murder charge, the jury then determines if the defendant is to be sentenced to 
death or to life in prison.

Gavin included in the defense motion several newspaper articles about botched 
executions in Arizona, Oklahoma and Florida. When Arizona executed Joseph Wood 
in July 2014, it took Wood almost 2 hours to die after being injected 15 times 
with a combination of experimental drugs. At issue is the use or misuse of 
those lethal injection drugs.

The defense attorneys assert that allowing Deputy Mohave County Attorney Greg 
McPhillips to impose the death penalty endangers Rector's right not to be 
subjected to medical experimentation and from suffering a cruel and lingering 
painful death.

"Arizona's death penalty statute and Arizona Department of Correction's 
ever-shifting regulations implementing that statute create a substantial risk 
that Mr. Rector's execution would cause him to suffer an unacceptable, 
inhumane, torturous death," Gavin said in his motion.

The motion also stated that Arizona has botched several executions and its 
flawed written procedures is "Joseph Mengele's inspired scheme of ad-hoc death 
by any means available," Gavin argued.

McPhillips previously argued in September that the Arizona Supreme Court found 
that lethal ejection is a constitutional method of execution.

Rector, 27, is charged with 1st-degree murder, kidnapping, child abuse and 
abandonment of a dead body in the kidnapping and slaying of 8-year-old 
Isabella.

Grogan-Cannella Sept. 2, 2014, and leaving her body in a grave near her 
Bullhead City home.

Jantzen has granted only 2 of the previous 31 defense motions that have been 
filed. Rector's next status hearing is set for March 4, 2016. Rector's 10-week 
murder trial is set to begin Oct. 17, 2016, with a pre-trial hearing set for 
Aug. 23, 2016.

(source: Mohave Valley Daily News)

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

Man renews bid to strike death as punishment in murder case


A man charged with murder in the death of a Bullhead City girl is invoking the 
state's death penalty struggles in trying to take capital punishment off the 
table.

A judge had rejected a previous attempt by attorneys for Justin James Rector to 
eliminate the possibility of death in his case.

Prosecutors had argued it was premature because Rector hasn't been convicted of 
a crime eligible for the death penalty.

In the latest defense request released Tuesday, Rector's attorneys argue the 
state's procedures are flawed and cannot guarantee a humane death. They cited 
the case of Joseph Rudolph Wood.

Executions in Arizona were put on hold after it took more than 90 minutes for 
Wood to die in July 2014

(source: Associated Press)






CALIFORNIA:

Jurors hear Wozniak conversations with fiancee, police


At the Costa Mesa Police Department in May 2010, Daniel Wozniak called his 
fiancee from a jailhouse phone.

"Babe, um, listen to me," Wozniak said, according to an audio recording played 
for a jury Tuesday. "I'm going to go do something right now. And you're not 
going to see me for the rest of your life. Do you understand that?"

"No. No," she replied, raising her voice slightly.

"I'm not a good person," Wozniak added before ending the conversation.

Prosecutors at the Orange County district attorney's office allege the phone 
call came moments before Wozniak confessed to 2 killings and a gruesome 
cover-up attempt.

Wozniak is on trial in Orange County Superior Court, accused of the slayings of 
26-year-old Sam Herr and 23-year-old Juri "Julie" Kibuishi. Herr was Wozniak's 
neighbor and attended Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa with Kibuishi, 
according to authorities.

Though authorities say he confessed, Wozniak has pleaded not guilty to 2 counts 
of murder.

He could face the death penalty if convicted.

Prosecutors say Wozniak, 31, killed Herr on May 21, 2010, so he could steal the 
Army veteran's ATM card and drain his bank account of thousands of dollars Herr 
had saved from his service in Afghanistan.

Prosecutors allege Wozniak shot Herr twice in the head at a Los Alamitos 
theater where Wozniak performed in community productions, and later dismembered 
Herr's body so he could dump the head and other pieces in a Long Beach park, 
prosecutors say.

Authorities believe Wozniak used Herr's phone to lure Kibuishi, Herr's friend, 
to Herr's apartment, then shot her and staged her body to look as though Herr 
had sexually assaulted her and fled.

More than 5 years after the killings, prosecutor Matt Murphy finished 
presenting evidence against Wozniak on Tuesday. Closing arguments are expected 
Wednesday.

On Tuesday morning, jurors watched video of the police interview that followed 
Wozniak's call to his fianc???e, Rachel Buffet.

"I'm crazy and I did it," the video shows Wozniak saying.

"You did what?" a detective asked.

"I killed Julie and I killed Sam," Wozniak replied.

When detectives asked why, Wozniak said, "Money and insanity."

Staring down at a desk with his hands clasped on top of his head, Wozniak let 
out a distressed laugh.

"I don't know why I did it," he continued. "Mainly it was the money, and it 
seemed so easy."

Murphy told jurors during his opening statement last week that Wozniak was in 
debt and desperate for money to fund his approaching wedding.

Police arrested Wozniak at his bachelor party days after the killings.

A 16-year-old boy who had been withdrawing money from Herr's account told 
investigators that Wozniak hired him to collect the cash for him, according to 
Murphy.

Police, who originally were unaware of Herr's death, first suspected that 
Wozniak was funneling money to Herr, Murphy said.

After Wozniak's arrest, he told police that Herr killed Kibuishi while high on 
ecstasy and then hired him to cover it up, according to a series of recorded 
police interviews.

But after the conversation with Buffet, Wozniak told police that he was the 
killer, authorities say.

In the recorded phone call, Buffet asked Wozniak, "What did you do?"

"I helped Sam cover some stuff up and get some drugs. That's it," Wozniak said. 
"I didn't murder anybody."

But when Buffet said she was going to tell detectives about something Wozniak's 
older brother said, Wozniak's voice took on a panicked tone.

"Tim says he had evidence with him or he knew where it was or something," 
Buffet said.

"Then I'm doomed," Wozniak replied, almost whispering.

"Oh God, oh God, oh God," he added after a brief silence.

Murphy told jurors that the evidence Wozniak's brother had included the weapon 
used in the killings.

Wozniak told police that he gave his brother the handgun, the clothes he was 
wearing during Herr's slaying, ammunition and other items that could 
incriminate him.

In the video, Wozniak said he instructed his brother to hide or burn the items.

"I said that someone else had killed somebody," Wozniak told detectives. "I 
told him it wasn't me."

It's not clear how much Buffet, 28, and Wozniak's brother, 41, knew about the 
killings. Both have been charged with accessory to murder after the fact and 
pleaded not guilty.

Wozniak told police he acted alone, according to the recorded interviews.

Toward the end of her phone conversation with Wozniak, Buffet asked again, 
"What did you do?"

"I think you know what I did," Wozniak replied.

(source: Los Angeles Times)






USA:

Executions by States Fell in 2015, Report Says


Executions in the United States in 2015 fell to their lowest number in nearly 
25 years, and new death sentences imposed by courts declined to levels not seen 
since the early 1970s, according to a report released Wednesday.

The annual survey by the Death Penalty Information Center recorded 28 
executions this year, the fewest since 1991, when there were 14. "The numbers 
are consistent with a long-term trend in which public support for the death 
penalty is dropping, the number of executions is dropping and the number of 
death penalties imposed is dropping," said Robert Dunham, the center's 
executive director.

Among the concerns cited in the study was one about the fairness of many death 
penalty prosecutions, an unease that has been heightened by the number of 
exonerations of death row inmates in recent years.

This year, Pennsylvania's governor has declared a moratorium on executions, 
Connecticut's Supreme Court has determined the punishment to be 
unconstitutional and the Nebraska Legislature repealed that state???s death 
penalty law - although voters will formally decide the statute's future in a 
referendum next year.

In addition, shortages in the drugs used for lethal injections have led several 
states to impose temporary moratoriums until they obtain reliable supplies.

The death penalty survey found that the 28 people executed in 2015 were seven 
fewer than were put to death in 2014. Only 6 states carried out executions this 
year - led by 13 in Texas, which frequently has the nation's most executions; 6 
in Missouri; and 5 in Georgia.

That was the fewest number of states that executed someone since 1992, the 
report said.

Additionally, the 49 death sentences handed down by judges and juries this year 
was a 33 % decline from 2014, and was the lowest number of death sentences 
imposed since 1973.

Juries in several prominent trials this year have opted to sentence defendants 
to life in prison rather than death, including 2 mass murder trials in Colorado 
- James E. Holmes, who killed 12 people and wounded 70 others at an Aurora 
movie theater in July 2012, and Dexter Lewis, who was convicted of stabbing 5 
people to death in a Denver bar in October 2012. Federal court jurors in 
Boston, however, sentenced Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death in May for the 2013 
Boston Marathon bombings.

A single jurisdiction, Riverside County in California, imposed 8 death 
sentences in 2015 - 16 % of the total for the year, and more than any state 
except Florida, which handed down nine death sentences, according to the 
survey. In contrast, Texas imposed 2 death sentences in 2015.

During the past year, several states, including Ohio and Mississippi, have 
halted scheduled executions because their state prison systems lack an adequate 
supply of drugs for lethal injections, including sedatives that paralyze 
muscles, and drugs like potassium chloride, which stop the heart.

Drug manufacturers have cut off supplies to states when they believe the drugs 
will be used for lethal injections, and in some cases, compounding pharmacies 
that have stepped in to produce potassium chloride and other drugs for 
executions have ceased doing so once their names have been made public.

To avoid problems in obtaining drugs, some states passed legislation this year 
allowing other forms of execution, including Utah, which adopted a law to use 
firing squads if lethal injection is eventually declared unconstitutional.

Oklahoma approved a law in April making asphyxiation with nitrogen gas its 
alternative execution method.

The report said 6 people on death rows around the country were exonerated this 
year, including Willie Manning, a black man who had been convicted of murdering 
2 white women in Mississippi.

Although nearly 1/2 of all murder victims in the nation are black, only 6 of 28 
people executed this year had killed an African-American, the survey found. 10 
of the 28 people executed this year were black.

(source: New York Times)

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

DPIC Releases Year End Report: Historic Declines in Use of Death Penalty in 
2015


On December 16, DPIC released its annual report on the latest developments in 
capital punishment, "The Death Penalty in 2015: Year End Report." The death 
penalty declined by virtually every measure in 2015. 28 people were executed, 
the fewest since 1991. Death sentences dropped 33% from last year's historic 
low, with 49 people being sentenced to death this year. There have now been 
fewer death sentences imposed in the last decade than in the decade before the 
U.S. Supreme Court declared existing death penalty laws unconstitutional in 
1972. Just 6 states carried out executions, the fewest since 1988; and 3 states 
(Texas, Missouri, and Georgia) accounted for 86% of all executions. For the 1st 
time since 1995, the number of people on death row fell below 3,000. Public 
support for the death penalty also dropped, and the 2015 American Values Survey 
found that a majority of Americans prefer life without parole to the death 
penalty as punishment for people convicted of murder. 6 people were exonerated 
from death row this year, bringing the total number of exonerations since 1973 
to 156. "The use of the death penalty is becoming increasingly rare and 
increasingly isolated in the United States. These are not just annual blips in 
statistics, but reflect a broad change in attitudes about capital punishment 
across the country," said Robert Dunham, DPIC's Executive Director.

The report also includes a discussion of executions this year that involved 
inmates who had symptoms of severe mental illness, intellectual disabilities, 
or extreme trauma. It covers developments across the country related to lethal 
injection, and features quotes from notable voices who spoke about the death 
penalty this year.

(source: DPIC)