[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., N.C., GA., TENN., MO., S. DAK.

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 8



PENNSYLVANIA:

Appeals court to mull death penalty in 2005 murder retrial



An appeals court hears arguments later this month on whether a man can face the 
death penalty in his retrial in the murder of a woman whose body was found in a 
central Pennsylvania park a decade ago.

42-year-old Paul Aaron Ross is charged in Blair County in the June 2004 murder 
of 26-year-old Tina Miller, whose body was found partially submerged and bound 
with duct tape at Canoe Creek State Park.

The (Altoona) Mirror (http://bit.ly/1zLc2Pb ) reports that a Superior Court 
panel hears defense arguments Feb. 25 that jurors couldn't agree in 2005 
whether Ross deserved execution, so prosecutors should be barred from seeking 
that.

Ross was granted a new trial after his attorney argued that he didn't have 
enough time to prepare his defense for the 1st trial.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Chances of being executed in Pennsylvania remain slim



Hugo Selenski could soon join a potentially endangered species: Pennsylvania 
death row inmate.

If a jury were to convict the accused double-killer this week, and subsequently 
sentenced him to death, that would put Selenski, 41, among just under 200 
people on the list of those sentenced to execution in this state.

But the odds appear slim that Selenski - or any of the other 186 people 
officially on death row in Pennsylvania - could die strapped to a gurney with a 
needle in their veins.

Statistics alone make the case. Capital punishment was reauthorized in 
Pennsylvania in 1978. According to state records, 7 governors signed a total of 
434 death warrants between 1985 and last month, when Gov. Tom Corbett signed 5 
final warrants before leaving office.

The number of people put to death in Pennsylvania since 1978? Three, and the 
last of those was executed in 1999.

That's not entirely for lack of trying.

The lengthy and expensive appeals process is the obvious and most common reason 
why death row inmates languish in state custody, but not the only factor.

In September, Corbett wrote that he was "committed to carrying out" a death 
sentence for Hubert Lester Michael Jr., 58, who was sentenced to die in 1995 
after being convicted of the 1993 kidnapping and murder of a 16-year-old girl 
in York County.

But Michael's execution did not take place, after it emerged that state 
officials were not able to obtain the drugs required to perform a lethal 
injection.

That news came amid controversy about the the drugs to be used, in which the 
American Civil Liberties Union and media outlets sued to learn the source of 
those drugs. The heightened scrutiny followed 3 botched executions in Ohio, 
Oklahoma and Arizona last year.

Political landscape

In the meanwhile, Corbett was voted out of office, and the change in the 
political winds also suggests that the Keystone State won???t be executing 
anyone else anytime soon.

New Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat who defeated incumbent Republican Corbett with 
nearly 55 % of the vote in November, supports a moratorium on capital 
punishment.

According to Associated Press reports leading up to the election, Wolf pledged 
not to sign any death warrants until concerns raised by the Pennsylvania 
Supreme Court and the American Bar Association about the process have been 
addressed.

A spokesman confirmed last week that this remains Wolf's position.

"It's something that he's talked about for a long time," Jeff Sheridan told the 
Times Leader in a telephone interview on Friday. "It's not anything new."

Not new, perhaps, but even for a Democrat in this state, Wolf's view may 
represent a break from previous governors in his party. Of those 434 death 
warrants signed since 1985, 293 were signed by Republicans, with the remaining 
141 signed by Democrats: 21 by the late Gov. Bob Casey, 1 by his acting 
governor Mark Singel, and 119 by Gov. Ed Rendell.

If Wolf is the most powerful political figure questioning capital punishment in 
Pennsylvania right now, he is not alone and certainly not the 1st. And the 
movement is not exclusively the preserve of Democrats.

Committee report

Sheridan confirmed that Wolf is awaiting the report of the bipartisan 
Pennsylvania Task Force and Advisory Committee on Capital Punishment, a panel 
convened by the state Senate in 2012.

That body was due to present its findings after a 2-year study, but has yet to 
do so.

The committee was convened at the behest of legislation proposed by Republican 
Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, himself a former prosecutor.

"Questions are frequently raised regarding the costs, deterrent effect and 
appropriateness of capital punishment," Greenleaf said in 2011. "I believe that 
we need to answer these questions."

The purpose of Greenleaf's committee, he said, is to undertake a "balanced 
study, taking into account all points of view including those of law 
enforcement and crime victims on whether the death sentence has a deterrent 
effect and contributes to the protection of the public."

As Greenleaf previously has pointed out, "The Pennsylvania Supreme Court 
Committee on Racial and Gender Bias in the Justice System determined that 
racial, ethnic and gender biases exist, and that those biases significantly 
affect the way parties, witnesses, litigants, lawyers, court employees, and 
potential jurors are treated. Post-conviction DNA testing has shown that there 
are wrongful convictions, even in capital cases."

Of the 186 people currently on death row in Pennsylvania, state records show 
that 183 are male and 3 female. Of that group, 98 are black, 68 are white, 18 
are Hispanic and 2 are Asian.

Sheridan said Wolf likewise has concerns about the fairness, effectiveness and 
expense of capital punishment.

But the future of lethal injections also may rest in higher hands.

The U.S. Supreme Court last month announced plans to review whether the drug 
protocol used for executions in many parts of the country violates the 
constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Luzerne County cases

If Selenski were convicted and sentenced to die, his would be only the 3rd case 
from Luzerne County currently represented on Pennsylvania's list of those 
sentenced to execution.

Michael Bardo, of Wilkes-Barre, was sentenced to death in 1994 for molesting 
and killing his 3-year-old niece in 1992, but now is entitled a new sentencing 
hearing.

In a December ruling, the state Supreme Court effectively upheld a 2012 order 
of then-Luzerne County Senior Judge Patrick Toole to vacate the death sentence 
because Bardo's attorneys did not present a wealth of mitigating evidence at 
Bardo's penalty phase hearing. Because the court was split 3-3, Toole's 
decision stands as a matter of law.

Toole, meanwhile, had dismissed Bardo\'s appeal of his guilt, and the Supreme 
Court upheld that dismissal.

The other Luzerne County case still formally listed among those sentenced to 
execution is that of mass-murderer George Banks, who went on a Sept. 25, 1982 
rampage in and around Jenkins Township that killed 13 people, including 5 of 
his own children. Banks received 12 death sentences on Nov. 22, 1985.

Banks, now 72, has avoided the executioner for nearly 30 years amid questions 
about mental illness and his competency to understand why he is facing 
execution, likely putting him beyond the needle's reach for the rest of his 
natural life, based on previous reports.

Death row demographics

Banks, who was 43 when sentenced, is not even the oldest of those on the 
state's list of inmates facing execution, nor is he the longest-serving among 
them.

The oldest is Ronald Francis Puksar, 74. He was sentenced to death in 1993 
after being convicted of the 1st-degree murders of his brother and 
sister-in-law, Thomas and Donna Puksar, in Berks County in 1991.

The longest-serving capital inmate in Pennsylvania is Henry P. Fahy, 57, who 
was sentenced on Nov. 2, 1983, following his conviction for the 1981 rape and 
murder of a 12-year-old girl in Philadelphia.

The state's most recent death sentence to be handed down, meanwhile, is that of 
Timothy Matthew Jacoby, 41, a York man who was convicted in October for the 
2010 shooting death of a 55-year-old Manheim Township woman.

The youngest person currently on death row in Pennsylvania is Abraham Sanchez 
Jr., 26. He was sentenced on March 30, 2009 - several months shy of his 21st 
birthday - in connection with the 2007 shooting death of a 65-year-old 
Lancaster County man during a robbery attempt.

(source: The Times Leader)








NORTH CAROLINA:

Lamp's death penalty case racks up $250K in costs



Nearly 1 year ago, an Iredell County jury handed down a death sentence in a 
case that began nearly 6 years earlier.

When the jury convicted Bernard Lamp of 1st-degree murder and, 2 weeks later, 
recommended the death penalty, the case that began in 2008 came to an end, at 
least on the local level, but not before racking up close to $250,000 in 
expenses.

Lamp was sentenced to death for killing Bonnie Lou Irvine in late February or 
early March 2008. Her body was found buried in the back yard of a home on 
Weathers Creek Road in mid March 2008. Lamp was arrested on March 13, 2008, 
driving Irvine's car. A day later, her body was found buried in a shallow 
grave.

>From that arrest nearly 7 years ago to the case coming to trial in January 
2014, Lamp remained in custody, shuttled between Statesville and Raleigh. Those 
costs alone, said Maj. Bert Connelly, detention supervisor, came to more than 
$150,000.

More than 1/2 of that cost came as the result of the lengthy incarceration 
prior to trial.

Connelly said these lengthy cases put a dent in the jail budget, but there's 
nothing the sheriff's office can do to reduce the amount of time a case takes 
to come to trial. "We are the mercy of the judicial system," he said.

In terms of the time it takes to bring a death penalty case to trial in 
Iredell, there's little to compare. Since 2005, there have been a few cases in 
which the state sought the death penalty. In 2005, there were 2 cases tried in 
Iredell County with the death penalty on the table.

The 1st began in May 2010 and involved 2 murders that occurred in December 2007 
- a span of less than 30 months. Andrew Ramseur was tried and sentenced to 
death for murdering 2 people during an armed robbery at convenience store on 
East Broad Street. Jennifer Vincek, the store's clerk, and Jeff Peck, a 
customer, died in that robbery.

However, 2 other cases in which the death penalty was sought were as lengthy 
from time of the crime to conviction as the Lamp case. Travis Ramseur was tried 
and convicted of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder in September 2010 - nearly 6 
years after the crime occurred. The jury rejected the state's call for the 
death penalty and Ramseur was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

His co-defendant, Al Bellamy, was tried seven months later, again on capital 
charges. A mistrial was declared before the case went to the jury and the judge 
took the death penalty off the table for a retrial. Bellamy was convicted in 
the fall of 2011 on 2 counts of 1st-degree murder, nearing the 7th anniversary 
of the 2 murders. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Even though these cases approached the same length of time from the crime to 
conviction as the Lamp case, Ramseur and Bellamy were charged on federal drug 
counts and the federal drug charges were tried 1st. Bellamy and Ramseur were 
charged in May 2005 - nearly 6 months after the shootings.

Bringing the 2 cases to trial would take almost 6 years for Ramseur and more 
than 6 for Bellamy.

The 5th death penalty case local prosecutors will try in 5 years is set for 
early November, about the same time frame as Andrew Ramseur's case, 30 months.

Why did it take so long to bring Bernard Lamp to trial?

There are a variety of factors, court documents revealed.

Some of those cited include the large quantity of evidence analyzed by the 
Federal Bureau of Investigation laboratory, the defense???s motion to name the 
initial lead prosecutor, Mikko Red Arrow, as a defense witness (Red Arrow had 
previously prosecuted Lamp on other charges); conflicting trial schedules with 
defense attorneys Vince Rabil and David Freedman, defense requests for 
continuances and instances where prosecutors were in court and the defense 
failed to come to court. According to court documents there were 8 court dates 
in which the defense did not appear.

Rabil said the biggest factor in the time-consuming case was waiting for 
evidence to be processed by the FBI. He said, with some of the evidence, it 
took as long as four years to be analyzed and reports given to both the state 
and defense. "That was the hold-up," he said.

The bulk of the expenses connected with this trial were incurred in 
incarceration of Lamp for nearly 6 years. But there were many other expenses 
associated with bringing Bernard Lamp to justice, from extra security during 
the more than 5-week court case to expert witnesses to psychological and 
psychiatric services.

The North Carolina Office Indigent Defense Services provided representation to 
Lamp. One of his 2 attorneys, Rabil, is employed by the IDS so his salary is 
not factored into defense costs, Danielle M. Carman, assistant director and 
general counsel for the IDS, said in an email.

The 2nd attorney assigned to the case Freedman, was paid $30,315.55 and another 
$16,721.20 was paid for DNA testing and analysis. In total, the defense spent 
about $81,422.27 in defending Lamp.

Connelly said the trial itself caused expenses, including extra security for 
the duration of the case. He estimated that cost about $4,500. He said the 
combination of housing Lamp for almost 6 years and security during the trial 
was in the neighborhood of $158,000.

Other costs came in the form of expert witnesses.

Since Lamp and Irvine met via a Craigslist ad and communicated with each other 
via cell phone or email in late February 2008, it was necessary to put 
representatives of the various email, cell phone and Craigslist providers on 
the stand to link the cell phones, emails and Craigslist postings to Lamp and 
Irvine.

5 of these witnesses took the stand, most just to provide documentation of the 
cell phone numbers and the ad site. Most were on the stand less than 15 minutes 
but required being flown in and housed, including at least one from California.

Requests to the Administrative Office of the Courts to provide those costs were 
not answered.

The case was also lengthened by the fact that Lamp faced the death penalty, 
Rabil said.

The decision to seek the death penalty ramps up the length, which increases 
costs significantly.

Bellamy's attorney, Bob Trobich, said bringing a death penalty case to trial is 
time-consuming regardless of the circumstances.

The costs to investigate possible mitigating factors in the penalty phase, if 
the jury finds the defendant guilty of 1st-degree murder, are the main reasons 
a death penalty case is more expensive and takes long to get to court, Trobich 
said.

"It takes forever," he said. "You have to get school records, track people 
down," he said.

A study conducted by the IDS in 2008 concluded that between 2002 and 2006, the 
average cost for a capital case was $58,000 vs. $14,000 for a non-capital case. 
Some cases, depending on a variety of factors such as in the Lamp case, will 
exceed $200,000.

But regardless of the costs and time in housing Lamp and ultimately bringing 
the case before a jury, Iredell Sheriff Darren Campbell said, it was money 
well-spent. "Bonnie Lou Irvine deserved justice," he said.

(source: Statesville Record & Landmark)








GEORGIA:

Warner Robins death row inmate tied to other slayings



A Warner Robins man fighting to get off death row is accused in 2 other 
killings the same year he was convicted of raping and slaying a 17-year-old 
girl in a pecan orchard near Kathleen.

The other cases -- the drowning of a man in a hotel room bathtub and the 
kidnapping of an airman who was then killed in Twiggs County -- were dead 
docketed in Houston County when Roger Collins was convicted and sentenced to 
death for the slaying of Deloris Luster.

A case that is dead docketed may be reopened and prosecuted at any time, though 
the same issues dogging the defense of Collins' death penalty case -- lost 
records, missing evidence and the deaths of witnesses -- likely would hinder 
prosecution if the other cases were reopened.

Collins, 56, is the second longest-serving death row inmate. The former Warner 
Robins city sanitation worker is now entering his 38th year under a death 
sentence, including at least 2 times when his execution was ordered and then 
stayed among years of legal battles.

THE CRIMES

Collins was 18 in 1977 when he was convicted and sentenced to death for 
bludgeoning a teenage girl with a car bumper jack after he and another man 
raped her at knifepoint. William Durham, who was dating Collins' mother at the 
time, was sentenced to life for the August 1977 murder and rape. A 3rd man, 
Johnny Styles, who waited in the car after the rape while Luster was murdered, 
was granted immunity in exchange for his testimony.

Collins originally told Houston County sheriff's investigators that he and 
Durham both struck Luster with the jack but later told authorities he confessed 
to that because Durham told him to, and he never struck her. He admitted to 
dropping the jack out of a moving car afterward and discarding her clothes in a 
convenience store dumpster, according to his statement included in the case 
file in Houston County Superior Court.

Based on a review of court records, Collins and Durham were also indicted in 
Houston County on charges of murder and robbery by force in the July 1977 
slaying of Irvin Woodward, who had invited the men into his Warner Robins hotel 
room. Collins and Durham are accused of striking the Ohio man in the head with 
a boot, tying him up and then drowning him for $120 in cash. The case was dead 
docketed after Collins and Durham were tried separately and sentenced in 
Luster's murder.

Both were also indicted in Houston County on charges of kidnapping, armed 
robbery and motor vehicle theft in connection to the June 1977 slaying of 
airman Mitchell Hunter III. Hunter, who worked at Robins Air Force Base, was 
robbed of a government check totaling $159.01, kidnapped and his car stolen at 
gunpoint while making a call from a pay phone at Sixth Street and Watson 
Boulevard in Warner Robins. He was then driven to Twiggs County where he shot 
multiple times.

The Houston County part of the case also was dead docketed after the men were 
sentenced for Luster's murder. Durham pleaded guilty in Twiggs County to the 
airman's murder. It was not clear from Twiggs County Superior Court records 
what happened with the murder charge against Collins.

In another dead-docketed Houston County case, Collins was accused of robbing 
liquor store owner Wallace Johnson of $150 at knifepoint and striking him on 
the head with a bottle of wine in October 1976. Co-defendant Henry William 
Roberts Jr. was sentenced to 2 years in prison after pleading guilty to robbery 
by intimidation.

THE DEATH PENALTY CASE

In 1991, a Butts County Superior Court judge remanded the case to Houston 
County Superior Court on the issue of mental retardation after a forensic 
psychologist found that Collins had an IQ of 66. But a trial to determine 
whether Collins was mentally disabled never took place.

In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court banned the execution of mentally retarded 
persons but left up to each state how determinations of mental capacity are 
made. Georgia is the only state that requires the defense to prove mental 
retardation beyond a reasonable doubt. The standard has stood up under appeal.

Collins' case languished for more than 20 years until Decatur-based Watchdogs 
for Justice petitioned the attorney general???s office in September 2012 to 
intervene. The nonprofit group asked that the death penalty be vacated for a 
sentence of life with the possibility of parole.

In January 2013, Houston County Deputy Chief Assistant District Attorney Dan 
Bibler wrote a letter to Superior Court Judge George Nunn about the need to get 
the case moving and requested a new psychiatric evaluation of Collins. State 
capital defenders mounted a defense to prevent prosecutors from challenging 
Collins' 1991 diagnosis of mental retardation and asked Nunn to vacate the 
death sentence for a life sentence with the possibility of parole.

Amber Pittman, the lead capital defender representing Collins, argued in court 
motions that "the loss of evidence resulting (from) the 23-year delay in 
bringing this case to trial has created an insurmountable obstacle to a fair 
trial on the issue of mental retardation."

She argued much of the evidence from the original trial is missing, and school 
and other records that would lend credence to Collins' mental state have been 
destroyed. In addition, many of the people who could have testified about 
Collins being in special education before dropping out of school, his cognitive 
abilities, and childhood neglect and abuse have died. Some of those witnesses 
included his mother, siblings and the forensic psychologist whose opinion led 
to the case being sent back for trial. Other witnesses signed affidavits that 
their memories have faded, but they would have been able testify in 1991 had 
prosecutors sought to try the case then.

Pittman also contended the prosecution had in effect acquiesced to a life 
sentence by not moving the case forward from 1991 to 2012. Pittman declined to 
comment for this story.

Bibler said he could not speak to why there was no movement in the case during 
that time frame, but he said the prosecution now having its own psychological 
evaluation of Collins is reasonable and afforded under state law.

As to the dead-docketed cases, Bibler said his focus is now on the mental 
retardation remand, and he would address other issues as they arose.

On Oct. 17, Nunn ordered the prosecution may conduct its own mental evaluation 
and agreed to a defense request to have an attorney or other defense 
representative observe the evaluation.

That evaluation is pending, Bibler said. He added the defense also had its own 
evaluation of Collins last year.

Included in the court record, the defense evaluation by forensic psychologist 
Doug Stone-Miller found Collins has a "moderate intellectual disability."

Bibler said how the case may proceed depends on the results of the pending 
evaluation at Central State Hospital.

On Jan. 27, Georgia executed by injection 54-year-old Warren Lee Hill over the 
objections of his attorneys and outcry from human rights groups that his 
intellectual disability should have precluded him from the death penalty. He 
had an IQ of 70.

Hill was convicted of the 1990 murder of inmate Joseph Handspike while in 
prison for the 1985 slaying of his girlfriend.

(source: Macon Telegraph)








TENNESSEE:

Gaile Owens: 'I still struggle' with freedom



More than 3 years after she was released from the Tennessee Prison for Women, 
Gaile Owens continues to grapple with her freedom.

"I don't know that I deserved to get out," said Owens, who was sentenced to 
death for hiring a hit man to kill her husband in 1984. "I still struggle with 
that."

But she knows that she did not deserve to die for her crime.

"No crime is right. There's no justification for it," Owens said Saturday 
during a conference hosted by Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty 
"But to take another life doesn't make it right either."

Owens has said she suffered years of emotional, physical and sexual abuse at 
her husband's hands. In 2010, Gov. Phil Bredesen commuted her sentence to life, 
clearing the way for her release a year later.

At the conference, which brought together almost 200 high school and college 
students from across the state, Gaile Owens and her son Stephen talked about 
their decades-long path to forgiveness and redemption.

Stephen Owens, who was a child when his father was killed, didn't speak to his 
mother for 25 years following her conviction. For much of that time, he said, 
he remained a death penalty supporter.

"If a crime was committed that warrants a judge or a jury to sentence a person 
to death, then who was I to interfere with justice?" he said.

But after visiting his mother in 2009, his heart softened as he saw the good 
work she was doing behind bars. He ultimately played a pivotal role in her 
legal team's efforts to avoid execution.

"It is easy to have a stance against something when you're observing it from a 
far distance," he told the students. But his visit "was a real experience. I 
heard a real voice, I looked into her real eyes, and she was a real person."

When Stephen was finished speaking, he turned to his mother, who wrapped him up 
in a hug and kissed him on the cheek.

"The journey that I've walked has been more than interesting," Gaile Owens 
said. "But I know that I'm a better person today than I was the day that I 
walked into prison."

The conference also included evocative remarks from the Rev. Charles Strobel, 
who argued against the death penalty for his mother's killer in the 1980s. 
Defense attorneys, a former prosecutor and Gayle Ray, a former sheriff and 
prison official, also spoke.

Stacy Rector, executive director of TADP, said the mix of speakers was meant to 
give the students a broad understanding of the divisive issue.

"There's a ripple effect to the death penalty that we don't often think about," 
Rector said. "It impacts all of us on some level, and we are trying to get at 
what some of those impacts are."

For some of the students gathered in the audience, the conference offered a 
chance to have their voices heard. William Spicer, a 21-year-old who recently 
graduated from Union University, wanted to learn what he could do to change 
policies surrounding the death penalty in Tennessee.

"For me, it's a way of finding out how to be engaged in the political sphere," 
he said.

(source: The Tennessean)








MISSOURI----impending execution

Local group plans death penalty protest



The Springfield chapter of Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty 
(MADP) will hold a protest vigil on Tuesday to mark the scheduled execution of 
state prison inmate Walter Timothy Storey on Wednesday at the state prison in 
Bonne Terre.

The vigil will be from noon to 1 p.m. at Park Central Square in downtown 
Springfield.

Storey was convicted and sentenced to death in the 1990 killing of Jill Frey in 
her St. Charles County home. The inmate's original death sentence was 
overturned by the Missouri Supreme court because of ineffective assistance of 
defense counsel and errors committed by a special prosecutor.

A 2nd sentencing hearing resulted in the death penalty being handed down once 
again, but the court reversed it on account of procedural error. The 3rd 
hearing resulted in a death sentence that was upheld by the court.

Storey is the 2nd prisoner set to be executed by the state this year. Marcellus 
Williams was scheduled to be executed last month, but the state Supreme Court 
withdrew the death warrant when the defense asked for further examination of 
the case. Last week, the Supreme Court of Missouri set a March execution date 
for Cecil Clayton, who was convicted of killing a Barry County Sheriff's deputy 
in 1997.

(source: ky3.com)


SOUTH DAKOTA:

Lawmakers to consider death penalty



Lawmakers are expected to debate proposals limiting or repealing the death 
penalty, requiring certain insurance to cover autism therapy and allowing 
people to carry a concealed pistol without a permit this week in Pierre.

Here's a look at some of the proposals they'll take up:

DEATH PENALTY

4 measures that would limit or repeal the death penalty are expected to be 
taken up in the House and Senate State Affairs committees on Wednesday. House 
Majority Leader Brian Gosch said he anticipates his committee will take up a 
measure that would provide evidence of a victim's opposition to the death 
penalty and testimony from a victim's family asking for clemency for a 
defendant before sentencing.

The committee is also expected to hear a measure that would allow for a South 
Dakota resident getting a driver's license to have register an objection to the 
death penalty if they are killed in a violent crime. The objections would be 
included in a database and would be used to argue against the death penalty in 
the sentencing of their killer.

Senate Majority Leader Tim Rave said his committee is scheduled to take up 
measures to repeal the death penalty and to add a requirement that an offender 
can only receive the death penalty if they are considered too dangerous to be 
incarcerated.

"I would venture to guess that it would be 1 or 2 votes either way if I had to 
be a betting guy," Rave said.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Death penalty in S.D. under fire



On a cloud-filled March morning in 1877 in Yankton, Jack McCall became the 
first prisoner to face the death penalty in what is now South Dakota.

The 24-year-old drifter was found guilty of the infamous Deadwood murder of 
"Wild Bill" Hickock and was sentenced by a federal judge to hang before a large 
and curious crowd of onlookers.

McCall "met with his death with the most unshrinking courage," according to 
news reports, and was buried in a Yankton cemetery with the noose still around 
his neck.

So began the conflicted and often tortuous tale of the death penalty in South 
Dakota, where a recent uptick in capital cases and executions has made the 
long-dormant issue one of urgency and impassioned debate.

The conversation comes amid a decline of capital punishment nationally, with 
just 35 inmates executed last year, the fewest in 2 decades. Maryland, 
Connecticut and New Mexico recently repealed death penalty laws to end a form 
of punishment that critics decry as ineffective, immoral or downright barbaric.

"Most people recognize that we're out of step with the world - America as a 
whole and South Dakota in particular," says Democratic state senator Bernie 
Hunhoff, part of a bipartisan group that will bring 2 death penalty bills to 
the state Legislature this week.

"It's evil for anyone to take a life, but when the government does it in a 
well-planned and systematic fashion, it sends a message that killing solves 
problems, and that's not the message we should send."

Hunhoff's group, which includes former judges and prosecutors, will bring forth 
2 Senate bills - 1 to repeal the state's death penalty law completely and 
another to limit such punishment to when the prisoner presents "an ongoing 
danger to society and cannot be safely incarcerated."

Among those favoring the push to repeal is Mark Meierhenry, who served as South 
Dakota attorney general when the state passed its death penalty statute under 
Gov. Bill Janklow in 1979.

"After observing its use for 36 years, I think we made a mistake as a state and 
I personally made a mistake by supporting it," says Meierhenry, who served as 
attorney general from 1978-86. "I would hope that state legislators would 
recognize that mistake and take steps to reduce the culture of violence in our 
society. We can start here at home by acknowledging that the death penalty is 
basically for vengeance and doesn't deter murder."

Of course, winning over a Republican-led Legislature - not to mention a 
governor and attorney general who have staunchly supported the state law - will 
be a mammoth task. But it's important to keep the conversation alive.

Last year, a House bill to repeal the death penalty law drew emotional 
testimony in committee and fell one vote short of reaching the floor. Joining 
the opposition was Lynette Johnson, whose husband was the correctional officer 
killed during a failed inmate escape from the state penitentiary in 2011.

Rodney Berget was sentenced to death for killing Ron "RJ" Johnson during that 
escape attempt and is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in May at 
the penitentiary in Sioux Falls. Also convicted for that murder was Eric 
Robert, who was put to death in 2012 after waiving his right to appeal.

Attorney general Marty Jackley has supported the law by saying that the death 
penalty provides a "powerful deterrent" and offers a degree of justice to the 
families of murder victims. The pace of executions in South Dakota is currently 
at an all-time high.

If Berget is put to death as scheduled, his punishment would come on the heels 
of the executions of Eric Robert and Donald Moeller within 2 weeks of each 
other in 2012. Before that, Elijah Page in 2007 had been the only inmate 
executed in South Dakota since 1947.

"We need to step up the intellectual part of the discussion and ask, 'Is this 
the sort of society we want?'" said Meierhenry, who is now in private practice 
in Sioux Falls. "Do we want to be a society of emotion and vengeance and 
getting even? You see this spectacle of TV violence and people getting their 
heads cut off and getting hanged and you want to tell lawmakers, 'Take a deep 
breath; you are the elected conscience of the people.'"

South Dakota is 1 of 32 states with the death penalty, but 6 states have 
abolished the practice since 2006 and Missouri and Kansas are currently 
weighing bills to repeal. The fact that executions recently were botched in 
several states and 6 former death row inmates were exonerated last year has 
further emboldened opponents.

The United States was one of just 22 countries that performed executions in 
2013, according to a study by Amnesty International, ranking 6th in total 
executions behind China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and North Korea.

"We're not in good company," Hunhoff says.

The reality that capital offenders face different fates depending on where they 
commit the crime - not to mention their racial status or socioeconomic 
background - provides fuel for abolitionists.

This arbitrary manner of handing down justice was deemed "cruel and unusual" 
and therefore unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark Furman 
vs. Georgia case of 1972, which ended capital punishment in America until 
states amended laws to address court concerns.

South Dakota moved quickly to re-introduce the death penalty soon after Janklow 
took office in 1978, mindful of the fact that Democratic governor Dick Kneip 
had vetoed a similar effort a few years earlier.

Janklow said that he favored capital punishment in cases of "cold, calculated 
murder," and the bill passed the state House by just 2 votes before he signed 
it into law, with Republican majority leader Joe Barnett and speaker George 
Mickelson voting against it.

"If in our lifetime 1, only 1, life is saved, then it is a significant 
deterrent," said state representative Jerome Lammers, the bill's floor manager.

The process at that time called for death by electrocution, but no one really 
expected sparks to fly. South Dakota's only electric chair was the old, oaken 
model built by prisoners before the state's lone execution since statehood - 
that of triple murderer George Sitts in 1947.

"I'm something less than a world expert on executions," prison warden Herman 
Solem said at the time. "We'd have to do a lot of planning."

As it turned out, no execution occurred until Page in 2007, and that was 
because he gave up his appeals and chose to die. By then, the South Dakota 
statute called for lethal injection, though the execution was delayed to amend 
the law to include the proper dose of drugs to administer.

Page and 2 other men were convicted of killing Chester Poage in 2000 after 
stealing a car and other property from him, forcing him to drink acid and 
torturing him for several hours before he died. He requested a last meal of 
steak, jalapeno poppers, onion rings and a salad and declined any final words.

"His debt to the state of South Dakota is now paid in full," said Lawrence 
County state's attorney John Fitzgerald, who prosecuted the case and witnessed 
Page's death.

Robert also chose to die by pleading guilty and requesting the death penalty, 
and Moeller went a similar route by finally giving up after years of appeals 
for the 1990 rape and murder of 9-year-old Becky O'Connell near Lake Alvin.

This recent trend of what critics call "state-sanctioned suicide" makes it hard 
to contend that capital punishment actually is a deterrent. If anything, the 
endless despair of life behind bars seems such a daunting proposition that 
inmates are choosing death in order to avoid it.

Once you dismiss spurious arguments for deterring violent crime and saving 
money - "it costs us more to wreak vengeance by death than to lock someone up 
for life," says Meierhenry - you are left with retribution as the central 
motive for keeping capital punishment on the books.

For Hunhoff and other death penalty opponents, that "eye for an eye" approach 
is troubling.

"It coarsens society in a way that can impact the thought process of young 
people and all people in South Dakota," says Hunhoff, a longtime Yankton 
politician who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1998. "To state that killing 
is wrong and then have the government kill more is a dangerous lesson to send. 
South Dakota is a better place than that, full of good and caring people who 
believe in forgiveness and redemption and hold Christian values dear to their 
heart."

Almost 140 years ago, Jack McCall learned the hard way that those values don't 
always translate when the time for justice is at hand. We'll soon find out if 
anything has changed.

(source: Argus Leader)