[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----COLO., MONT., NEV., CALIF., WASH, . USA

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 8


COLORADO:

Colorado state public defender's office must be transparent



One of the fastest-growing departments in state government says it is exempt 
from public scrutiny. The Office of the Colorado State Public Defender claims 
exemption from the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA), the law that mandates 
transparency in our government and how it spends our hard-earned tax dollars. 
That exemption renders to the office a level of secrecy not enjoyed by any 
other state government agency. This lack of transparency robs the public of 
answers to myriad questions impacting public policy and how we spend Colorado's 
limited tax monies.

What is the true cost of a death penalty case? The speculative and repeated 
claim that it costs tens of millions of dollars remains largely unsubstantiated 
because the public defender adamantly refuses to provide any information about 
how it has spent tax money to prevent a death sentence. For instance, the 
public defender's office defended Sir Mario Owens for his role in the 
assassination of witness Javad Marshall-Fields and his fiancee, Vivian Wolfe. 
Although the public defender's office has not represented Owens since the last 
decade, it refuses to provide any information about the taxpayer monies it 
spent to unsuccessfully spare him from a death sentence.

Why have Coloradans been asked to spend an exploding amount of money on 
taxpayer-funded defense attorneys? Over the past 10 years, the number of adult 
felony cases filed in Colorado has decreased by 10 %; the number of juvenile 
cases has plummeted by more than 45 %. Yet, over the same period, the budget 
and staff of the public defender has more than doubled. This year, Colorado 
will spend nearly $110 million for taxpayer-funded attorneys ostensibly for 
"the indigent." By comparison, from 2010 to 2014, the budget of the 18th 
Judicial District District Attorney's Office, representing Arapahoe, Douglas, 
Elbert and Lincoln counties, shrank by 3.2 % in real dollars.

And, unlike the public defender's office, our budget and administrative files 
are covered by CORA.

Despite the empirical evidence of a decreasing case load throughout the entire 
criminal justice system, the public defender justifies its recession-proof 
budget growth using an unparalleled power to claim to the Joint Budget 
Committee an increasing number of "open" cases each year without additional 
verification. The public is not permitted to scrutinize those numbers and the 
courts do not track them. Coloradans are left to foot the bill to represent 
defendants in at most 50 % of criminal cases, without the ability to verify 
those numbers.

Even presuming 50 %, why are there more public defenders in Pueblo than there 
are prosecutors? In affluent Douglas County, there are twice as many public 
defenders assigned to courtrooms than prosecutors. In Arapahoe County, 18 
felony-level prosecutors work 100 % of the cases in 6 courtrooms, filled with 
23 public defenders who cover well less than 1/2 of those same cases.

In 2013, the legislature gave the public defender $5.3 million for raises. As a 
result, in most communities outside the metro area, public defenders are paid 
far more than the prosecutors they oppose. In Pueblo, entry-level public 
defenders are paid $10,000 more than their prosecutor counterparts. While 
taxpayers have access to the salaries of every Colorado prosecutor, they cannot 
know the same for public defenders, nor how many have salaries in excess of 
$100,000. Taxpayers are entitled to this information.

There are numerous other questions routinely asked of other agencies that 
should be answered by the taxpayer-funded public defender's office.

We strongly support Colorado appropriately funding and staffing an organization 
to represent those who truly cannot afford to represent themselves against 
criminal charges. But Colorado should also insist that such an organization be 
as transparent as every other governmental entity that expends taxpayer monies.

This is not an issue of politics. It is an issue of transparency and 
accountability. Rep. Rhonda Fields, an Aurora Democrat, and Rep. Polly 
Lawrence, a Douglas County Republican, have sponsored House Bill 1101 to ensure 
that the public defender is subject to the same level of scrutiny as every 
other taxpayer-funded government entity in Colorado, with exceptions for 
attorney-client privileged materials. Who could possibly object to such 
transparency?

(source: Guest Commentary; George Brauchler, a Republican, is district attorney 
for the 18th Judicial District (Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln 
counties). Jeff Chostner, a Democrat, is district attorney for the 10th 
Judicial District (Pueblo)----Denver Post)








MONTANA:

It's time to eliminate Montana's death penalty



There are plenty of reasons to oppose the death penalty in Montana, and very 
few reasons to favor it.

One thing in favor of the penalty is this - someone who kills people in a 
heinous fashion won't kill anyone else if the state puts him or her to death. 
The criminal also won't kill any prison guards or fellow inmates.

Even so, the Tribune editorial board favors elimination of the state of 
Montana's death penalty. Longtime Tribune readers should not be surprised by 
our stance on this issue, as we have editorialized against this most drastic of 
penalties several times in recent years.

The issue will come up late this week at a hearing on House Bill 370, which 
would eliminate Montana's death penalty. The hearing is set for 8 a.m. Friday 
before the House Judiciary Committee in Room 137 of the state Capitol, Montana 
Avenue and 6th Street East in Helena.

Sponsor David "Doc" Moore, R-Missoula, proposes to rid Montana of the death 
penalty and replace it with a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Moore, who grew up in Great Falls, said he opposes the death penalty "for the 
financial burden it puts on the state" and on local governments, if a murder 
takes place in a small town.

He also thinks life without parole is an appropriate sentence for a killer.

"I couldn't imagine a worse condition than being locked up in a prison for the 
rest of my life," Moore said. "To me, being locked up in a cage would be worse 
(than death)."

Moore recognizes the issue is emotional and controversial. He just plans to get 
up at the hearing, offer his reasoning and sit down.

We agree with Moore that trying to impose death on criminals can take decades 
and cost millions of dollars, although even this subject can be tricky. Montana 
Department of Corrections figures show it costs $37,230 per year to house a 
male inmate at the prison, not counting health expenses and other costs. For 40 
years, the cost would run nearly $1.5 million for one person.

That's a hefty sum, but one study in Maryland cited by the Montana Abolition 
Coalition said death penalty cases cost about $2 million each more than 
non-death penalty cases. A Kansas study from 2003 estimated the total cost of a 
case in which the defendant is executed at $10.6 million, compared with $6.4 
million in which death was sought but not given, an added cost of more than $4 
million. Figures from Montana for recent cases have not been available.

But there are other considerations besides money.

One big problem we have with the death penalty is once it's imposed, it can't 
be reversed. Let's say the cause celebre of the day, alleged murderer Barry 
Beach, would have been executed for the 1979 death of Kimberly Nees, a 
classmate in Poplar. That would surely render moot all attempts to free him 
today. If Beach eventually turns out to be innocent, it would have been a big 
mistake to kill him years ago.

Montanans should want justice, yet it would be a great injustice to kill a 
person, only to find out later the defendant was innocent.

Eliminate the death penalty, and Montana eliminates the chances of that 
happening.

There is also the issue of swift justice. Duncan McKenzie kidnapped, raped and 
murdered Conrad schoolteacher Lana Harding in 1974, but it took more than 20 
years before he was finally executed in 1995. These days, methods of lethal 
injection are shaky and are being challenged across the nation.

Montana has 2 people awaiting a death sentence in the maximum security section 
of the Montana State Prison: William Jay Gollehon, convicted of 1 count of 
deliberate homicide; and Ronald Allen Smith, a Canadian national convicted of 2 
counts of homicide and kidnapping.

There are rotten people who deserve punishment for their crimes, but we think 
it's time to set aside the death penalty as the nuclear option for criminals.

The death penalty is too expensive, too time consuming, and too final a 
solution if a mistake is made.

Let's kill the death penalty. It's a painful step to take, but a necessary one.

(source: Great Falls Tribune Editorial Board)








NEVADA:

Intellectual disability hearing dates set in Bean case



A hearing date for a motion regarding a potential intellectual disability and a 
summer trial date have been set for murder defendant Jeremiah Bean, accused in 
May 2013 murders in Fernley.

These were set during a hearing last Thursday before Third Judicial District 
Court Judge John Schlegelmilch, to whom the case was transferred as he takes 
over for retired District Court Judge Bill Rogers.

The 2-day hearing for the intellectual disability motion filed in Bean's case 
was set for April 30-May 1 while a trial has been set for July 13-August 14. A 
motion hearing was scheduled for Feb. 13 to go over a jury questionnaire.

The intellectual disability issue arose on the eve of a murder trial scheduled 
last summer. This is a major issue in the case as the Lyon County District 
Attorney's Office has been seeking the death penalty and Supreme Court rulings 
have said persons with diminished mental or intellectual capacity do not 
legally qualify for the death penalty.

Bean is charged with killing Robert and Dorothy Pape, both 84, on May 10, 2013, 
at their Jessica Lane home in Fernley; newspaper deliveryman Eliazar Graham, 
52, of Sparks, on May 13, 2013, in Mustang (being tried in Lyon County); and 
Angie Duff, 67, and her friend Lester Leiber, 69, in a home on Tamsen Road in 
Fernley, around the corner from the Pape residence, a little later on May 13. 
He also is charged with stealing a pickup owned by the Papes and with setting 
their home on fire, among other charges. He faces a total of 19 counts.

Bean's attorney's, Richard Davies of Reno, the death penalty-certified 
attorney, and Ken Ward, public defender, announced their intention to file a 
motion seeking Bean to be declared "mentally retarded," days before a trial was 
set to start June 4, 2014.

In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court in Atkins v. Virginia held it is a violation of 
the Eighth Amendment on cruel and unusual punishment to execute defendants with 
"mental retardation," a term then used for individuals now identified as 
persons with intellectual disabilities. The Court in Atkins left the definition 
and method of determining intellectual disability up to individual states.

Rogers previously found Bean mentally competent to stand trial.

Bean in the fall of 2013 accepted a plea bargain that would drop the death 
penalty and some charges but then changed his mind and pleaded not guilty. This 
resulted in a change from his original death penalty-certified attorney and 
Davies' appointment in late 2013. Bean initially didn't want to waive his right 
to a speedy trial and an early 2014 trial date was set, and later postponed to 
June.

Lyon County District Attorney Steve Rye indicated the prosecution will be ready 
for the July trial date, as family of the victims want to see justice. Rye 
previously said delays in receiving documents from schools Bean attended in 
California was slowing the scheduling of hearings regarding the intellectual 
disability filing.

(source: Reno Gazette-Journal)



CALIFORNIA:

Accused 'Grim Sleeper' serial killer gets trial date, after 5 years of delays



After almost 5 years following his arrest, the man dubbed the "Grim Sleeper" 
and charged with 10 counts of murder was finally given a trial date, thanks in 
large part to the accused serial killer's victims' families frustrated with the 
justice system's delays in trying the case, according to an Associated Press 
report shared by Yahoo! News on Feb. 6. Yesterday in Los Angeles, "Judge 
Kathleen Kennedy said lawyers would meet June 29 and jury selection would begin 
the following day in the death penalty case of Lonnie Franklin Jr., who has 
pleaded not guilty."

Franklin, 62-years-old, allegedly shot 8 of the victims and strangled two more. 
He earned the Grim Sleeper nickname due to the fact that there was a 14 year 
break in the Los Angeles killings that began in 1988 but ended in 2007, 
according to Fox News. The long gap in the killings followed a shooting where 1 
of the victims survived her gunshot wounds, a case in which in addition to the 
10 murder charges, Franklin was also charged with 1 count of attempted murder. 
That survivor, Enietra Washington, confronted Franklin in court yesterday.

"You left me for dead. I know it's you for a fact," said Washington, who 
promised to haunt Franklin. "I thought I forgave you. I was wrong."

Franklin was taken into custody in 2010; and the family members of the victims 
told the judge yesterday "they were tired of years of delay." The victims' 
families were able to express their frustration with the delays under a Los 
Angeles voter-approved victims' bill of rights and blamed the suspect's lawyer 
for dragging his feet. Even as the lawyer for the defense blamed prosecutors 
for the delay, both sides said they'd be ready to proceed as needed.

Investigators took Franklin into custody in July 2010 after matching his DNA 
"to more than a dozen crime scenes." Police retrieved samples of his DNA 
collected from eating utensils and dishes Franklin was using at a birthday 
party where an undercover officer posed as a busboy. Franklin's lawyer also 
claims to possess DNA from several of the crime scenes that belong to someone 
else.

Police say that many of the victims were found to have had "some sort of sexual 
contact." All of the bodies were found not far from Franklin's home.

Franklin has already pleaded not guilty to the 10 murder charges and the one 
count of attempted murder. If found guilty though, Franklin could be sentenced 
to death.

(source: The Examiner)

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

DA to weigh death penalty in baby murder case



At 17 months old, Baby K was still in diapers when police say his babysitter's 
boyfriend pinned him down hard enough to leave bruises and forced him into a 
sex act so brutal that it tore up his lips and throat before suffocating him.

It was every parent's nightmare. And now District Attorney Jeff Rosen is 
weighing whether to seek the death penalty against the boyfriend, 40-year-old 
Alejandro Benitez, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder in the 
commission of a serious and dangerous felony, which in this case is a lewd act 
on a child. Since taking office, Rosen has decided to seek the ultimate 
punishment in just one of more than half a dozen eligible cases.

Rosen and other senior prosecutors in the office who on are on his special 
death penalty advisory committee declined to comment on the Benitez case. He 
has said he supports the death penalty on "moral" grounds, telling the San Jose 
Police Officers' Association in July: "I think that allowing someone to 
continue to live after having committed certain heinous crimes pollutes the 
rest of society. They haven't acted like a human being and have forfeited the 
privilege of being alive."

But Rosen also has said that "because I'm living in the real world, not a 
perfect world, I am very cautious about seeking the death penalty." California 
has effectively had a moratorium on executions since 2006 as a result of legal 
challenges to lethal injection that have left about 745 defendants in limbo at 
San Quentin.

Rosen's decision is expected later this year, after he weighs the strength of 
the evidence against the Benitez, any history of other crimes, the wishes of 
the victim's family and even pragmatic factors such as staffing and costs, 
since capital-case appeals drag on for decades. He also is expected to invite 
defense attorneys to present their case against execution.

In this case, defense experts say key factors are likely to be conflicting 
accounts by the babysitter of what happened that day, and whether Benitez 
understood the alleged abuse could cause the child to die.

The toddler boy's death has so traumatized his mother -- she ran wailing from 
the witness stand during Benitez' preliminary hearing -- that prosecutors are 
referring to him only as "Baby K" to ease her suffering.

The toddler's ordeal began the morning of April 11, 2012, when his mother 
dropped him off at the East San Jose home of babysitter Juana Ayala. That 
afternoon, Ayala called police to report that the child had choked while 
drinking the bottle of milk his mother had left for him.

Paramedics arrived and found his body on a couch.

Ayala, who has not been charged with a crime, has told investigators several 
versions of what took place. She neglected to mention Benitez for several 
months -- and claims she had her eye on the baby the whole time, even when she 
went into the kitchen to prepare his bottle.

But police found semen consistent with Benitez' DNA profile on the boy's 
clothing, and prosecutor Dan Fehderau suggested during the preliminary hearing 
this fall that Ayala, who still visits Benitez in jail every weekend, is trying 
to protect him.

Judging from the preliminary hearing, Benitez' defense is poised to argue that 
his DNA was transferred to the clothing from the bedroom where he and the 
babysitter had sex. The defense is also expected to question the cause of 
death. Sources familiar with the case say Benitez also has no significant 
criminal history, another factor that can make a death conviction difficult.

Rosen has declined to seek the ultimate punishment in 6 eligible cases since he 
took office in 2011, though in 2 of them the penalty had been reversed on 
appeal. In May, he announced he was seeking the death penalty against Antolin 
Garcia-Torres, the 23-year-old charged with kidnapping and killing 15-year-old 
Sierra LaMar, who disappeared about t3 years ago while walking to a bus stop 
north of Morgan Hill.

Though her body never was found, making it challenging even to win a 
conviction, Garcia-Torres' alleged history of attacking other women contributed 
to Rosen's decision, he said in May. Garcia-Torres is also charged with 
attempting to kidnap and carjack three other women in separate instances four 
years earlier.

One of Benitez' lawyers, Brian Matthews, declined to comment other than to note 
that death penalty cases are extremely costly. Benitez is being represented by 
a county agency known as the Alternate Public Defender's Office, which 
automatically assigns 2 attorneys to any potential death penalty case.

"Given the likelihood the death penalty will never be imposed, one has to 
question if seeking it is the best use of our limited resources," Matthews 
said.

Rosen decided in 2011 against seeking the death penalty in another case 
involving a child, despite strong support in his office for it. Instead, Samuel 
Corona, 37, who punched and stomped Oscar Jimenez Jr. to death in front of the 
boy's mother in 2007, was sentenced to life without parole.

One of the problems in that case was that the mother had been sentenced to 1 
year in county jail and probation for endangering her son. A judge had deemed 
her to be an extremely battered woman who had been subject to "unceasing and 
ferocious violence" at the hands of Corona. However, Corona's lawyers later 
unearthed photographs of Corona and the woman after Oscar died looking happy 
together. At the time he announced his decision, Rosen said he was concerned 
about whether a jury would return a death penalty, given the relative 
culpability of the mother and the low sentence she received.

In Benitez' case, some sources familiar with the case have said the lack of 
specific intent to kill Baby K could make it more challenging to convince a 
jury in a liberal jurisdiction like Santa Clara County to return the death 
penalty.

But under California law, prosecutors do not have to prove Benitez wanted to 
kill the child. Only 12 states require proof of intent to kill, said Steven F. 
Shatz, a death penalty expert at the University of San Francisco's law school. 
California, on the other hand, is 1 of only 5 states that make a negligent or 
even wholly accidental killing during a felony a death-eligible crime. The 
other 4 are Florida, Georgia, Idaho and Mississippi, Shatz said.

Given the depravity of the alleged crime, including physical evidence that the 
toddler may have been sodomized at some point, Benitez's state of mind may not 
matter to a jury, another expert said.

"This is a case at the margins in one sense because of lack of intent," said 
Douglas A. Berman, an Ohio State law professor who has a sentencing law and 
policy blog. "But then if you throw in this sense that child rape is our 
second-worst crime, then jeez, what else do you need?"

Other Potential Death Penalty Cases that came before DA Jeff Rosen

Paul Castillo: Charged with murder, kidnapping, assault on a police officer. DA 
decided in 2012 against seeking death penalty; he pleaded guilty and received 
life sentence without parole.

Samuel Corona: Charged with murder, torture. DA decided in 2011 against seeking 
death; he pleaded guilty and received life sentence without parole.

Miguel Bacigalupo: Charged with robbery, 2 counts of murder. A jury returned a 
death verdict in 1987 that was reversed on appeal. DA in 2012 decided against 
seeking retrial of death sentence, converting it automatically to life without 
parole.

David Ghent: Charged with rape and murder; 1979 conviction and imposition of 
death penalty reversed on appeal. DA decided in 2013 against seeking death; 
case pending.

Kenneth Thomas: Charged with two counts of murder in a residential robbery. DA 
decided against seeking death; case pending.

Antolin Garcia-Torres: Charged with kidnapping, murder. DA in 2014 decided to 
seek death penalty; case pending.

Jonathan Wilbanks: Charged with carjacking, murder. DA decided in 2013 against 
seeking death penalty. He pleaded guilty and received life sentence without 
parole.

(source: Mercury News)








WASHINGTON:

Lawmakers likely lack 'bandwidth' to debate death penalty this year



A proposed House bill that would abolish the death penalty in Washington may 
have a hard time getting approved because legislators say they have enough 
issues to tackle this session.M

House Bill 1739, introduced Jan. 26 by state Rep. Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle, 
would require anyone convicted of aggravated 1st-degree murder to get life 
imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

"I question whether it will move along just because it is such a volatile 
subject. I don't know that this is the year we want to get into some of these 
social issues," state Rep. Dean Takko, D-Longview, said last week.

Legislators on both sides of the political aisle are questioning the timing of 
the legislation.

"I don't mind a robust dialogue about controversial issues, but there's only so 
much bandwidth," said state Sen. John Braun, R-Centralia. "We have a lot of 
tough issues ahead of us."

In addition, some legislators have philosophical disagreements with abolishing 
capital punishment. Takko said some murders are so horrible that they warrant 
the death penalty.

"If you have a situation ... where someone walks up and shoots a police officer 
in the head, I have trouble saying that guy needs to be spared," Takko said, 
referring to the 2009 fatal shooting of 4 police officers in Lakewood, Wash. 
"If the bill starts moving along, I will struggle with it."

Currently, 32 states allow the death penalty, including Washington and Oregon. 
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee already has called for a moratorium on executions 
and has said no one would be executed while he is in office.

"I'm aware of the governor's approach, but I don't agree with (it). I think 
there's a policy to do what he did with greater input from the clemency and 
pardons board, so I don't necessarily agree with how he did that," Braun said.

(source: The Daily News)








USA:

Death penalty fails to reduce crime



As a country, we have many complicated and detailed regulations concerning the 
death penalty. For better or worse, the death penalty seems to have turned into 
a hot-button issue and it shouldn't be.

For example: Texas has just executed a man named Robert Ladd. Ladd was found 
guilty of killing 2 women and 2 children between 1980 and 1996. His lawyers 
argued that he had an IQ of 67. This measurement, being below the acceptable 
level for capital punishment, would have ensured Ladd wasn't put to death. 
Texas courts did not accept this and now Ladd is dead.

Most states have detailed definitions of mental impairment because the mentally 
impaired are not necessarily capable of understanding their crimes and are 
therefore not culpable in the same way that a mentally healthy person would be. 
The line between impairment and culpability is usually a range of IQ points. 
The U.S. still kills people above and below the range, making a fine and 
ultimately arbitrary distinction between the 2 categories.

This sort of arbitrary distinction is emblematic of the death penalty as a 
whole. It used to make sense in the days before the human mind was understood. 
Killing someone who had killed another person was an effective way to right a 
wrong. No one else died and it sent a message to those who might consider 
killing. Now that we understand more, the cleanliness of Hammurabi's eye for an 
eye is put in question. What if the killer doesn't understand what he or she 
has done? What if the death penalty doesn't deter other killings?

The death penalty treats a symptom instead of its source. I agree that it is a 
problem that Robert Ladd became so angry he killed someone. The reasons for his 
actions, however, are inextricably bound to his limited capacity for 
understanding the world. The cause in other cases is poverty or need, but 
instead of enacting domestic policies aimed at reducing these causes we declare 
war on criminals because that sounds better from a podium. It's easy to 
understand and removes all the sticky abstractions of the wider issue. It feels 
immediate and safe. Taking a life, in any context, deserves more thought than 
this. It also deserves the courage to enact better solutions.

Most good solutions involve placing less importance on punishment and more 
importance on corrections and deterrence. The US has 4 % of the world's 
population and 1/4 of the world's prisoners. We are tough enough on crime. We 
make it difficult for felons to get jobs and impossible for them to get welfare 
or student loans. The punishments that sounded so just have drastically 
increased the rate of recidivism. In the last 30 years our incarceration rate 
has increased by 400 %. Our prison system has, in effect, created a vicious 
cycle that worsens the problem.

Tough on crime means doing what it takes to prevent it. When we're tough on 
criminals we only increase crime. The death penalty isn't a fix. We don't have 
perfect solutions for every instance traditionally incurring the death penalty, 
but at the very least, we can propose a better solution for people like Robert 
Ladd.

(source: Ian Woods is a sophomore from Suwanee majoring in economics and 
psychology; The (Univ. Georgia) Red & Black)