[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., N.C., S.C., FLA., OHIO, TENN.

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 15



TEXAS----impending execution

'Dead Man Walking' nun raises voice against execution of black 
inmate----Barring intervention by Texas, Rodney Reed will be executed on March 
5 for a crime many say he didn't commit



Death penalty opponent Sister Helen Prejean, a Roman Catholic nun whose 
autobiographical account of her relationship with a prisoner inspired the 1995 
blockbuster film "Dead Man Walking," is trying to save a black Texas death row 
inmate from what she calls the "incurable racism" of the U.S. legal system.

Rodney Reed, a 47-year-old from Bastrop, Texas, is set to be executed on March 
5 for the 1996 abduction, rape and murder of 19-year-old Stacey Stites. His 
defense attorneys have so far unsuccessfully requested, 1st in early 2014 and 
again on Thursday, that DNA collected at the scene be retested with modern 
technology amid developments that the lawyers - together with Prejean and even 
one of the victim's relatives - say point to Reed's possible innocence.

Among those developments is the forensic investigator in Reed's original trial 
now saying Reed's semen, found on the corpse - previously a lynchpin in the 
case against him - was likely from a sexual encounter well before Stites' 
death.

Prejean says state and local authorities' ongoing refusal to further 
investigate Reed's case is par for the course in the American legal system and 
society.

"If you don't equally value your citizens in life, you won't value them in 
death," she told Al Jazeera on Saturday, referring to the what some rights 
advocates across the country call white police officers' extrajudicial killings 
last year of black men including Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric 
Garner in New York.

Prejean said that in the 1987 case McClesky v. Kemp, Supreme Court justices 
acknowledged that "race plays a role in the death penalty, but they said that 
it would be too costly to remedy it. You have the highest court of the land 
acknowledging racism in the justice system, and saying it's too costly to fix 
it."

"That's all the fabric of the legal system, that we have incurable racism," she 
said.

Prejean on Sunday was set to join a Quaker service organized by the Friends 
Meeting of Austin, Texas, designed to draw attention to Reed's case. "For 10 
years, the Meeting has been very active working on the death penalty issue," 
said Walter Long, who is a Meeting member, an attorney who represents clients 
on death row and director of the Texas After Violence Project, an oral history 
project on the death penalty and murder.

Participants in the Meeting on Sunday planned to send a letter, seen by Al 
Jazeera, to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, citing the "sanctity of 
life" as a reason to explore Reed's "possible" innocence.

In the recent signs pointing to that possible innocence - and in authorities' 
alleged lack of action to return to the question of Reed's capital sentence - 
Long sees "a conflict there at the heart of every death penalty case that tends 
to make the adjudication of that case fundamentally unfair. The state is driven 
by the goal of carrying out the punishment."

At Reed's trial in the 1990s, forensic expert Roberto Bayardo said he found 
Reed's semen on Stites' corpse - 1 of the principle facts used by the 
prosecution to prove Reed's guilt. But Reed has said that he had a consensual 
relationship with Stites. A habeas corpus brief filed in court on Thursday by 
Reed's lawyers with legal nonprofit organization Innocence Project says that 
Bayardo has since retracted his opinion, and "now admits that the forensic 
evidence suggests consensual intercourse between Mr. Reed and Ms. Stites more 
than 24 hours before her death." This matches Reed's account that they had a 
sexual encounter the day before her demise.

In January 2014, Reed's attorneys requested that DNA from items found at the 
scene - including Stites' shirt and a belt used to strangle her - be tested. 
That request has been denied by the Bastrop County District Court. Amid 
negotiations with authorities, "we said, 'We'll pay for it - what do you have 
to lose?" said Bryce Benjet, 1 of Reed's attorneys, adding that his former 
defense lawyers in the original trial that resulted in Reed's conviction failed 
to mount a sufficient fight on their client's behalf.

State and local Bastrop authorities "aren't interested in knowing the answers," 
Benjet said. The Bastrop Sheriff's Department, Bastrop District Attorney Bryan 
Goertz and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice had not responded to 
requests for comment by the time of publication.

Stites' 1st cousin Kay Hart, whose parents the victim lived with during high 
school, told Al Jazeera on Saturday that she also believes Reed is innocent. 
She said she has written to the Texas governor and other state authorities, 
asking for a retrial and further investigation into the death of her relative.

"Having an innocent man executed doesn't bring Stacey back, for certain. It 
doesn't represent justice," Hart said, explaining that members of her family 
have different views on Reed and on the death penalty. The majority, she said, 
oppose capital punishment for Reed and want a deeper investigation into the 
circumstances of Stites' death.

"We think it's not just," she said. "And it doesn't matter what we think about 
the death penalty."

Family members had seen Stites well before her death at a local Dairy Queen 
restaurant with someone they later believed to be Reed, Hart said, adding that 
he felt this could help corroborate Reed's contention that he and Stites had a 
relationship. "She didn't introduce him, likely because she was embarrassed," 
as she already had a fiancee.

Stites' fiancee at the time of her death, Jimmy Fennell, a white police 
officer, was a suspect in Stites' death until Reed's conviction, Benjet and 
local news reports said. In 2008, Fennell was sentenced to 10 years in prison 
for the abduction and rape of a young woman while on duty, local newspaper The 
Austin Chronicle said.

(source: Al Jazeera)








PENNSYLVANIA:

Sen. Leach seeks to ban capital punishment



State Sen. Daylin Leach not only stands behind Gov. Tom Wolf's decision to 
suspend executions in Pennsylvania, he wants the practice banned altogether. 
Shortly after the governor???s announcement Friday, the Democratic senator 
indicated he was reintroducing his bill to repeal the death penalty.

"The death penalty is wrong for a variety of reasons. The No. 1 reason is we 
simple can't afford it," Leach said.

Shortly after Wolf announced Friday that he initiated a capital punishment 
moratorium, Leach, D-17, of Upper Merion, announced the reintroduction of his 
bill. This most recent introduction is the 4th consecutive introduction since 
the 2009-10 legislative session. A spokesperson from Leach's office said the 
bill is being reintroduced again since no action was taken in the Senate before 
the end of last session.

"I have long felt that it is time for the United States to join the rest of the 
civilized world in ending the barbaric practice of having our government kill 
people in cold blood," Leach said in an announcement regarding the 
reintroduction of Senate Bill 493. "Gov. Wolf's actions today will ensure that 
our state government will not kill in our name for the foreseeable future. This 
bold move makes me even prouder that he is our governor."

Wolf also granted a temporary reprieve to Pennsylvania inmate Terrance 
Williams, who was convicted of murder 30 years ago and scheduled to be executed 
on March 4.

In his announcement, Wolf said his decision to place the temporary halt to the 
state's death sentence is pending the review of a report conducted by 
Pennsylvania Task Force and Advisory Commission on Capital Punishment, which 
was established in 2011. The moratorium will remain in effect until the report 
and its recommendations are evaluated.

"This decision is based on a flawed system that has been proven to be an 
endless cycle of court proceedings, as well as ineffective, unjust, and 
expensive," Wolf said in his statement, adding that 6 men in Pennsylvania have 
been exonerated from death row since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center - a nonprofit organization 
that provides the public with information connected to capital punishment - 188 
death row inmates were sitting in Pennsylvania's prisons as of October 2014. 
Information about Pennsylvania's death penalty system also shows 3 executions 
occurred since 1976, with the 1st occurring in 1995. Prior to the death 
penalty's reinstatement, 1,040 people were executed statewide.

Leach said a capital murder case could cost $2 million to $3 million more than 
a non-capital murder case. He said an execution hasn't occurred in Pennsylvania 
for 53 years, unless that individual has forfeited any remaining appeals. 
"That's longer than the embargo on Cuba."

Funds could be better used in schools and other areas that lack funding across 
the state, Leach said, adding that a cost-saving alternative in rightfully 
incarcerating murderers is a life sentence.

"Even if you could save a few dollars, it's not a reason to kill," Leach said.

States like New York and New Jersey abolished the death penalty in the past 10 
years. The death penalty exists in more than 10 states.

Leach said eliminating the death penalty should be in the best interest of 
Pennsylvania to uphold human rights.

"Pennsylvania should be a leader in human rights, not a follower," he said.

(source: delcotimes.com)

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

Man spent 16 years on death row



As Harold C. Wilson stood in court, he felt a shock go through his body.

A judge described how much electricity would flow through Wilson's body "until 
I was dead," Wilson recalled in an interview Friday.

"I felt a shock all the way up to the top of my skull," Wilson said.

The date was Oct. 4, 1989, and Wilson had just learned he would die for a 
triple murder he did not commit. For the next 16 years, Wilson, now 56, lived 
on death row at State Correctional Institution-Greene, dealing with mind games, 
nervous breakdowns and an inmate known as "Screaming Tiger."

The prison currently houses 150 of the state's 186 death row inmates, according 
to the state Department of Corrections.

Life in prison isn't meant to be fun, but many privileges inmates in the 
general population have - access to jobs, education and social interaction - 
are mostly absent on death row.

Life there is bleak.

Inmates on death row are confined to their cells for 22 hours per day and are 
escorted by at least 2 guards whenever they leave to shower, visit family or 
exercise, DOC spokeswoman Susan McNaughton said. When they do go to the yard or 
the library, they are confined to "pens," she said.

"Obviously it's because of the security level of the offender that we're 
dealing with," McNaughton said. "Everything is very secure wherever they are."

Their cells are about 7 by 13 feet and most services - including food, medical 
treatment and barbers - are brought to them, she said. Death row inmates are 
allowed limited personal items, including some pictures and letters, and are 
allowed to buy a TV for their use, she said. They also must pay a monthly cable 
bill for a special provider that offers only selected channels, she said.

"When I 1st went on death row, I was totally in shock," Wilson said, noting 
that life on death row is all about "care, custody and control."

During his time on death row, Wilson said he didn't drink coffee or buy a TV 
because "they are pacifiers."

"They play mind games, and either you're strong or you're weak," Wilson said. 
"Anything they can use to control you, in my opinion, is wise to shun it."

Wilson said he didn't buy a radio until he had been on death row for about 10 
years.

The days and nights were filled with the sounds of other inmates, including a 
man known as "Screaming Tiger" who would scream all night and bang on his steel 
bed, he said. Another would sing all day and night, using others' names in his 
songs, he said.

Shutting it all out was impossible, he said.

"You're never going to be in the state of mind that you're free, other than 
when you're asleep," Wilson said. "In your dreams, you're going to be free. 
When you read those letters and look at those pictures, it's going to be a 
figment of your imagination. But it's all right to hold on to that on death 
row."

Inmates are allowed visits, but they are shackled and chained as they view 
their loved ones through a window in a steel visiting booth, he said.

Otherwise, life on the row is a tedious routine: Eat, sleep, read, repeat.

He had been convicted of a triple murder committed on April 10, 1988. 3 people 
- Dorothy Sewell, 64; her nephew Tyrone Mason, 33, and Mason's girlfriend 
Cynthia Goines Mills, 40 - had been hacked to death with a carpenter's hatchet 
in Sewell's Philadelphia home, according to the University of Michigan Law 
School's National Registry of Exonerations.

Wilson, who had been staying at the home, was arrested after being seen with 
cuts on his hands and an envelope full of cash, according to the registry. 
Wilson admitted he had used drugs in the house, but denied killing anyone.

After a jury convicted him of 1st-degree murder, Wilson testified during the 
penalty phase that he was high when he found the victims already dead and that 
he got blood on a jacket police found in the basement while trying to remove an 
ice pick from Mason's chest, according to the registry.

He was sentenced to death.

But he got a new trial after a judge ruled the lead prosecutor in the case had 
discriminated against blacks during jury selection by using his peremptory 
challenges to keep them off, according to the registry.

After the defense presented DNA evidence that the blood spatter on the jacket 
was from the victims and an unidentified man, a jury acquitted Wilson of the 
charges on Nov. 15, 2005.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, Wilson walked 
out the back door of the county jail that night after being given 65 cents and 
a bus token. He currently has a civil lawsuit pending against the city of 
Philadelphia.

Wilson founded the Harold C. Wilson Foundation to help the wrongfully convicted 
and says he is grateful that he now has his freedom.

"I cherish life now," Wilson said. "I know what it's like to have nothing and 
want for everything. I am grateful today for the little things I have and my 
free life of rebuilding. The little things - the sun shining, being able to 
walk out the door and see birds and grass and fresh air, the ocean, the rain 
and snow. You know how people complain about the weather because they look at 
the news? I don't do none of that, because I know there is a place ..."

(source: Standard-Speaker)








NORTH CAROLINA:

Mars Hill events focus on death penalty



Mars Hill University will host a series of programs examining the efficacy, 
fairness and morality of the death penalty on March 3, 4 and 5.

All events are free and open to the public.

At 7:30 p.m. March 3, the university will host a student debate on the topic in 
Belk Auditorium. Teams of students will tackle the various issues related to 
the death penalty debate, in response to questions submitted in advance by 
members of the campus community.

At 7 p.m. March 4 in Belk Auditorium, the university will show the documentary, 
"The Trials of Darryl Hunt." The documentary examines the story of a brutal 
rape/murder case and the man who was wrongfully convicted of the crime. Darryl 
Hunt spent 20 years in prison before being exonerated.

On the following evening, March 5, Darryl Hunt, the man featured in the 
documentary, will be part of a panel discussion about the death penalty at 7 
p.m. in Broyhill Chapel. Both students and members of the public will be 
encouraged to ask questions of the panel during the event.

In addition to Hunt, panel members will include Tarrah Callahan, director of 
North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (NCADP), and 
Mark Rabil, the attorney who represented Darryl Hunt. Rabil is also director of 
the Innocence and Justice Clinic and associate professor of Law at Wake Forest 
University.

This series of events is sponsored by the Mars Hill University Political 
Science Department.

(source: Ashville Citizen-Times)

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

North Carolina's rickety, unreliable death penalty



The number of inmates North Carolina has executed in the modern era--43

The number who have been sentenced to die--401

Percentage of those death sentences that have been overturned--71

The number currently on death row--150

The number of those who were sentenced before 2001--111

Henry McCollum, who spent 30 years on death row before being exonerated, awaits 
a pardon from the governor and compensation from the state. Meanwhile, he is 
jobless, unable to pay his bills or move on with his life, just more evidence 
of the tremendous harm that wrongful convictions and death sentences can cause.

North Carolina has spent years reforming its capital punishment system with the 
goal of making sure that no more innocent people are sent to death row. One of 
the most important of those reforms was a 2001 law that gave prosecutors 
discretion to decide which cases are egregious enough to be tried capitally and 
which can be adequately punished with a lesser sentence, such as life in 
prison.

This reform had an earth-shaking effect. The number of death sentences went 
from as many as 34 in 1995 to just 28 cumulatively in the last 10 years - more 
than a 90 % decline. Capital trials dropped from 64 in 1999 to four in 2012. 
The homicide rate continued to decline as well.

The way we operated before 2001 is now unthinkable. District attorneys were 
forced to fight for death sentences in all murders where an aggravating factor 
was present, regardless of mitigating factors such as severe mental illness or 
youth and regardless of the exponential cost of pursuing capital trials. The 
N.C. Office of Indigent Services had not yet been created to ensure qualified 
defense attorneys to the poor, and many of the accused were without competent 
or adequately compensated attorneys.

North Carolina was the only state in the nation to impose such strict 
restrictions on prosecutors, and there is reason to believe it was 
unconstitutional. There is also reason to believe that the 8 innocent people 
discovered on North Carolina's death row so far - all of whom were sentenced 
before 2001 - are not the only innocent people who were sentenced to die during 
the frenzy of the 1990s.

The Department of Corrections provides a website with information on all 
inmates on death row, as well as on those who have been removed. North Carolina 
has executed 43 inmates in the modern era, but 401 inmates have been sentenced 
to die. What happened to the others?

Currently, 150 of them are on death row, leaving 251 who have left death row 
for one reason or another. Along with 43 executions, there were 30 deaths (6 
from suicide), 8 were found not guilty and 5 had their sentences commuted by 
the governor. The largest number, 153, had their death sentences thrown out and 
were later sentenced to prison, typically for life. That means that 71 % of 
finalized death sentences have been overturned. Just 11 % have been executed.

Perhaps even more troubling than the massive rate of reversal is that 111 of 
North Carolina's 150 current death row inmates - nearly 3/4 - were sentenced 
before 2001. The risk of executing them is not simply that the state will kill 
people who, under today's laws, would not have been charged with capital 
crimes. The bigger risk is that some of them are like Henry McCollum: innocent 
but unable to prove it.

Look at the story of another North Carolina exoneree, Levon "Bo" Jones, to see 
how lack of prosecutorial discretion played a role in landing an innocent 
person on death row. Duplin County District Attorney Dewey Hudson, Jones' 
prosecutor in 1993, told the Winston-Salem Journal in 2000 that if the law had 
given him the choice, he would not have pursued the death penalty in about of 
1/3 of the cases that he brought to a capital trial.

Jones' trial is almost certainly one of those that would not have been capital. 
The sole witness accusing him of the murder was Lovely Lorden, a regular police 
informant who was paid $4,000 for her testimony. Lorden was also in trouble for 
writing worthless checks, and thanks to her cooperation, police intervened to 
keep her out of jail. Lorden told 5 different stories during the course of the 
investigation. She was the definition of an unreliable witness, and she was all 
that linked Jones to the crime. During the appeals process, Hudson himself 
admitted the evidence was weak.

Under today's laws, a case like that of Bo Jones likely would not have been 
tried capitally, and we would have been 1 step further away from the chance of 
executing an innocent person.

More than 100 people who sit on death row today were tried during those years 
when district attorneys were forced to push for executions even in cases where 
they had doubts. It's impossible to know how many more Bo Jones and Henry 
McCollums are among them.

(source: Commentary; Frank R. Baumgartner is the Richard J. Richardson 
Distinguished Professor of Political Science at UNC-Chapel Hill---- News & 
Observer)








SOUTH CAROLINA:

Landmark S.C. Supreme Court case affects Aiken murder pleas



During jury selection last month for the murder trial of Aiken Public Safety 
Officer Scotty Richardson, prosecutors say, it became clear what strategy 
defense attorneys planned to avoid the death penalty for Stephon Carter.

David Miller, the deputy solicitor for South Carolina's 2nd Judicial Circuit, 
said the defense asked all 153 potential jurors about their understanding of 
malice, specifically, whether they knew the legal term "springs from 
wickedness, depravity and a heart devoid of social duty and fatally bent on 
mischief."

The definition was pulled from a landmark South Carolina Supreme Court case - 
State vs. Johnny Rufus Belcher - that experts say changed the way prosecutors 
convict criminals, attorneys defend clients and jurors hear cases.

In the October 2009 ruling, the justices found that telling a jury that they 
could infer malice from the use of a deadly weapon is "no longer good law" when 
evidence is presented that would "reduce, mitigate, excuse or justify the 
homicide."

Though Miller said prosecutors were confident that video evidence would convict 
Carter, they began to envision a "nightmare scenario" after the trial's 12 
jurors and four alternates were seated.

What if a hung jury led to Carter possibly facing a reduced charge? Even worse, 
what if he had his guilty verdict overturned by a higher court and remanded for 
a new trial, like Belcher?

The Belcher decision listed 25 known cases between 1894 and 2006 that could be 
reversed. Since that high court ruling, court records suggest the idea of 
convicted killers leaving prison early or walking free on appeal has weighed on 
solicitors offices statewide - including in Aiken County.

In the past 5 years, death sentences have fallen dramatically in South 
Carolina, with only 1 capital verdict in that span - Ricky Blackwell in 
Spartanburg in 2014.

There were as many as 10 in the 1990s, said Richard Dieter, the executive 
director of the Death Penalty Infor???ma???tion Center in Washington.

Including Carter, who agreed to waive his rights to an appeal and serve life in 
prison earlier this month on the 1st day of trial, Aiken County has arranged at 
least 13 plea deals for murder defendants since the Belcher decision. In 3 of 
the cases, the existence of malice was questioned, and in 1, a defendant was 
convicted on a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter.

"There is absolutely no evidence that would justify or excuse Carter from 
shooting these police officers," Miller said, citing the Belcher opinion. 
"However, the possibility existed that the defense would offer evidence that 
might fall into the category of reducing or mitigating the killing."

Miller is familiar with the effect the Belcher decision has had.

4 months before Belcher's appeal, a jury convicted Joshua Forrest for fatally 
shooting Mario Reddish in December 2005 outside an Aiken County bar, as a 
result of the judge ruling that malice could be inferred from the use of a 
firearm.

Because of a lengthy criminal record, Miller said, Forrest would have still 
received life in prison if the charge was reduced, but the same guarantee was 
not available in the October 2013 murder trial of David Eugene Rosier Jr., 4 
years after the Belcher decision.

Rosier, who was charged with murder in the November 2012 shooting death of 
Donnie Davis, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 30 years 
in prison.

On the stand, he told the jury that he had no intention of harming Davis but 
shot him in defense of his son, Joshua, who was fighting with the victim over a 
dispute involving a girl at a home in Bath.

"The only real issue at trial was the question of malice," Miller said. "The 
defense claimed that because Rosier was defending his son it prohibited implied 
malice under the Belcher decision. Without Belcher, he would be serving a 
sentence for murder."

Miller said the reason Belcher's case made it harder for prosecutors to secure 
murder convictions is because it changed the way the legal concept of implied 
malice applies to homicide. He said premeditation is strong evidence for 
implied malice, as the prosecution must prove each existed before and after a 
murder, but the 2 are not the same.

"It's not nearly as clear to the average juror to what implied malice generally 
means," Miller said. "Though expressed malice can be proven through polygraph 
tests, conversations and writing, implied malice is a state of mind that can be 
hard to determine because it can be formed in a blink of an eye."

The jury could have chosen voluntary manslaughter for Belcher, 47, who is 
serving a 30-year sentence pending a possible retrial this summer, but it 
convicted him of murder for fatally shooting his cousin, Fred Suber, during a 
family cookout on Memorial Day 2004 in Laurens County.

During his 2006 trial, the state argued that while Belcher was trying to break 
up a fight between Suber and another man, he got a gun from that man and 
fatally shot Suber without justification.

Belcher claimed self-defense, saying that after the argument had settled, Suber 
confronted him with a pistol, and as a result, he ran to the other man's truck 
to get a gun and fired it at Suber as he approached him armed.

Robert Dudek, the chief appellate defender for the South Carolina Commission on 
Indigent Defense, which represented Carter, said lawyers are aware of Belcher's 
success and widely cite the state Supreme Court ruling in cases of self-defense 
and criminal negligence to make crimes seem less heinous.

Though none of the other cases citing Belcher have been overturned, Dieter 
believes the ruling could be part of a larger phenomenon sweeping the nation, 
in which juries are demanding more evidence, such as ballistics, DNA and video, 
to convict in complex death penalty cases.

Mark Powell, a spokesman for South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, said 
it would be inappropriate for him to comment on Belcher because of the issue 
"being investigated in pending criminal cases."

"It is a complex and lengthy process that requires state prosecutors to invest 
a million dollars and a year of their time, with no guarantee they are going to 
get the outcome they're seeking," Dieter said of capital murder cases. "The 
death penalty is certainly becoming rarer and plea deals more attractive 
because defendants can avoid execution and the state ... can bypass the appeals 
process."

Miller said the significance of the Carter plea is that it offered Aiken County 
a resolution no judge or jury could guarantee: life in prison without the 
chance for an appeal.

"It was absolutely the right call to make."

(source: Augusta Chronicle)








FLORIDA:

State attorney to seek death penalty in 2002 murder case



A central Florida state attorney has filed notice that his office will seek the 
death penalty in a 13-year-old murder case.

Ninth District State Attorney Jeff Ashton's office filed a notice of intent on 
Friday in the case of Demorris Andy Hunter. Hunter is charged with 1st-degree 
murder in the death of Teresa Ann Green. Green was reported missed from her 
Orlando home on May 27, 2002, and found dead that evening in the trunk of her 
car.

Hunter is currently serving a life sentence in a March 2002 death of an 
Oakland, California woman. He was extradited from a California prison last week 
to Orange County.

No future court date has been set.

(source: Associated Press)








OHIO:

Time to end death penalty in Ohio



While the death penalty might make sense in theory, it simply makes no sense in 
reality. It has little or no deterrence value, is astronomically expensive, is 
unequally and unfairly implemented, and the risk for a mistake is too high 
given the number of exonerations that take place every year.

That's why it was welcome news when the state of Ohio announced that 2015 would 
be the first year in which it has not executed someone since 2000.

Ronald R. Phillips, who was scheduled to be killed by the state last week, is 
alive and well today. In fact, all the executions scheduled for this year have 
been moved to next year. The next scheduled execution is that of Phillips, 
which is set for Jan. 21. A total of 11 executions are scheduled for next year, 
including that of a Lima man, Cleveland R. Jackson, of the 2002 Eureka Street 
killings. Jackson, whose execution was to take place later this year, will be 
executed July 20, 2016.

These postponements were required because the state of Ohio, after several 
botched executions, is again changing what drugs it uses to kill people.

Ohio executions have been on hold since Dennis McGuire took 25 minutes to die 
from a controversial 2-drug cocktail of midazolam and hydromorphone in January 
2014. That moratorium, put in place by a federal judge, expired last month.

Arizona used the same drug combination during an execution in July. Joseph R. 
Wood took nearly two hours to die and required 15 doses of each of the 2 drugs.

Oklahoma also botched an execution in May using Midazolam.

Going forward, Ohio is going to use sodium thiopental and pentobarbital. 
However, a drug shortage, the reason the state switched in the first place, 
will require some time before the state can obtain enough of the drug to use.

However, a better option would be for Ohio to abandon the practice altogether 
as many states have already. 18 states and the District of Columbia have 
abolished the death penalty. Additionally, seven states, the military and the 
federal government have not held an execution in more than a decade. Another 6 
states haven't executed anyone in more than 5 years.

The states with the lowest murder rates are states without the death penalty. 
That would not be the case if there were truly a deterrent value to capital 
punishment.

>From a fiscal standpoint, abolishing the death penalty would save the taxpayers 
a tremendous amount of money. It is much cheaper to house a defendant for life 
without parole than it is to seek the death penalty.

Judge Michael P. Donnelly, of Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court and a member 
of Ohio's Death Penalty Task Force, which issued its report last year on how 
the state's death-penalty law is applied, said the cost of capital trials 
prevents many counties from seeking the death penalty. A typical capital case, 
from beginning to end, costs more than $1 million when appeals are factored in.

"With 88 different prosecutors who have complete discretion on whether to 
pursue it or not, and you have to draw the inference that, in some counties, 
it's not pursued because it's just not economically feasible," he said. 
"There's no way you can look at the way [the death penalty is] applied in Ohio 
and draw the conclusion that it's fair, or that it's accomplishing what it 
purports to do - and that is, deliver the most severe punishment to the worst 
of the worst. It's just not taking place."

But the best reason to end state-sanctioned murder is the high risk of mistake.

In November, 3 Ohio men who were sentenced to death 39 years ago, were 
exonerated and set free. They lost 39 years of their lives, a tremendous 
injustice. Had the sentences been carried out, they would not be alive to walk 
out of prison and live their remaining lives. The large number of exonerations 
in the United States - at least 1,547 since 1989, 10 in Ohio last year - makes 
one wonder how many innocent people have been executed.

Regardless of how one feels theoretically about the death penalty, justice 
demands we put an end to the practice.

(source: Thomas J. Lucente Jr. is an Ohio attorney and night editor of The Lima 
News)








TENNESSEE:

TN Supreme Court to hear challenge of electric chair law



The Tennessee Supreme Court has agreed to hear a legal challenge over a law 
allowing the state to electrocute death row prisoners if lethal injection drugs 
are unavailable.

The challenge is part of a lawsuit filed by 34 death row inmates over 
Tennessee's death penalty protocols - both lethal injection and electrocution. 
The state wants the court to dismiss the challenge to electrocution protocols 
because none of the inmates are currently scheduled to die by electrocution.

The new electrocution law was meant to jumpstart the state's stalled execution 
process, but it opened the door to new legal challenges.

The hearing is scheduled for May 6 in Knoxville.

The high court also is considering whether the state must release the 
identities of the people who carry out executions.

(source: Associated Press)