[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., DEL., N.C., GA., LA., ARK., MO., ARIZ.

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 26


PENNSYLVANIA:

The worst criminals deserve death penalty



In reference To The Philadelphia Inquirer editorial printed on Feb. 19, 
'Evidence Clear: Death Penalty Doesn't Work':

Excuse me but the death penalty does work for me and many other law abiding 
citizens! Is the author of that editorial saying that he or she believes it's 
OK for criminals to kill whomever they wish and as many as they wish, commit 
atrocious crimes and be rewarded by living the rest of their lives in rent-free 
housing, with free health care, 3 free meals a day, no employment, no worries 
and entertainment, all provided to them by the law-abiding, hard-working tax 
paying citizens of the country?

It would be fair to say that imprisonment doesn't work, since so many parolees 
go back to their previous criminal ways, but does that mean that we shouldn't 
punish criminals? I sure hope not! This is supposed to be a civilization, with 
civilized law-abiding citizens in it. Not some freeloading country where some 
people act like uneducated animals who steal, kill and do whatever they want.

Unfortunately, for too many people, there are no morals or fear of committing 
crimes against innocent law-abiding citizens or taking advantage of businesses. 
Criminals just waltz into Wal-Mart or Kohl's, for example, and take whatever 
they want and just waltz right out - it's unbelievable and a disgrace to 
humanity! How can they sleep at night? The criminals who commit the worst 
crimes must be eliminated because they deserve to be punished for taking 
someone else's life and not obeying the laws of our civilization.

Gladys Mowles

Chambersburg

(source: publicopiniononline.com)

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

Death penalty moritorium: No truth in sentencing



The recent announcement by Gov. Wolf that he's instituting a moratorium on the 
death penalty in Pennsylvania comes as a shock to victims of offenders who have 
been or will be granted a reprieve.

Unfortunately for most of these victims, they learned of this turn of events 
through the media, either through news reports, or via phone calls from their 
local media asking for their reaction and comment. This is one more hill in the 
roller coaster ride for families whose loved one was murdered.

While local victim service providers and staff from the state Office of the 
Victim Advocate are available to provide aid and comfort, the news nevertheless 
inflames wounds that never truly heal.

In this public debate about the death penalty, families of murdered victims are 
most often overlooked. While it is clear that the death penalty is real for all 
of the 186 inmates on death row, and for their families, what's often lost to 
the public is the profound impact of the death and the sentence it imposes on 
the families of the murdered victims.

What remains out of the public eye is the ongoing pain and suffering for the 
families. They relive day after day, year after year, their loved one???s death 
scene, details of which are made clear at the trial, through detailed autopsy 
reports, crime scene photographs, and expert or witness testimony.

For victims in death penalty cases, they learn that the process only begins at 
sentencing. Having worked with district attorneys from across the commonwealth, 
it became clear that in deciding to seek the death penalty, they look to the 
opinion of the murdered victim's family. An extensive effort is made to help 
the family understand exactly what it means when a murderer is sentenced to 
death. Victims are told of the years of appeals, emotional ups and downs as the 
court decision winds its way through the courts. Despite this knowledge, they 
may never become emotionally prepared for that very difficult ride.

Victims do take comfort in other aspects of the sentence. The convicted 
murderer will spend all of that time on death row, away from the general 
population of inmates, without many of the privileges shared by other inmates. 
This often becomes the definition of justice for surviving family members while 
they wait.

So the question then becomes, what do victims want when it comes to the death 
penalty. Those of us who work with victims of crime come to realize that there 
is not one answer to that question. Some victims support the death penalty and 
some do not. They are as varied in their opinions as is the public.

But we do learn that victims want justice for themselves and their loved ones. 
And justice means truth in sentencing. They want to know that when a sentence 
is pronounced by the courts, that sentence will be carried out.

(source: Letter to the Editor; Carol L. Lavery, Shickshinny, Luzerne County, is 
a former commonwealth victim advocate of the Office of the Victim Advocate. She 
also is chair of the Crime Victims Alliance of Pennsylvania----Bucks County 
Courier Times)








DELAWARE:

Jermaine Wright case tests Delaware's death penalty



Jermaine Wright, once Delaware's longest-serving death row inmate, is a free 
man and could be just a few steps away from becoming the 1st person to 
permanently walk away from the state's death row.

Opponents of capital punishment will be watching the Delaware Supreme Court 
this spring to see if it will toss out Wright's videotaped confession. They say 
an exoneration in that case could jump-start stalled efforts to repeal the 
death penalty.

Wright was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1991 killing of Phillip G. 
Seifert, a 66-year-old disabled liquor store clerk, during a robbery.

Wright got a 2nd chance when the state Supreme Court ordered a retrial last 
year on the grounds that the prosecution withheld evidence about a 2nd robbery 
the same night.

This allowed Wright's attorneys to challenge the videotaped confession that is 
the linchpin of the prosecution's case.

A lower court judge agreed to suppress the confession in January, and the state 
released Wright from prison so it could appeal to the Delaware Supreme Court. 
That appeal was filed Feb. 11.

This confession video was key evidence in convicting Jermaine Wright of murder.

While it remains unclear when and how the Supreme Court will rule, local and 
national opponents of the death penalty are watching closely.

"It would demonstrate that the death penalty is not foolproof in Delaware," 
said Kristin Froehlich, board president of Delaware Citizens Opposed to the 
Death Penalty. "It's unreasonable to state Delaware does it right every time."

Seifert's son, Royce, who supports the death penalty and believes Wright is 
guilty, said his recent release and possible exoneration is unfair.

"There is injustice being served, and that is not the way things ought to be in 
our judicial system," Seifert said. "I pray this will be reversed."

Death penalty debate

Delaware is 1 of 32 states in the nation that has the death penalty. It ranks 
5th nationwide in the number of death sentences per capita, according to the 
Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C.

The state's death row houses 15 male inmates, with the most recent execution 
being in April 2012.

Advocates of capital punishment have long argued it is a fair penalty for 
heinous murders and deters crime, but opponents say it violates human rights, 
is expensive, encourages a cycle of violence and is used disproportionately 
against minorities and the poor.

Similar concerns led Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf two weeks ago to issue a 
moratorium on the death penalty until it can be reviewed more thoroughly.

Maryland abolished the death penalty in 2013. At that time, Maryland resident 
Kirk Bloodsworth, the 1st American death row inmate exonerated by DNA, was a 
strong force in lobbying for the repeal.

In Delaware, Senate Bill 19, which would have ended capital punishment, passed 
the Senate by a narrow margin in 2013, but then stalled in the House Judiciary 
Committee. A similar bill likely will be introduced this year.

Free after 24 years

After spending nearly 2 decades on death row, Wright, 42, was met by his mother 
when he was released from prison in Smyrna on Jan. 30. However, his freedom 
remains in jeopardy as the state's highest court weighs the suppression of his 
confession.

Wright was convicted for the fatal shooting of Seifert during a robbery of the 
former Hi-Way Inn on Governor Printz Boulevard on Jan. 14, 1991.

There were no eyewitnesses or physical evidence from the murder. Wright, who 
was 18 at the time, was arrested on an unrelated crime and confessed to the 
murder during a police interrogation.

That confession became the heart of the state's case and was challenged by the 
defense several times over the years.

In 2012, Superior Court Judge John A. Parkins Jr. overturned a conviction and 
death sentence based on that confession. The Supreme Court reversed Parkins' 
ruling but then reinstated it two years later on different grounds that the 
prosecution withheld from the defense evidence about a 2nd robbery at the 
Brandywine Village Liquors nearby that same night.

Wright was granted a retrial and his attorneys, Eugene Maurer Jr. and Herbert 
Mondros, filed a motion to suppress the confession, arguing Wright was high on 
heroin during the confession and was not properly read his Miranda rights.

They won, and the state is now appealing.

Wright's defense will likely argue to the Supreme Court that there were key 
discrepancies in the confession, including the time of the murder, the number 
of shots fired and the type of weapon. The defense previously relied on 
testimony about false confessions from James Trainum, a former homicide 
detective from Washington, D.C., who was featured in the popular podcast series 
"Serial."

"The State has been candid about one thing: the only evidence they have 
implicating Mr. Wright in this murder is his discredited confession," the 
attorneys said in a statement. "However, leading false confession experts 
around the nation agree that the circumstances under which Mr. Wright's 
confession were elicited and his condition at the time created a perfect storm 
for a false confession."

Deputy Attorney General Steve Wood said the issues related to the admissibility 
of the confession "have been extensively litigated in Delaware Superior Court 
and Supreme Court since 1991."

"The evidence heard by 2 separate juries was that Wright's video-recorded 
confession to the police contained numerous details of the crime that matches 
the forensic evidence and testimony from other eyewitnesses," Wood said. "While 
he was wrong about a few details, most of what he said was consistent with the 
other evidence."

Seifert also is convinced the confession was genuine.

"To discount it is a big mistake," he said. "The man confessed. He volunteered 
the information that only someone who was in there and did it [could know]."

If the Supreme Court suppresses the confession, it will make the state's case 
at a retrial difficult, if not nearly impossible, because more than 2 decades 
has passed. Wood, when asked about how he would handle that, said he would 
consider it if and when it arose.

Exonerations in Delaware

While Wright's case still has legal hurdles to pass before it would be 
considered an exoneration, opponents of the death penalty say it could be a 
noteworthy case for the state.

Nationwide, there have been 150 exonerations in 26 states since 1971. Only 20 
of those have relied on DNA evidence, according to the Death Penalty 
Information Center.

Although there are many different conditions for exoneration, the Death Penalty 
Information Center uses the definition that says a defendant must have been 
convicted and sentenced to death and then acquitted of all charges related to 
the crime.

"It has to be final, that the highest court being appealed to rules," said 
Richard Dieter, the center's executive director. "The key thing is going to be 
if the Delaware Supreme Court upholds this reversal, does the state have the 
opportunity to retry him? And if they do, then our list would wait until there 
isn't a chance for a retrial."

Wood noted the current issue in the Wright case is not about his innocence, but 
"is whether or not the defendant's video-recording confession is admissible."

Froehlich and Dieter said a Supreme Court decision in Wright's favor would 
demonstrate that Delaware makes errors, even in death row cases.

Opponents are also watching other death row cases in Delaware.

For example, the Delaware Supreme Court granted Isaiah W. McCoy, 27, a retrial 
in January in the case of the shooting death of 30-year-old James Mumford 
during a drug deal outside a Dover bowling alley. The ruling cited errors the 
prosecutor made in improperly vouching for the credibility of key witnesses and 
overall unprofessional conduct.

In another case, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take a case seeking to 
overturn convicted killer James E. Cooke Jr.'s death sentence for the May 2005 
rape and murder of University of Delaware sophomore Lindsey Bonistall. Cooke's 
execution was scheduled for Dec. 4, but was put on hold as he tries to appeal 
in the lower federal courts.

That drawn-out process of appeals can be torturous on victims' families.

Seifert was surprised that 24 years after the murder of his father, the case 
would still be active.

Froehlich, whose brother was murdered in Connecticut in 1995, has taken a 
different approach to her family's tragedy by opposing the death penalty. Her 
brother's killer was sentenced to life in prison without parole, but eventually 
committed suicide.

"The death penalty never did me any favors," she said. "It made me feel 
powerless. It made me have to spend more years in a torture chamber waiting for 
the legal finality."

(source: The News Journal)

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

Poll: Should Delaware abolishl the death penalty?

http://archive.delawareonline.com/poll/2015-02-26/8683763

(source: delawareonline.com)








NORTH CAROLINA:

Prosecutors to seek death penalty in Greensboro shooting



The Guilford County district attorney's office decided this week to pursue the 
death penalty against a Greensboro man if he is convicted of 1st-degree murder 
by a jury.

Brandon Jawon Pompey, 27, of 1133 Trent St. Apt. E, is charged with 1st-degree 
murder, attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill 
inflicting serious injuries.

Pompey is accused of shooting and killing Clarence Eugene Toran Jr., 24, and 
wounding Toran's younger brother, Terence, in the parking lot of the Timber 
Hollow Apartments in the 3300 block of Trent Street on July 11, 2014.

(source: Greensboro News & Record)








GEORGIA:----impending execution

Weather threat postpones Georgia's 1st execution of a woman in 70 years



Not since Lena Baker, an African-American convicted of murder and pardoned 
decades later, has Georgia executed a woman. The state was scheduled to snap 
that 70-year streak Wednesday before Kelly Renee Gissendaner's execution was 
postponed.

Just hours before the 47-year-old was scheduled to die by lethal injection at 
the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison in Jackson, the Georgia 
Department of Corrections announced it had postponed the execution until Monday 
"due to weather and associated scheduling issues," department spokeswoman 
Gwendolyn Hogan said in an email.

Gissendaner was convicted in a February 1997 murder plot that targeted her 
husband in suburban Atlanta.

She was romantically involved with Gregory Owen and conspired with the 
43-year-old to have her husband, Douglas Gissendaner, killed, according to 
court testimony. Owen wanted Kelly Gissendaner to file for a divorce, but she 
was concerned that her husband would "not leave her alone if she simply 
divorced him," court documents said.

The Gissendaners had already divorced once, in 1993, and they remarried in 
1995.

Details of the crime, as laid out at trial and provided by Georgia Attorney 
General Sam Olens, are as follows:

Owen and Kelly Gissendaner planned the murder for months. On February 7, 1997, 
she dropped Owen off at her home, gave him a nightstick and hunting knife and 
went out dancing with girlfriends.

Douglas Gissendaner also spent the evening away from home, going to a church 
friend's house to work on cars. Owen lay in wait until he returned.

When Douglas Gissendaner came home around 11:30 p.m., Owen forced him by 
knifepoint into a car and drove him to a remote area of Gwinnett County.

There, Owen ordered his victim into the woods, took his watch and wallet to 
make it look like a robbery, hit him in the head with the nightstick and 
stabbed Douglas Gissendaner in the neck 8 to 10 times.

Kelly Gissendaner arrived just as the murder took place, but did not 
immediately get out of her car. She later checked to make sure her husband was 
dead, then Owen followed her in Douglas Gissendaner's car to retrieve a can of 
kerosene that Kelly Gissendaner had left for him.

Owen set her husband's car on fire in an effort to hide evidence and left the 
scene with Kelly Gissendaner.

Story unravels

Police discovered the burned-out automobile the morning after the murder, but 
did not find the body. Authorities kicked off a search.

Kelly Gissendaner, meanwhile, went on local television appealing to the public 
for information on her husband's whereabouts.

Her and Owen's story started to unravel after a series of police interviews. On 
February 20, Douglas Gissendaner's face-down body was found about a mile from 
his car. An autopsy determined the cause of death to be knife wounds to the 
neck, but the medical examiner couldn't tell which strike killed Douglas 
Gissendaner because animals had devoured the skin and soft tissue on the right 
side of his neck.

On February 24, Owen confessed to the killing and implicated Kelly Gissendaner, 
who was arrested the next day and charged.

While in jail awaiting trial, Kelly Gissendaner grew angry when she heard Owen 
was to receive a 25-year sentence for his role in the murder. (Owen is serving 
life in prison at a facility in Davisboro, according to Georgia Department of 
Corrections records.)

She began writing letters to hire a 3rd person who would falsely confess to 
taking her to the crime scene at gunpoint.

She asked her cellmate, Laura McDuffie, to find someone willing to do the job 
for $10,000, and McDuffie turned Kelly Gissendaner's letters over to 
authorities via her attorney.

Seeking clemency

Kelly Gissendaner has exhausted all state and federal appeals, the attorney 
general said in a statement. The State Board of Pardons and Paroles denied her 
clemency request, Steve Hayes, a spokesman for the board, said Wednesday.

In the clemency application, Gissendaner's lawyers argued she was equally or 
less culpable than Owen, who actually did the killing. Both defendants were 
offered identical plea bargains before trial: life in prison with an agreement 
to not seek parole for 25 years.

Owen accepted the plea bargain and testified against his former girlfriend. 
Gissendaner was willing to plead guilty, her current lawyers said, but 
consulted with her trial lawyer and asked prosecutors to remove the stipulation 
about waiting 25 years to apply for parole.

According to her clemency appeal, her lead trial attorney, Edwin Wilson, said 
he thought the jury would not sentence her to death "because she was a woman 
and because she did not actually kill Doug .... I should have pushed her to 
take the plea but did not because I thought we would get straight up life if 
she was convicted."

Her appeal lawyers also argued that Gissendaner had expressed deep remorse for 
her actions, become a model inmate and grown spiritually. They said her death 
would cause further hardship for her 2 children.

Georgia parole board's posthumous pardon

Currently the only woman on Georgia's death row, Gissendaner could be the 2nd 
woman in the state's history to be executed.

The 1st was Baker, an African-American maid who was sentenced to death by an 
all-white, all-male jury in 1944. She claimed self-defense for killing a man 
who held her against her will, threatened her life and appeared poised to hit 
her with a metal bar before she fired the fatal shot.

60 years after her execution, Georgia's parole board posthumously pardoned her 
after finding that "it was a grievous error to deny (her) clemency."

Such pardons are rare, but so are executions of women.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, only 15 women have been 
executed in the United States since 1977.

(source: CNN)








LOUISIANA:

Public Defender: LA death penalty study to include 16 parishes



When we last heard from the Capital Punishment Fiscal Impact Commission, the 
big question was how many parishes should the study consider when it comes to 
death penalty - or capital cases.

The Public Defender's Office now says 16 including EBR, Ascension and 
Tangipahoa.

"We open about 35 capital cases a year on average," said Jay Dixon, LA State 
Public Defender.

Dixon provided the commission new data Wednesday showing East Baton Rouge has 
13 of Louisiana's 83 open capital cases.

The morning began hearing from Jim Craig, a defense attorney with 30-years 
experience working capital cases.

He says the costs of a death penalty trial, greatly depends on how promptly 
it's carried out.

"If no indication is given by the prosecutor about whether it's a capital case, 
at whatever point the prosecution decides it is a death penalty case, we have 
then done no groundwork with respect to the extensive investigation that has to 
be done," said Jim Craig, Co-Director, The Roderick & Solange MacArhur Justice 
Center.

Meantime across the hallway in another room, more members of the commission got 
together to discuss what other data the study should consider like 
psychological costs.

"How do you measure the loss of a child in dollars and cents and how does that 
equate to tax-payer dollars being spent," asked Liz Mangham, Capital Punishment 
Fiscal Impact Commission Subcommittee on Prosecution.

The commission hopes to answer that question at their next meeting.

They're hoping that happens by the end of March, before legislators go into 
session in April. If they can't get together then, they'll have to wait until 
the summer. The commission wants to finish the study by New Year's Day 2016.

(source: WAFB news)








ARKANSAS:

Death Penalty Bill Passes Senate Committee



A bill abolishing the death penalty drew passionate debate Tuesday before 
passing a senate committee.

"He'd been on death row for about 20 years before I met him," said sister Joan 
Pytlik. She described her work with inmates as she spoke of a costly capital 
punishment system that she says is applied disproportionately to minorities and 
fails to bring timely justice.

"Law enforcement ranks the death penalty at the bottom of the list of tools 
effective as a deterrent to crime," Pytlik said.

But prosecutors urged lawmakers against a bill doing away with it.

"When someone premeditated and deliberately takes a life what we need to say as 
a policy from this state is 'you will pay with your life.'"

Both sides agree the current system is broken. All lethal injection drugs 
currently in the state's possession are expired. The rest were given away 5 
years ago to corrections departments in Mississippi, Oklahoma and Tennessee.

"That doesn't mean we do away with it," said 20th Judicial District prosecutor 
Cody Hiland. "That means we fix it."

But opponents like State Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, say Arkansas keeps 
poor company in its continuation of capital punishment.

"Yemen and Iran and China and people of that ilk," Elliott said.

Hiland didn't like the argument that most developed countries have abolished 
the death penalty.

"To me the United States is the gold standard and people should be comparing 
themselves to us not the other way around," he said.

Sister Pytlik says she's learned through her work with inmates that it's 
actually life without parole that's the tougher sentence.

"They all say this the death penalty is an easy exit," she said.

Despite passing through the committee Wednesday, the bill is a long shot to 
make it through the Republican controlled senate.

(source: Arkansas Matters)



MISSOURI----new execution date

Missouri sets April execution date



The Missouri Supreme Court has set another execution date.

Andre Cole will be put to death on April 14. Cole was convicted of murdering a 
man over a child support payment in 1998. Cole and his then-wife Terri, 
divorced in 1995. After missing several child support payments, the court order 
his wages to be garnished. After the first deduction was taken out of his 
paycheck, Cole forced his way into Terri's home and stabbed both her and 
Anthony Curtis.

Curtis died, Terri survived the attack.

Missouri's next execution is set for Cecil Clayton on March 17.

(source: KTRS news)

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

Another Execution Set in Missouri



The Missouri Supreme Court has set an execution date for a man who killed 
another man while he was angry over having to pay child support.

52-year-old Andre Cole is scheduled to die by lethal injection between 6 p.m. 
April 14th and 6 p.m. April 15th at the prison in Bonne Terre.

In August 1998, 52-year-old Andre Cole owed 3,000 dollars in back child support 
to his ex-wife when his employer began withholding money from his paycheck.

He went to her house and broke in by throwing a car jack through a window.

Court documents say Anthony Curtis was visiting Terri that night.

Cole stabbed Curtis 21 times before attacking his ex-wife and stabbing her 
repeatedly but she survived.

Before the attack Cole had reportedly told several co-workers he would kill his 
ex-wife before giving her any more money.

Missouri is next scheduled to execute 74-year-old Cecil Clayton March 17th for 
the 1996 murder of a Barry County sheriff?s deputy.

(source: mymoinfo.com)








ARIZONA:

Jury weighing death sentence for Jodi Arias



A jury is once again considering the fate of convicted murderer and Salinas 
native Jodi Arias.

The retrial sentencing went to the jury Wednesday in Arizona. Jurors must 
decide if Arias will be sentenced to life in prison, or give her the death 
penalty, for killing her on-again-off-again boyfriend, Travis Alexander.

A defense lawyer made his final plea for mercy in the killing that grabbed 
global attention over the violent nature of the crime.

Arias was born in Salinas, Calif. on July 9, 1980 and grew up there until she 
was 12. Arias' family later moved to Yreka, Calif.

She returned to the Central Coast when she was hired in 2001 to work at the 
Ventana Inn & Spa in Big Sur. She fell in love with the man who hired her, 
Darryl Brewer, and they lived in Big Sur together from 2002 until 2006.

Arias broke up with Brewer soon after she met Travis Alexander in Las Vegas.

According to testimony, on June 3, 2008, the day before she murdered Alexander, 
Arias visited Brewer at his house in Monterey and he let her borrow 2 gas cans. 
Arias told Brewer she needed the gas for a long drive, and then bought a 3rd 
gas can in Salinas.

Her 2013 trial was broadcast live and became a sensation with its revelations 
that Arias had shot and slit the throat of Alexander.

Arias, 34, was convicted in 2013 of killing Alexander. However, the jury 
deadlocked on her punishment, prompting the penalty retrial, the wire service 
said.

A death penalty requires a unanimous vote by 12 jurors if Arias is to die by 
lethal injection, said Jerry Cobb, spokesman for the Maricopa County Attorney's 
Office.

During the retrial, if all 12 jurors can't vote for death, then Arias will be 
eligible for 1 of 2 life sentences: life without the possibility of release or 
life with the possibility of release after 25 calendar years, Cobb said.

That means Arias and her legal team will need to persuade only one of the 12 
jurors to vote against the death penalty for her to be spared from execution, 
Cobb said.

The 2013 trial was sensational, attracting a media circus and a national 
audience riveted by themes of sex, violence and 18 days of testimony by Arias, 
who detailed what she called an abusive relationship with Alexander but claimed 
she remembered nothing of his killing.

(source: KSBW news)

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

Jodi Arias death penalty retrial pales in comparison



Right now jurors in the Jodi Arias death penalty re-trial are resting up for 
day two of deliberations on Thursday morning.

They're tasked with a life or death decision weighing heavily on their minds.

This time around, the case is nowhere near the circus-like atmosphere witnessed 
in 2013 when Arias was convicted of murder in the death of her on-again, 
off-again boyfriend Travis Alexander. Back then, most of the major television 
networks and cable networks converged on downtown Phoenix, broadcasting the 
trial. But this time around Judge Sherry Stephens pulled the plug on the camera 
in the courtroom. She allowed one pool camera to capture the punishment phase 
on video, but media outlets are not allowed to broadcast the video until the 
jury has reached a verdict.

Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts says, "No footage means no Nancy 
Grace. No national outrage and nobody chanting on the courthouse steps to give 
her death."

During his bi-weekly news conference Wednesday, Maricopa County Attorney Bill 
Montgomery would not divulge the cost for his office to prosecute Arias in this 
matter. He said he will reveal the costs to taxpayers after the verdict. He 
said, "The only way you can get a fair defense is if you're rich or powerful. 
That's not the case in Maricopa County."

With a life or death decision in the hands of the jury, Roberts says Arizonans 
are saying this, "What I hear is, 'Please don't inflict her on us anymore. We 
don't want to know; we don't want to hear it. Wake us up when there's a verdict 
and then let's forget her.'"

(source: azcentral.com)