[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.H., PENN., OKLA.

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 16



TEXAS:

Perry Exits Texas Stage Making a Case for His Past, and His Future



Gov. Rick Perry leaves office here next week not so much as a man but as the 
face of an era - a 14-year reign in which he became the state's longest-serving 
chief executive and was widely regarded as the most powerful governor in the 
history of modern Texas.

He turned a happenstance, unelected rise to office - going from lieutenant 
governor to governor in December 2000 after George W. Bush resigned to become 
president - into a 1-man Republican dynasty, winning 3 4-year terms, making 
every appointment on every board and commission in the state and redefining the 
power of the governor's office.

In a farewell speech to the Texas Legislature on Thursday, Mr. Perry made a 
spirited case for his tenure, boasting that Texas has become more prosperous 
and financially sound - with better schools, safer streets, cleaner air and 
fewer frivolous lawsuits - since he became governor.

"There's a reason more people move to Texas than any other state, because this 
is the best place in the world to find a job and raise a family and to pursue 
your dreams," Mr. Perry, 64, told lawmakers at the Capitol.

As Mr. Perry prepares to leave office and contemplates another run for the 
White House, his record as governor will be closely scrutinized not just for 
what it says about him and his legacy but also for what it says about the 
priorities he set and who has benefited from the state's prosperity.

And while he and his supporters say the Texas economy thrived under his 
leadership - more than 30 % of all the private-sector jobs added in the nation 
since January 2001 have been in Texas - critics and several economists say Mr. 
Perry is taking too much credit for the state's robust economy, and that the 
state has failed to adequately plan for the future.

"Governor Perry has accomplished some notable things that have promoted 
economic growth, but he has not created a sustainable platform for long-term 
prosperity," said Ray Perryman, an expert on the Texas economy who has been 
called the unofficial state economist. "I have a real concern that, as the 
agenda became more partisan over time, the long-term needs of the state in 
terms of public and higher education, transportation infrastructure, an 
adequate safety net and water have not been addressed."

Mr. Perry has been trying to cast his record in the most positive light as he 
lays the groundwork for a possible 2nd presidential run after his failed bid in 
2012. 4 days after his successor, Greg Abbott, is sworn in Tuesday, Mr. Perry 
will be in Iowa, which holds the 1st presidential nominating caucuses, to speak 
at a high-profile gathering of conservatives called the Iowa Freedom Summit. On 
Thursday, Mr. Perry made no mention of whether he had decided to run for 
president.

Last month, he met with influential Republican donors, policy experts and 
operatives whom he had invited to Austin, and he has spent months traveling the 
world and the country in an effort to repair his image after his mistake-prone 
2012 bid for president. The Des Moines Register reported in November that Mr. 
Perry had been to Iowa 8 times and had appeared at 33 events since the 2012 
elections, more than any other potential 2016 Republican candidate.

As governor, Mr. Perry was everywhere and into everything. Through his 
longevity, his thousands of appointees and the force of his personality and 
ambition, he dominated the state to such a degree that 2 lawmakers in his own 
party have proposed bills limiting future governors or other top officials to 2 
consecutive 4-year terms. Another sign of his clout and savvy has been the ease 
with which he has handled perhaps his biggest controversy: the criminal charges 
he faces accusing him of abuse of power.

A grand jury here in Travis County indicted Mr. Perry last year after he 
pressed the district attorney, a Democrat, to step down by threatening to cut 
off state financing to the anticorruption unit in her office. Mr. Perry became 
the 1st Texas governor in nearly 100 years to face criminal charges. He and his 
lawyers deny any wrongdoing, and the case has become more of an annoyance than 
a crisis for him.

"He took the governor's office to a higher level," said Mike Sullivan, 57, a 
Houston Republican who is the Harris County tax assessor and collector. "I'm a 
native Texan, a native Houstonian, and I grew up with the belief that the 
lieutenant governor's office was the strongest office. I think Governor Perry 
changed that."

At the heart of the argument for Mr. Perry's success as governor is his record 
on jobs. His office said Texas had added 1.8 million private-sector jobs since 
January 2001. Employment data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics 
showed the numbers to be accurate. But the data also undercut his claim 
somewhat. Texas added a similar number of private-sector jobs - 1.4 million - 
during the tenure of Mr. Perry's predecessor, Mr. Bush, who served nearly 6 
years compared with Mr. Perry's 14.

On Thursday, Mr. Perry defended the state's job growth, telling lawmakers that 
since December 2007, 1.4 million jobs had been created in Texas, while in that 
same period, the rest of the nation lost 400,000 jobs. "I have been guided by a 
simple philosophy: that job creation, not higher taxation, is the best form of 
revenue generation," he said.

Mr. Perry's figures were greeted with applause by legislators. Others were more 
skeptical.

"It's propaganda," said Daniel S. Hamermesh, an economics professor at Royal 
Holloway, University of London, and a professor emeritus at the University of 
Texas at Austin, referring to Mr. Perry's use of the state's jobs numbers. 
"He's running for president again and he wants to make it sound like he did 
something. The effect of any administrator, governor, even a president, on 
employment growth, given all the checks and balances in our system, is very, 
very small."

Professor Hamermesh and others said Mr. Perry benefited from a situation beyond 
his control - an oil and gas boom that has increased the state's tax revenues 
and created jobs across the state. But as the price of oil has plummeted in 
recent months, some lawmakers and analysts worry that the state's economy is 
headed for a slowdown at best, or a regional recession at worst.

"He has the misfortune right now of exiting amid an oil price crash that is 
likely going to reveal some of the skull beneath the skin," said Mark Muro, an 
expert on state and regional economic development with the Metropolitan Policy 
Program at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "It's been a good time to 
be governor of Texas until about last year."

By any measure, Texas has boomed while Mr. Perry was in office. The state had 
replaced all the jobs it lost in the 2008 and 2009 recession by November 2011. 
The nation as a whole did not regain its lost jobs until May 2014. Last year, 
Toyota announced it would establish its new North American headquarters in the 
Dallas suburb of Plano and relocate nearly 4,000 employees there from 
facilities in Southern California, Kentucky and New York.

It was a key victory for Mr. Perry, who has ventured into states led by 
Democratic governors to woo businesses to Texas. The state offered Toyota $40 
million in incentives from Mr. Perry's economic development fund, and a Toyota 
spokesman said the company had a long history of working with Mr. Perry. The 
spokesman said the governor was instrumental in helping Toyota open its San 
Antonio manufacturing plant in 2006.

"He was and is a hell of a salesman," said Bill Hammond, the chief executive of 
the Texas Association of Business. "The guy picks up the phone and calls these 
guys, the C.E.O.s that are considering. They get a lead, and he's on them. 
Governor Perry's focus was jobs, bringing and keeping jobs to Texas."

In his speech to lawmakers Thursday, and in a 4-page summary of his 
accomplishments released by his office, Mr. Perry highlighted other 
achievements. Texas' air quality improved as pollution levels decreased from 
2000 to 2012. The on-time graduation rate of its public high school students in 
2012 was 88 %, with Texas in a tie with Nebraska, Vermont and Wisconsin for the 
2nd-best in the nation. Texas' crime rate has dropped, and for the 1st time in 
its history it closed prisons without replacing them.

But Mr. Perry's critics say that the jobs picture hides a dismal record on 
numerous issues. Texas has the highest rate in the nation of residents lacking 
health insurance, and it has some of the worst rates in the country of children 
living in poverty, teenage births, adults without high school diplomas and 
toxic chemicals released into waterways.

For all his boasting of Texas as a small-government, free-enterprise state, 
critics say he has used his power to reward friends and campaign donors, 
mismanaging taxpayer-funded agencies and programs along the way. A report by 
the state auditor found that Mr. Perry's economic development fund, known as 
the Texas Enterprise Fund and administered by his office, had awarded more than 
$200 million in taxpayer dollars to companies and universities without 
requiring them to submit applications or to create a set number of jobs.

Regardless of how many prisons closed, Mr. Perry oversaw 279 executions, a 
record that, according to Rick Halperin, the former president of the Texas 
Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, made him "the most lethal governor in 
American history."

And the air-quality improvements, environmental advocates said, were a result 
of the federal Clean Air Act and were accomplished in spite of Mr. Perry, not 
because of him.

As the population in Texas increases and its 2nd-worst drought drags on, the 
state's water and transportation infrastructures have been in dire need of 
upgrading. Voters recently approved two propositions to finance improvements. 
But experts said the state failed for years to make infrastructure a priority. 
It was not until January 2013, 12 years after taking office, that Mr. Perry 
called on lawmakers to tap the state's Rainy Day Fund for a one-time investment 
in water and transportation improvements.

The state, meanwhile, has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on border 
security.

"Perry has preferred to divert our attention to partisan social issues rather 
than tackle these more serious long-term challenges, and that is a terrible 
missed opportunity," said Mike Villarreal, a Democrat and former state lawmaker 
who is running for mayor of San Antonio.

Still, perhaps offering a glimpse of how he plans to position himself should he 
run for president, Mr. Perry struck a distinctly bipartisan tone on Thursday, 
encouraging lawmakers to work across party lines, an appeal that may resonate 
more nationally than in a state where Republicans control almost all the levers 
of power.

"I speak to members of my own party in asking that you do not place purity 
ahead of unity," Mr. Perry said. "Ronald Reagan knew that someone who agreed 
with you 80 % of the time was not your enemy, but your friend. There's room for 
different voices, for disagreement. Compromise is not a dirty word if it moves 
Texas forward."

(source: New York Times)








NEW HAMPSHIRE:

Addison appeal: high court hears arguments on death sentence for cop killing



The New Hampshire Supreme Court inched closer to determining the fate of the 
state's lone death row inmate yesterday, hearing arguments on whether Michael 
Addison's 2008 sentence is fair compared with similar cases across the country.

But the justices seemed stuck on a preliminary point: just how many outside 
cases to consider.

Addison, a 35-year-old black man, was found guilty of shooting a white 
Manchester police officer in the head after a violent crime spree 9 years ago. 
The officer, Michael Briggs, was on bike patrol at the time.

The justices unanimously upheld Addison's capital murder conviction in 2013, 
but they have yet to rule on the fairness of his punishment. To do so, they 
must assemble a pool of comparable cases and then determine whether Addison's 
sentence is proportionately excessive, given the evidence and jury findings.

If the court upholds the sentence, Addison will remain on track to be the 1st 
person executed by the state since 1939. He will almost certainly file a 
federal appeal should that happen.

This final phase of his direct appeal comes amid heightened national scrutiny 
of the death penalty after a series of botched executions. Legislators nearly 
abolished New Hampshire's version last year, and the vote is likely to come up 
again soon. Gov. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, opposes the death penalty but has 
said she will not commute Addison's sentence.

The court is expected to rule in 6 to 8 months.

Lawyers argued over exactly what the parameters for the court's comparison 
should be. Prosecutors asked justices to consider between 10 and 12 other 
police killings - or only those in states with near-identical death penalty 
statutes. The defense asked them to weigh 366 cases, of which 58 % resulted in 
execution.

"If you only look at 10 cases, how do you know from looking at those 10 cases 
if what you're seeing is truly reflective of what jurors in general really do 
when they're deciding between life and death?" defense attorney David Rothstein 
said after the hearing. "The only way to do that is to look at many more 
cases."

Rothstein told the court that Addison's sentence is an outlier largely because 
he did not "purposely" kill Briggs, and because he is not deemed to be a threat 
if granted a life sentence.

New Hampshire is 1 of 29 states where the death penalty is still legal. Senior 
Assistant Attorney General Jeff Strelzin said only a few other states similarly 
require that a defendant "knowingly" committed murder. In other states, 
defendants are eligible for execution only if they "purposely," or consciously, 
intend to do so.

Strelzin cautioned the court against comparing Addison's case with those in 
states that have higher or lower death penalty standards. He also argued that, 
given the aggravating and mitigating factors, Addison's sentence is 
proportional to those cases he has asked the court to review.

"We all have to infer to some extent why juries are making the decisions 
they're making," Strelzin said. "Juries aren't telling us explicitly, 'This is 
why we spared this defendant, this is why we imposed the death penalty in this 
case.' But we can draw inferences from these cases."

Strelzin noted several aggravating factors in the case: Addison had a violent 
criminal past, had tried to kill people before and was a felon in possession of 
a gun at the time of the shooting.

"None of those culpability factors appeared in (the defense's) list of any of 
those cases," he noted. "So it seems like that list was generated to exclude 
the very factors that the jury found in this case."

But the justices kept returning the discussion to the question of parameters.

"What strikes me is the gulf between the defendant's universe and the state's 
universe," Chief Justice Linda Dalianis said. "Are we bound by selection of 1 
or the other? Or is there some third amalgam that we could come up with 
ourselves?"

"There is," Rothstein replied.

Justice Gary Hicks also questioned Rothstein on the claim that Briggs's killing 
lacked the brutality and repeated shots found in many other cases.

"I recall that Officer Briggs asked the defendant to stop . . . at least more 
than once," he said. "That as the officer approached the defendant essentially 
held his hand up, it could be argued ensnaring Officer Briggs into a trap, and 
then put a bullet through his bike helmet.

"Why isn't that heinous?"

But Rothstein countered that jurors had not found that the killing was 
premeditated, or that Addison had the intent to "bait" Briggs. "I understand," 
he said, "that this court can sit as a 13th juror -"

"Don't we have to some extent," Hicks interjected. "Because we've never done 
this before."

At the time of Brigg's killing, Addison was wanted by the police for a string 
of violent crimes, including several armed robberies and a drive-by shooting. 
Briggs was 15 minutes from the end of his shift Oct. 16, 2006, when he and his 
partner confronted Addison in a dark alley. Jurors found that Addison shot 
Briggs in the head at close range to avoid arrest.

The high court upheld Addison's conviction and sentence in 2013, concluding 
that the sentence was neither arbitrary nor driven by passion or racial 
prejudice.

(source: Concord Monitor)








PENNSYLVANIA:

Bedford County DA seeking death penalty against Hyndman murder suspect



The Bedford County District Attorney is seeking the death penalty against a man 
accused of shooting and killing another man before stuffing his body into a 
car, and setting that car on fire.

The DA said he will be seeking death against Jonta Bishop.

Prosecutors said Bishop shot James Deneen, Jr., then loaded his body into the 
trunk of a car and set it on fire 9 miles away in Hyndman back in September.

There are 3 others facing charges in connection to this case for allegedly 
helping Bishop clean the scene and destroy any evidence.

(source: WJAC TV news)








OKLAHOMA----execution

Oklahoma carries out 1st execution since botched lethal injection in April -- 
State executes Charles Warner by lethal injection after US supreme court 
declines to intervene



Oklahoma executed Charles Warner on Thursday night, the state's 1st lethal 
injection since the botched execution of Clayton Lockett in April.

Attorneys for Warner and three other Oklahoma inmates asked the US supreme 
court for a stay, but the court denied the request in a 5-4 decision. The 
lawyers argued that the 1st of 3 drugs in a lethal cocktail - midazolam - will 
not properly sedate a person, even if the drug is properly administered.

Warner was scheduled to die in April in a rare double execution, but his was 
called off after witnesses watched Lockett struggle and groan on the gurney. 
Lockett died 43 minutes after the execution began, according to the state. 
There was a problem with the IV in Lockett's groin area that went unnoticed 
because it was covered with a sheet, according to a state investigation.

Associated Press media witness Sean Murphy said the execution lasted 18 
minutes, and Warner said he had been "poked" 5 times.

"It hurts," Warner said. "It feels like acid."

Murphy reported he made the statement before the drugs began flowing.

Then the drugs started and, according to Murphy, Warner said: "My body is on 
fire."

The Oklahoma attorney general, Scott Pruitt, said in a statement after the 
execution that Warner's 11-month-old victim experienced "unimaginable 
violence".

"After unprecedented legal wrangling and more than a decade of delay, Adrianna 
is finally receiving justice," he said.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor said she would have stayed the execution of Warner and 
the 3 other Oklahoma petitioners, and justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G 
Breyer and Elena Kagan joined her dissent.

"I find the district court's conclusion that midazolam will in fact work as 
intended difficult to accept given recent experience with the use of this 
drug," Sotomayor wrote. "Lockett was able to regain consciousness even after 
having received a dose of midazolam -confirmed by a blood test - supposedly 
sufficient to knock him out entirely".

Midazolam was also used in the executions of Dennis McGuire in Ohio and Joseph 
Wood in Arizona that went awry in 2014.

Sotomayor said Florida's "apparent success" using midazolam is "subject to 
question," because it also employs a paralytic drug.

"The inmate may be fully conscious but unable to move," she wrote.

She said Oklahoma's expert witness on midazolam "cited no studies, but instead 
appeared to rely primarily on the website www.drugs.com".

She said states were increasingly relying "on new and scientifically untested 
methods of execution".

"Petitioners have committed horrific crimes, and should be punished," she 
wrote.

"But the 8th amendment guarantees that no one should be subjected to an 
execution that causes searing, unnecessary pain before death. I hope that our 
failure to act today does not portend our unwillingness to consider these 
questions."

Florida also executed a man Thursday night using the same method as Oklahoma, 
Johnny Shane Kormondy, the convicted ringleader of a 1993 home invasion robbery 
that ended with the murder of a banker and the rape of his wife.

Warner was convicted of raping and killing 11-month-old Adrianna Waller in 
1997. Warner lived in Oklahoma City with baby Adrianna and her mother, Shonda 
Waller. The baby was found to have died from multiple injures to her head, 
chest and abdomen, and a doctor diagnosed physical and sexual abuse, according 
to documents.

Shonda Waller said in a January 2014 interview that she morally opposes the 
death penalty and her views are rooted in her Christian faith.

Oklahoma assistant attorney general John Hadden said a "massive" investigation 
was conducted after the Lockett execution, recommendations were issued and the 
corrections department is "confident that they have addressed every one of 
those and is ready to move forward. The state, as a whole, is committed to 
having a constitutional process."

3 Oklahoma death row prisoners with upcoming execution dates have a separate 
request remaining before the US supreme court to review their case.

(source: The Guardian)

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

Opponents of death penalty decry Oklahoma execution----Death penalty opponents 
argue that the State of Oklahoma is emulating the behavior of Charles Warner, 
who was condemned to die in the 1997 rape and murder of a baby girl.



In deciding to execute Charles Warner, the state of Oklahoma is emulating the 
same disregard for human life that he showed when he killed a baby girl in 
1997, speakers at an anti-death penalty news conference at the state Capitol 
said Thursday.

Brady Henderson, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of 
Oklahoma, said it's senseless and brutal for the state to kill Warner, just as 
it was for him to kill his victim.

"I equate the 2 together because fundamentally they happen for the same 
reason," he said. "They happen because people make decisions that don't respect 
life, don't respect humanity."

Garland Pruitt, president of the Oklahoma City branch of the NAACP, noted that 
Thursday was the birthday of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

"We look at this as disrespect for Martin Luther King and all that he lived for 
and stood for," he said.

Rep. George Young, a pastor, quoted the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill." He 
also made reference to a Ten Commandments monument that was placed next to the 
Capitol, knocked over by a man with mental problems and replaced.

"It seems to me we are more concerned with having the Ten Commandments on the 
Capitol property than we are with having them in our heart," said Young, 
D-Oklahoma City. "The Commandments were knocked over right outside, but they 
are back again. I don't agree with them being there, but let's live what we 
preach." The Rev. Adam Leathers, a board member of the Oklahoma Coalition to 
Abolish the Death Penalty, said that many of the people who are executed have 
done horrific and evil things.

"So why are we so quick to emulate their behavior?" he asked. "Why are we so 
quick to imitate them and lower our morality to their level? Are we not better 
than that?"

(source: The Oklahoman)