[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MAINE, PENN., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 16



MAINE:

Diamond submits death penalty bill



Democratic state Sen. Bill Diamond of Windham has submitted a new bill that 
would allow Maine judges to sentence to death individuals who kill children 
during sexual assaults.According to Maine ACLU legal director Zachary Heiden, 
an opponent of the bill, Diamond's proposal represents the 4th legislative 
attempt to re-instate the death penalty in Maine during the past decade. Maine 
abolished the death penalty in 1887.

According to Diamond, the bill - unlike other recent death penalty bills in 
Maine - will only apply to a specific type of criminal. Diamond, the author of 
"The Evil and the Innocent," a 2012 book about child sex exploitation, said his 
goal is to target people who kill children under the age of 14 in the process 
of filming child pornography.

"I'm not really someone who has been supportive of the death penalty in Maine, 
but I think there are those rare circumstances when someone sexually assaults a 
child and it's recorded and they kill that child," Diamond said. "I think that 
is probably such an egregious category that we need to have something unusual. 
This is something unusual."

The bill, which has not yet been drafted, would align Maine and federal law, 
which allows for the death penalty for this type of criminal activity, Diamond 
said. The bill would allow a Maine judge to either sentence the convicted 
criminal to long jail sentences, or to impose the death penalty. Diamond said 
the bill would not call for the construction of a lethal injection facility in 
Maine, but would rather have criminals sent to out-of-state facilities.

Diamond said he is not aware of any instances of this type of crime ever 
occurring in Maine.

The Maine ACLU strongly opposes Diamond's bill, said Heiden.

"Maine repealed the death penalty more than 100 years ago and most Mainers 
think that was a good decision," Heiden said. "We are opposed to the death 
penalty categorically because it is always unjust and unfair. Beyond that, we 
believe it's unconstitutional. There's a lot of opportunity for improving 
Maine's criminal justice system, but the best way to do that isn't by imitating 
Louisiana and Texas."

Diamond said he accepts that many innocent people have been sentenced to death 
in states where the death penalty is allowed. The type of crime targeted by the 
bill is typically caught on film, Diamond said, making it less likely that 
innocents would be put to death.

"Don't forget these are all recorded," Diamond said. "That's good evidence."

Heiden also said it is incorrect to assume that the class of criminals targeted 
by Diamond's bill are rational.

"Clearly, the death penalty is not a good deterrent," Heiden said. "We need to 
invest more in teachers and social workers who help keep kids safe rather than 
spending all of our energy thinking about punishing people after kids have 
already been harmed. People who commit these crimes are not deterred by the 
threat of serious consequences. They don't approach these crimes rationally."

But to Diamond, the death penalty is an effective deterrent.

"Of course they're irrational, but that's not an excuse," he said. "I want 
Maine to make a statement that says we're not going to allow that, there are 
going to be consequences. I think it's a deterrent because somebody would 
rather be alive than dead."

Although Diamond expects his bill to face "an uphill battle" in the 
Legislature, he thinks the fight is worth it.

"I'm trying to pass the bill, but in that process we are going to be able to 
bring to the forefront and make the public more aware of how heinous this whole 
process is of child sexual assault via imaging and videos," he said.

Furthermore, Diamond said, he is receiving a lot of positive feedback from 
Lakes Region residents.

"Back home there's just a lot of people who support the idea," he said. "The 
feedback I'm getting is extremely high in favor of it."

(source: keepMEcurrent.com)








PENNSYLVANIA:

Death Penalty Sought in Burned Car Killing



A Pennsylvania district attorney is seeking the death penalty against a man 
charged with fatally shooting a man whose body was found in the trunk of burned 
car.

The defense attorney for 18-year-old Jonta Bishop, of Hagerstown, maintains 
Bishop shot 36-year-old James Deneen Jr. in self-defense. The Hyndman man was 
shot on September 25 before his body was stuffed into the car, which was then 
set on fire in Londonderry Township in south-central Pennsylvania.

But Bedford County District Attorney contends Bishop's self-defense claims are 
refused by the fact that Deneen was shot in the back of the head.

3 other people are accused of helping Bishop dispose of the body.

(source: nbcphiladelphia.com)








USA:

Justice Sotomayor questions deference to lower courts in death penalty cases



The state of Oklahoma killed a man Thursday night, the first since it botched 
the execution of another convicted murderer last year. This time, state 
officials said they would get it right, though the condemned man's protestation 
that "it hurt. It feels like acid," suggests that maybe they didn't.

"At some point we must question [lower court] findings of fact, unless we are 
to abdicate our role of ensuring that no clear error has been committed." - 
Sonia Sotomayor, U.S. Supreme Court justice

The drug was involved in three executions that went awry last year (though they 
are hardly the only ones), and the evidence is thin that it sufficiently 
sedates the condemned to avoid suffering as the 2nd and 3rd injections kill 
them. In Arizona, it took 2 hours for James Michael Woods to die using a 
protocol that included midazolam.

So why the glimmer of hope? It comes from Justice Sonia Sotomayor's dissent, 
which prods the court to take a closer look at the constitutionality of 
execution protocols given what seems to be clear scientific evidence that 
midazolam does not sedate to the extent that state executioners say it does. 
She also urges less deference to the lower courts when points of fact invite 
skepticism, as in the suspect defense of midazolam as a powerful sedative (the 
state's expert witness "cited no studies, but instead appeared to rely 
primarily on the Web site www.drugs.com for his research."). The full dissent 
is here, but I've included a key portion below:

"I am deeply troubled by this evidence suggesting that midazolam cannot 
constitutionally be used as the first drug in a three-drug lethal injection 
protocol. It is true that we give deference to the district courts. But at some 
point we must question their findings of fact, unless we are to abdicate our 
role of ensuring that no clear error has been committed. We should review such 
findings with added care when what is at issue is the risk of the needless 
infliction of severe pain. Here, given the evidence before the District Court, 
I struggle to see how its decision to credit the testimony of a single 
purported expert can be supported given the substantial body of conflicting 
empirical and anecdotal evidence.

"I believe that we should have granted petitioners' application for stay. The 
questions before us are especially important now, given States' increasing 
reliance on new and scientifically untested methods of execution. Petitioners 
have committed horrific crimes, and should be punished. But the Eighth 
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."

(source: Opinion, Los Angeles Times)