[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., ALA., TENN., OKLA., WYO., NEV., ARIZ., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 18



PENNSYLVANIA:

With absolute proof, I'm for speedy use of the death penalty



Regarding the question about Pennsylvania's death penalty, yes, I believe every 
state should have it. I'm sure it would stop a lot of this senseless killing of 
people.

If there is absolute proof - eyewitness, DNA - then yes, this person has 2 days 
of life left.

I wish someone with a brain would consider all the money that has to be paid 
for these people to enjoy the rest of their life in the lap of luxury. It's not 
fair to "We the People" nor to the families who lost their loved ones.

There's only one being who takes a life, and these people sure are not Him.

And let's not hear any excuses about maybe the killer being handicapped, on 
drugs or any other ridiculous excuse.

Just think of all the money that would be saved by not having to build bigger 
prisons. The people will enjoy holding onto some of their money instead of 
having to pay more taxes.

Somebody wake up and get this done.

DARLENE BENDER, Penn Twp., Perry Co.

(source: Letter to the Editor, pennlive.com)








ALABAMA----impending execution

2 months to live: man on death row for Sylacauga murder claims innocence



William Ernest Kuenzel turned 53 this month on Alabama's death row, where he 
has lived more than 1/2 his life.

That sentence could end March 19, the day prison officials plan to strap 
Kuenzel onto a gurney and inject him with an untried, but likely lethal, 
combination of drugs.

It's a process that doesn't bother most Alabamians, who live in a state with a 
homicide rate well above the national average, according to federal statistics.

But what if the man on the gurney is innocent? Many of the 194 people now on 
Alabama's death row claim it. Few have won over as many true believers as 
Kuenzel.

"The facts of this case present a powerful narrative. I think anyone who 
believes in a fair justice system can't help but get involved," said David 
Kochman, one of several lawyers working on Kuenzel's appeal.

Kochman says Kuenzel, formerly a welder at the Madix plant in Goodwater, was 
home asleep at the time of the 1987 murder that landed him in court and 
eventually in prison. Kochman will have 30 minutes to make that case to a state 
appeals court in April.

If the state doesn't execute Kuenzel first.

Deadly night

At about 11:30 p.m. Nov. 9, 1987, a worker at Joe Bob's Crystal Convenience 
Store in Sylacauga, arrived at work to find Linda Jean Offord suffering from a 
gunshot wound. Offord, a clerk at the store and divorced mother of 3, died on 
the way to the hospital, according to news accounts from the time.

Days later, police arrested Harvey Venn, an 18-year-old who was living with a 
co-worker, Kuenzel, in a house in Goodwater.

Venn initially told police he was at Joe Bob's the night of the murder with a 
school friend, David Pope, appeals court records show. He later said he went to 
the store with Kuenzel.

Venn told prosecutors - and, later, a jury - that he waited in his car outside 
the store while Kuenzel went in with a shotgun, wearing an orange ski mask. 
Venn said he heard a gunshot, saw Offord falling, and drove off after Kuenzel 
re-entered the car.

On the witness stand, Venn said Kuenzel intended to rob the store to "pick up 
some easy money," according to The Star's coverage of the trial.

"I asked him what he thought about it," Venn said of Kuenzel on the witness 
stand. "He said he'd be all right in a few days. He said it was a shame that 
she had to get killed over money that was not hers to begin with."

Daylight and dark

Kuenzel's lawyers said he wasn't even at the store at the time of the shooting. 
Several witnesses said they saw Venn's car at the store before the shooting, 
and some said they saw Venn and someone else in the car.

One witness, 16-year-old April Harris, told jurors she saw both Kuenzel and 
Venn inside the store while riding by, as a passenger in a car on Goodwater 
Highway.

There was also Tony McElrath, a Sylacauga resident whose testimony seemed to 
contradict itself. Before the trial, transcripts show, he told defense 
investigators that he saw Venn shoot Offord. On the stand, he indicated that 
Kuenzel was the shooter. He also said he saw the shooting at "about 3" - even 
though all evidence showed the the shooting occurred after 11 p.m. McElrath 
didn't provide a clear answer when asked if the shooting occurred in daylight 
or dark.

Even prosecutor Robert Rumsey didn't seem to see McElrath as a credible 
witness.

"Tony McElrath did not see the shooting," Rumsey said in closing arguments. 
"Because when the shooting took place, Kuenzel had that ski mask on."

Blood on pants

Prosecutors said a 16-gauge shotgun was used to kill Offord. Kuenzel's 
stepfather, Glenn Kuenzel, owned a 16-gauge, and a spent shell was found in a 
garbage can outside the home Kuenzel and Venn shared.

And then there were the pants. Venn had blood on the pants he wore the night of 
the shooting. In court, prosecutors said the blood was Offord's, and according 
to transcripts, Venn couldn't explain how the blood got there.

That was the only blood found outside the convenience store, transcripts show. 
There was no blood on the shotgun, and no fingerprints were recovered from the 
weapon.

To Kochman and other friends of Kuenzel, the case looks like prosecutorial 
dealmaking gone tragically wrong. Venn testified against Kuenzel to get a 
lighter sentence, Kuenzel's supporters say. Kuenzel was also offered a deal, 
Kochman said, but refused to take it precisely because he was innocent.

"He wasn't going to take a plea for something he didn't do," Kochman said.

Rumsey, the former district attorney, declined comment on the case.

"I had a rule then, and I still have it today, that if a case is in appellate 
court, I won't discuss it," said Rumsey, who now practices law in Sylacauga.

Pleas and deals

In exchange for his testimony, Venn got a non-capital murder charge. He was 
released after 10 years in prison. Court records show he's recently divorced, 
with kids, and living in Sylacauga. Family members who answered the door at his 
last known address said they didn't know where he was.

"He's not going to tell you anything," said Venn's sister, Lisa Sanders. "The 
district attorney advised him not to talk." Asked if that DA was Rumsey, she 
said the advice came from the man who was DA at the time of the trial.

Without a plea deal, Kuenzel was sentenced to death. Among the people who spoke 
at Kuenzel's sentencing was Orie Goggins, a prison inmate who told jurors 
Kuenzel had bribed him to say he was with Venn on the night of the shooting. 
Kuenzel and his mother, Barbara, would both later plead guilty to perjury and 
bribing a witness.

The perjury plea doesn't dim Kochman's faith in his client. Barbara Kuenzel 
didn't trust the justice system, he said, and did the wrong thing in an attempt 
to clear her son's name. Kuenzel accepted a guilty plea, Kochman claims, to get 
a lesser sentence for his mother. Attempting to bribe Goggins was a bad move on 
Barbara Kuenzel's part, Kochman said, but her motives "were not inconsistent 
with her son's innocence."

"These were hapless efforts by unsophisticated people," Kochman said. "We own 
it, though."

'I couldn't make out for sure'

A seeming breakthrough in the case came in 2010, when Kuenzel's attorneys 
gained access to transcripts of the grand jury proceedings that led to 
Kuenzel's indictment.

In those transcripts, April Harris - the 16-year-old who testified about what 
she saw from a passing car - couldn't place Kuenzel at the scene of the crime.

"I know that there were people in the store but I couldn't make them out for 
sure whether it was Harvey Venn and William Kuenzel or not," Harris said, 
according to the transcript.

"There's no reason to believe her trial testimony over her grand jury 
testimony," Kochman said.

Harris, now April Harris Collier, still lives in Sylacauga. She declined to 
talk about the case.

"I've been advised by the district attorney not to discuss my testimony," she 
said in a brief telephone conversation. "I feel very uncomfortable that you 
would call me at home when I've received threats." She didn't say who was 
threatening her, or when those threats occurred.

Rumsey said he never told any witness in the case not to speak to the press.

"Witnesses, it would be their right to talk or not to talk," said Rumsey. He 
said he, too, gets calls about the case, mostly from reporters from New York 
and other out-of-state locations.

While Keunzel's case is relatively unknown in Alabama, he clearly has a 
following elsewhere. Sam Waterston, the actor best known for his role as a 
prosecutor in the television show "Law and Order," narrated an animated 
Internet video that outlines Kuenzel's side of the case. Websites, Facebook 
pages and online petitions have popped up to call for Kuenzel's release.

There's little past media coverage of Offord's relatives. A few current 
Sylacauga residents with the same surname told The Star they weren't sure they 
were related, and the Star's attempts to find her 3 children were not 
successful.

A final appeal

Kochman took Kuenzel's case, with the new grand jury transcripts, to a federal 
appeals court in 2012. A 3-judge panel rejected it, and the U.S. Supreme Court 
later declined to hear the case.

A spokesman for Alabama attorney general's office, which has handled the case 
on appeal, said the office has no more comment on the matter.

"Kuenzel has completed the appeals process, the federal courts have examined 
his claim and rejected it and an execution date has been set," spokesman Mike 
Lewis wrote in an e-mail to The Star. "We have no further comment on the case."

Earlier this month, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals scheduled a hearing 
that could be Kuenzel's last chance to make his case - though Kuenzel may not 
even get that hearing. The April 7 court date is more than 2 weeks after 
Kuenzel's scheduled execution. Kochman says he'll seek a stay of execution, and 
hopes his client will eventually be freed.

"Bill's a young man," he said. "He still has some time left. He still can 
experience life."

(source: Anniston Star)








TENNESSEE----stay of impending execution

Tennessee Stays Execution of Stephen West Scheduled for February 10, 2015



Stephen Michael West was scheduled to be executed at 7:10 pm CST, on Tuesday, 
February 10, 2015, at the Riverbed Maximum Security Institute in Nashville, 
Tennessee. Stephen has been granted as stay of execution. 62-year-old Stephen 
has convicted of the rape and murder of 51-year-old Wanda Romines and her 
daughter 15-year-old Sheila on March 17, 1986, in Lake City, Tennessee. Stephen 
has spent the last 27 years on Tennessee's death row.

Stephen was born in a mental institution, where his mother was hospitalized. 
According to Stephen's sister, Stephen was abused by his mother as a child. 
Stephen's father was an alcoholic who became violent when he drank. Stephen 
graduated high school, where he was an honor student and never had any 
disciplinary problems. Stephen joined the military and served for 3 years in 
Germany. According to Stephen's attorney, his military records showed that 
Stephen had a drug and alcohol problem during his service. Stephen had no 
criminal record. At the time of his arrest, Stephen was married and his wife 
was pregnant. Prior to his arrest, Stephen worked at McDonalds.

On March 17, 1986, then-23-year-old Stephen West and 17-year-old co-worker 
Ronnie Martin left their job and drove around for several hours, drinking. 
Martin, in whose car they were driving, eventually suggested to West that he 
knew a girl. Martin and West drove to the home of Sheila Romines, 1 of Martin's 
classmate who had previously refused his advances and embarrassed him in front 
of other students.

The 2 waited outside of the home until Mr. Romines left for work. They then 
knocked on the door to the Romines' home shortly after 5:20 am and were let in 
by Sheila's mother, Wanda. Between 6:00 am and 8:30 am, Wanda and Sheila were 
raped and murdered. Wanda received several deep stab wounds and torture-type 
wounds, according to a forensic pathologist. Sheila received 17 stab wounds in 
the abdomen, 14 of which were torture-type wounds. It was also determined that 
2 different knives were used, likely by 2 different people.

West and Martin were arrested the following day. Each was charged separately. 
Martin was too young to receive the death penalty and was given 2 life 
sentences. West claimed that although he was present for the crime, he did not 
participate in the murders. He also alleged that Martin threatened to kill him 
and his wife he went to the police. West was ultimately sentenced to death.

Stephen West has been granted a stay of execution due to an ongoing legal 
battle over the state's execution protocol.

Please pray for peace and healing for the family of Wanda and Sheila Romines. 
Please pray for the family of Stephen. Please pray that if Stephen is innocent, 
evidence will be presented before he is executed. Please pray that Stephen will 
come to find peace through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, if he has 
not already.

(source: The Forgiveness Foundation)








OKLAHOMA:

Oklahoma plans to continue use of lethal cocktail in executions



The Oklahoma Corrections Department plans to continue using the same 3-drug 
cocktail it did in Thursday's execution of Charles Warner and the lethal 
injection of Clayton Derrell Lockett in April.

The state has the drugs necessary to carry out the 3 executions currently 
scheduled for this year, and it plans to do so using the same drug combination 
utilized Thursday in the lethal injection of Charles Frederick Warner, a state 
Corrections Department spokesman confirmed Friday.

Warner's execution was the first death sentence carried out in Oklahoma since 
April, when the state botched the lethal injection of Clayton Derrell Lockett, 
causing him to convulse and speak after he had been declared unconscious. A 
state investigation later found an improperly placed IV to be the central 
problem that occurred that night.

Warner's execution was delayed repeatedly due to both legal wrangling over the 
use of the most controversial drug in the state???s three drug lethal cocktail 
- midazolam - and difficulties the state faced procuring the necessary drugs. 
Warner died 18 minutes after his execution began, and media witnesses reported 
no significant convulsing or evidence of pain, which would have been a 
violation of Warner's constitutional protections against cruel and unusual 
punishment.

Jerry Massie, spokesman for the state Corrections Department, said the state 
plans to use the same cocktail used in both Warner's and Lockett's executions, 
unless more preferable drugs can be acquired. Department Director Robert Patton 
testified in December in federal court that his agency would prefer to use 
pentobarbital or sodium thiopental in place of midazolam, however, those drugs 
have become increasingly difficult for corrections departments across the 
nation to acquire.

Midazolam has been used in other controversial executions in the United States. 
The state plans to use the drug in the lethal injection of Richard Eugene 
Glossip on Jan. 29. Glossip received the death penalty for orchestrating the 
murder of Barry Alan Van Treese in 1997.

Mark Henrickson, an attorney representing Glossip, said even though Warner's 
execution was not botched like Lockett's, he is not convinced midazolam is a 
proper sedative to use in lethal injections.

"I predict that if they continue using this drug cocktail they will have other 
outrageous tortured executions as they have in other parts of the country," 
Henrickson said.

Justices plan meeting

Warner's execution was further delayed Thursday night as the state waited for 
the U.S. Supreme Court to make a decision on a final appeal for a stay from 
Warner's attorneys. While the stay was denied, the 5 to 4 vote was enough to 
require the justices to consider the use of the drug in executions in Oklahoma. 
The court will meet to discuss that later this month.

"What that tells us is that there are enough justices on the court that think 
there might be something very wrong going on here with these types of drugs," 
said Brady Henderson, legal counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union of 
Oklahoma.

Henderson said while the Supreme Court will be reviewing the state's execution 
process, it does not mean there will be a moratorium on lethal injections, and 
executions could continue during those discussions between the justices.

"It makes one think," Henderson said, "if the Supreme Court is reviewing 
something that could potentially have problems, we as a state should ask, 
should we continue with the process?"

John Marion Grant is also scheduled to die Feb. 19, and Benjamin Robert Cole 
Sr. is scheduled for execution March 5.

(source: The Oklahoman)




WYOMING:

Advocates say death penalty in Wyoming should be abolished



In most capital murder cases, jurors in Wyoming prefer life imprisonment 
instead of imposing the death penalty, a veteran Cheyenne defense attorney said 
during a program advocating abolishment of the death penalty.

"We've had 2 people executed in the last 40 years in Wyoming," attorney David 
Serelson said, despite many cases where the state sought the death penalty.

"There is not one person in Wyoming on death row right now," Serelson said. "We 
have evolved as a society. Our laws need to reflect that."

Serelson was 1 of 4 panelists who spoke Saturday about abolishing the death 
penalty during a program sponsored by the Wyoming Association of Churches and 
the Catholic Diocese of Cheyenne.

The program called attention to the death penalty in Wyoming and to House Bill 
97, a new bill in the state Legislature that aims to abolish it.

The Wyoming Tribune Eagle reports (http://bit.ly/1GeZ9mx ) that the bill 
proposes that the maximum penalty for 1st-degree murder would be life in prison 
or life in prison without parole.

Gov. Matt Mead, a former state and federal prosecutor, has said he believes 
Wyoming should keep the death penalty.

In addition to Serelson, other people on the panel were Rick Martinez, deputy 
director of Legal Aid of Wyoming; Father Carl Gallinger of St. Joseph's 
Catholic Church in Cheyenne; and Aaron Lyttle, a Cheyenne lawyer who fought for 
the freedom of Andrew Johnson, a man wrongfully imprisoned for 23 years. 
Johnson recently was exonerated as a result of DNA testing.

Lyttle said he worries about people who are convicted for crimes they did not 
do.

"We know that people are wrongfully convicted and that it happens more than 
traditionally assumed," he said.

(source: Associated Press)








NEVADA----new death sentence//foreign national

Family of Pinoy on death row begs for PNoy's help



Minutes before he was handed down the death sentence, 29-year-old Filipino 
national Ralph Simon Jeremias continued to plead innocence.

Family members were devastated.

"It's really hard. Each day is so hard. Each minute is so hard and difficult. 
Now my son is in the system that [he] is wrongfully convicted. President 
Aquino, Vice President Binay, please help him. I'm begging for you. A life for 
another life and I believe he didn't commit this crime. He is really innocent. 
Please I beg of you," said Jeremias' mother, Beth Simon Daniels.

Months earlier, Jeremias was convicted of 1st degree murder in the execution 
style killing of Paul Hudson and Brian Stevens in 2009.

Now he is scheduled for execution mid-April this year.

Nevada's chief deputy prosecutor David Stanton said that justice has been 
served for the victims.

"I think the final chapter is if and when the jury's verdict is actually 
carried out and they get invited by the Director of the Department of 
Corrections to go witness the execution," said Stanton.

Stanton believes that Jeremias's case is not a racial issue.

Jeremias' defense attorney Patrick Clark continues to argue that the death 
penalty must be re-examined for his case.

"We have the best appellant lawyer in the state on our team who's working on 
the appeal for this. Hopefully, the Supreme Court will find some error in it," 
said Clark.

After 6 years of being locked up at the Clark County Detention Center, Jeremias 
will be transferred next week to High Desert Nevada State Prison for 30 days of 
isolation before moving to death row in Ely, Nevada.

(source: ABS-CBNnews)








ARIZONA:

Court Releases Transcript From Jodi Arias Secret Testimony in Death Penalty 
Trial



Transcripts from the secret testimony Jodi Arias gave last October in a 
closed-courtroom were finally released Tuesday, weeks after an appeals court 
overturned a judge's decision to bar the public and media from the courtroom 
while Arias was on the stand.

The transcripts revealed the convicted murderer showed remorse for killing her 
ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, during her secret testimony on Oct. 30, 2014. 
She also talked about being abused in her past and her passion for art and 
photography.

She began her testimony by acknowledging she killed Alexander and expressed 
regret at the pain she caused his family. She also said she did not admit she 
murdered Alexander until 2 years later, reports AZ Central.

"This is somebody that I cared about and I caused ... I caused that pain, and 
those were his last moments and it makes me sick and I wish ... I wish so badly 
that I could just do that whole day over again," Arias said, according to the 
KPHO.

The 34-year-old also told jurors she regretted lying to police and leaving 
Alexander a misleading voice mail in order to cover up her tracks.

"By the time I made the phone call, I realized that I had done something very 
bad," Arias said. "I couldn't remember details, but I knew ... I had a very 
heavy feeling, and I knew that I had done something bad. So that phone call was 
the beginning of when I started to try to cover my tracks."

While on the witness stand, Arias said she was physically abused by her parents 
and former boyfriends.

After Judge Sherry Stephens banned the media and public out of the Maricopa 
County Superior Court last year, a media coalition filed an appeal to re-open 
the public courtroom. The attorney representing the media argued conducting a 
trial behind closed doors and shrouded in secrecy would set a new precedent in 
the U.S. legal system. The Arizona Court of Appeals agreed and overruled Judge 
Stephens' decision to block the media and public from hearing the testimony.

It was later revealed Arias refused to testify in open court because she 
received death threats and feared for her life. Her lawyers also claimed media 
coverage of her testimony would affect her ability to think and answer 
questions in a manner "she truly means."

Although Arias was found guilty of 1st-degree murder last May in the gruesome 
death of her ex-boyfriend, jurors in her 1st trial failed to reach a unanimous 
decision on her sentencing. As a result, the retrial will determine whether she 
should be sentenced to death, life in prison or life with a chance of release 
after serving 25 years.

(source: Latin Post)








USA:

Political questions swirl around Holmes prosecutor



As jury selection begins in the trial of the alleged Aurora theater gunman, 
many are focused on the top prosecutor in the case, George Brauchler.

Brauchler was elected District Attorney 4 months after the 2012 attack. But he 
has made pivotal decisions as the case slowly approached its trial date. Some 
Republicans also want him to run for U.S. Senate next year or governor in 2018.

Speculation about Brauchler's political future has hung over the trial. He 
became a political celebrity for attacking Colorado's Democratic governor over 
weakness on the death penalty. Some critics think that's why Brauchler's office 
is insisting on the death penalty for defendant James Holmes rather than 
cutting a plea deal.

But Brauchler's defenders argue if anyone deserves the death penalty, it's 
Holmes.

(source: Associated Press)