[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, MO., WASH., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 19



OHIO:

Attorney files to block new Ohio death penalty law----Says the new restrictions 
are nothing more than attempt to tamp down on death penalty protests



A lawsuit has been filed in federal court looking to block Ohio's new death 
penalty law from taking effect. That law shields pharmacies, drug companies and 
others involved in the process from being named publicly. It also makes sure 
the ingredients in the lethal injection are kept secret.

Tim Sweeney, the attorney who filed the suit, says the law is simply an attempt 
to suppress protests, boycotts and picketing.

"And it does it because the Ohio Legislature just doesn't like the fact that 
speech and advocacy has been effective, swaying the public and impacting the 
willingness of people to participate in lethal injection executions," says 
Sweeney.

The suit is not likely to be heard before the new law goes into effect. Ohio's 
Attorney General says his office will defend the new law in court.

(source: WKSU news)








MISSOURI:

The death penalty debate comes close to home



Since November 2013, when the state finally found a reliable supply of a lethal 
injection drug, Missouri has executed 12 men, 1 per month, skipping only last 
May and October. No. 13 is scheduled for 12:01 a.m. Jan. 28.

This editorial page has long opposed capital punishment in any and all 
circumstances. It is expensive - each case costs about $1 million more to 
prosecute than a capital case where the death penalty is not sought, according 
to 1 study. It serves no deterrent purpose. It can't help but be imposed 
arbitrarily and capriciously. Occasionally innocent people are put to death. 
Occasionally, executions are botched and inmates suffer cruel and unusual pain.

Those are logical and dispassionate arguments. We understand the passion that 
many people, particularly family members of victims, have for a more 
retributive form of justice. For them, that someone would be spared death and 
spend the rest of his life in prison just doesn't seem to match the pain and 
horror of the crime.

We understand that impulse particularly well in the case of Marcellus Williams, 
46, whom Missouri plans to inject with a lethal dose of pentobarbital next week 
at the state prison in Bonne Terre.

He killed one of our own.

Lisha Gayle was 42 when she was stabbed to death in her University City home on 
Aug. 11, 1998. 3 years earlier she had left her job as a reporter at the 
Post-Dispatch, telling friends that after 11 years as a reporter, she wanted to 
quit writing and talking about society's problems and do something personally 
to address them.

That was the way she was. Earnest and oh, so serious about her many causes. Her 
closest friends knew she had a goofy streak, but she was the type of person 
who, had they met under different circumstances, would have tried to help 
Marcellus Williams find a job and kick his drug problem.

Reporters and prosecutors like to use the phrase "brutal murder," as if there 
is some other kind. But Lisha Gayle was killed in a terribly awful way. It was 
a home invasion, and her purse, a laptop computer and some miscellaneous items 
were stolen. One of them, a Post-Dispatch ruler used to measure type sizes and 
column inches, would be found in Williams' car.

There was no forensic evidence linking him to the crime, but a jailhouse snitch 
and the woman who'd been his girlfriend at the time of the crime, testified 
that he'd confessed to them. He'd traded the laptop for drug money. The 
witnesses had details that hadn't been made public.

A St. Louis County jury convicted him of capital murder in 2001 and decided 
that death was a fitting punishment. Higher courts repeatedly have affirmed his 
guilt. Last week a federal judge ruled that his latest appeal, for a DNA search 
for other possible killers, was "frivolous."

In the penalty phase of Williams' trial, Lisha's family and friends stood 
silent on the question of whether they supported the death penalty. It would be 
surprising, in light of her other causes and passions, if Lisha herself was a 
death penalty supporter. However tragically ironic that would be, it's now 
tragically irrelevant.

Gallup reports that 63 % of U.S. adults now support the death penalty. The 
state of Missouri has been administering it at a furious pace, catching up on a 
backlog caused by years of turbulence and ineptitude. We can only hope that 
each time someone dies at the hands of the state, it brings some peace to the 
victims' families and friends.

Because there's no other excuse for it, not in a civilized society. It just 
feels that way.

(source: Editorial Board, St Louis Today)








WASHINGTON:

Opening arguments Tuesday in Seattle cop-killing trial



Opening arguments are scheduled Tuesday in Seattle in the trial of a man 
accused of killing a Seattle police officer on Halloween in 2009.

Christopher Monfort has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Prosecutors 
say they'll seek the death penalty if he's convicted.

Monfort is accused of ambushing Officer Tim Brenton and Officer Britt Sweeney 
as they sat in a patrol car. Sweeney survived and Monfort also is charged with 
attempted murder.

Monfort was wounded by police about a week later during his arrest in Tukwila. 
He is paralyzed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair.

(source: Associated Press)








USA:

Seeking Death Penalty Appears Set In Boston Bombing Trial



The focus of the Boston Marathon bombing trial figures to be as much on what 
punishment Dzhokhar Tsarnaev could face as on his responsibility for the 
attack.

With testimony expected to start later this month, the Justice Department has 
given no indication it is open to any proposal from the defense to spare 
Tsarnaev's life, pushing instead toward a trial that could result in a death 
sentence for the 21-year-old defendant.

In a deadly terror case that killed three people, including a child, and jolted 
the city, there may be little incentive for prosecutors who believe they have 
incontrovertible evidence to negotiate away their ability to seek the maximum 
penalty possible.

"There would be now, in my judgment, no reason for the government to reverse 
course and not let 12 citizens decide if the death penalty is appropriate," 
said Larry Mackey, a former Justice Department prosecutor involved in the case 
of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, who was executed in 2001.

The prospect of a death sentence, a rare punishment in the federal system, 
raises the stakes of a trial that will revisit in gory detail the 2013 attack 
that also injured more than 260. Should the jury find Tsarnaev guilty, it would 
then decide in a separate penalty phase whether he should be sentenced to 
death. Jury selection is underway and the judge has said he hopes to begin 
testimony on Jan. 26.

Only 3 federal inmates, including McVeigh, have been put to death since 2001. 
Recent botched executions at the state level have placed the practice under 
scrutiny, with President Barack Obama directing the Justice Department last 
year to investigate how the death penalty is applied across the nation.

Despite his own personal reservations about the death penalty, Attorney General 
Eric Holder says the government is committed to seeking that punishment for 
Tsarnaev. Prosecutors have cited factors including a "lack of remorse," the 
evident premeditation involved in the attack and allegations that Tsarnaev also 
killed an MIT police officer after the bombing that left an 8-year-old boy 
dead.

"The nature of the conduct at issue and the resultant harm compel this 
decision," Holder said in a statement last January.

There has been no indication the government has wavered in that decision, even 
though one of Tsarnaev's lawyers, Judy Clarke, has gotten prosecutors to spare 
the lives of multiple high-profile killers, including Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, 
Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph and Jared Loughner, who killed 6 people and 
wounded former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

But there's also no predicting how a trial will play out, including whether a 
conviction would result in a death sentence - particularly in liberal 
Massachusetts, which abolished its state death penalty in 1984. In a bid to 
save his life, defense lawyers may hope to cast Tsarnaev as an impressionable 
young man pressured into participating in the attack by his older brother, 
Tamerlan, who died after a firefight with police days after the bombing.

Gerald Zerkin, a Virginia defense lawyer who represented Sept. 11 conspirator 
Zacarias Moussaoui, who is now serving a life sentence, said there are obvious 
benefits for the government to accept a plea in death penalty cases, including 
to reduce the uncertainty of a trial and to spare victims and their loved ones 
from reliving the horrific facts of a case.

"You can get a resolution that is life without parole, and you could do it for 
a lot less money, a lot less time, a lot fewer resources" and without 
"re-traumatizing victims," Zerkin said.

Rob Owen, a professor who runs a death penalty case clinic at Northwestern 
University, said a death sentence will result in years of legal appeals whereas 
a guilty plea would presumably help the case fade faster from public attention.

But with the trial's opening arguments projected for later this month, any 
window for a deal to spare Tsarnaev's life has likely closed and there's little 
reason for the government to entertain the possibility, Mackey said.

"The calculus was done, I'm sure in this case, the day after the bombing, when 
people were faced full-front with the ugly scenario left on the streets of 
Boston," he said.

(source: Associated Press)