[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, IND., COLO., WYO., CALIF., ORE., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 23



OHIO:

Death penalty trial set to begin in 2 weeks



A man about to go on trial over accusations that he killed 2 people - and 
facing the dealth penalty for those crimes - decided to waive the jury and have 
3 judges consider the case.

Before Hager Church could put his choice on the record he changed his mind 
Thursday a couple times and finally told the judge he wants a trial by jury.

Church, 30, is scheduled to stand trial Feb. 3 on 2 counts of aggravated murder 
and aggravated arson in the June 14, 2009, house fire that killed Massie "Tina" 
Flint, 45, and her boyfriend, Rex Hall, 54. The fire was at a house at 262 S. 
Pine St.

The trial is expected to last 3 weeks.

The prosecution and Church's defense team heard the final round of jury excuses 
Thursday. Some people wanted to be excused for medical reasons, a wedding and 
old age. One woman wanted to take a grandchild to Disney World with the Make a 
Wish Foundation.

Another person was excused for having a felony conviction, an automatic 
disqualifier.

Church is serving a life sentence with no chance for parole for a separate case 
in 2010. He was convicted of beating a woman to death inside her home for a few 
dollars and costume jewelry.

(source: limaohio.com)

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

Ohio's death-penalty secrecy is wrong and must not be allowed to ake effect



Condemned murderer Charles Warner went to his death in Oklahoma earlier this 
month, but not before telling witnesses to his execution what he was feeling.

"My body is on fire." he said, although wintesses reported no signs of obvious 
distress.

Warner was given a 3-drug cocktail that killed him in about 18 minutes. The 2nd 
drug administered was a paralytic, which could have prevented Warner from 
expressing the true extent of the pain he may have gelt, claimed his lawyer.

Nobody knows for sure and Warner is dead, so we can't ask him.

Ohio has jettisoned a similar multidrug cocktail, last used to kill Dennis 
McGuire about a year ago in a prolonged procedure that Ohio Department of 
Rehabilitation and Correction Director Gary Mohr insists did not cause McGuire 
to suffer, although others disagree.

Ohio now plans to return to an old method -- a 1-drug protocl, either 
pentobarbital or sodium thiopental, drugs the state previously used until their 
manufacturers declined to continue providing them for executions -- but with a 
significant difference: The drugs will be concocted per largely secret deals by 
compounding pharmacies not subject to the same oversight as regular drug 
manufacturers.

The General Assembly passed an ill-advised law at the end of last year that 
allows the pharmacies to remain anonymous for 20 years after they stop doing 
business with the state, and the names of others involved in the process, such 
as doctors, to remain confidential forever even though the law has a 2-year 
sunset provision.

Such a law is repugnant and wrong. U.S. District Judge Gregory Frost should 
grant a recent request by 4 condemned Ohio inmates to prevent the law from 
going into effect in March, pending a final ruling on their lawyers' challenge 
to the law's constitutionaltiy.

There is no reason -- and much peril -- in trying to shield those who prepare 
death-penalty drugs from scrutiny. The drugs are being paid for with taxpayer 
funds -- meaning those contracts should be open to public review. Nor should 
the state try to shield medical personnel from professional sanctions in this 
manner.

This editorial board las long oppowed the death penalty on moral, practical and 
fairness grounds. If secrecy is the only way the state believes it can carry 
out the death penalty, then surely it is time to eliminate the death penatly 
altogether.

(source: Editorial, Plain Dealer)








INDIANA:

State senator pushes to expand death penalty reach to schools, campuses



An Indiana lawmaker wants to expand the reach prosecutors have to pursue the 
death penalty.

There are currently 16 factors prosecutors in the state can consider when 
pursuing the death penalty. Killing a child or a police officer are 2 of those 
factors, but there isn't one for location. Senator Brandt Hershman (R-Buck 
Creek) wants to change that to include schools and college campuses.

No one at the Indiana Statehouse could hear the bells that tolled on the Purdue 
University campus Wednesday.

They tolled for Andrew Boldt. The bells marked the 1 year anniversary of his 
on-campus killing.

"Safety has become something people think more about, therefore we need to 
provide them the tools and procedures to try to make them as safe as possible," 
Ronnie Wright, the director of Emergency Preparedness and Planning at Purdue 
University, told Eyewitness News Wednesday. "There are a number of factors to 
be considered in proposing the death penalty in Indiana. Committing murder on 
school grounds is not one of them," Hershman said.

So Cousins was sentenced to 65 years in prison after pleading guilty to Boldt's 
murder. Cousins then took his own life in a state prison last October.

"In this case, you are looking at a particularly vulnerable population. I think 
the public policy that we want our schools to be as safe as possible suggests 
that this makes sense," Hershman continued.

He is hoping it might be a future deterrent. He couldn't hear the bells tolling 
at Purdue on Wednesday. He just wants to make sure no one else has to hear them 
again either.

Senate Bill 385 has been assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee and could 
be up for a hearing as early as next week.

(source: WTHR news)

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

Indiana Senate backs death penalty for beheading crimes



A bill making intentionally decapitating someone a crime eligible for the death 
penalty has been approved by the Indiana Senate.

Senators voted 45-4 on Thursday in favor of the proposal.

Bill sponsor Sen. Brent Steele says current state law only allows prosecutors 
to seek the death penalty for anyone convicted of torturing or mutilation 
before a killing or decapitating someone who is already dead.

Death penalty opponents contend the measure isn't necessary and that capital 
punishment amounts to "recycling the violence."

The proposal now goes to the Indiana House for consideration.

(source: Associated Press)








COLORADO:

The hidden cost of the death penalty in Colorado. 9NEWS at 4 p.m. 01/22/15.

Following months of questioning by 9Wants to Know on how the state is spending 
money on death penalty cases, a pair of bipartisan state legislators have 
introduced legislation to bring more transparency to the Colorado Public 
Defender's Office.

The bill, yet to be introduced to a committee in the Colorado House, would 
compel the Colorado Public Defender as well as the Colorado Office of Alternate 
Defense Counsel to release more records under the Colorado Open Records Act 
(CORA).

In June of last year, 9Wants to Know filed multiple open records requests under 
CORA with the 18th Judicial District Attorney's Office, the Colorado State 
Courts, and the state public defender's office in an effort to better 
understand how taxpayer money is being spent in death penalty cases in 
Colorado.

The requests mostly centered on the case against theater shooter James Holmes 
who currently faces the death penalty in Arapahoe County for killing 12 and 
injuring 70 in 2012.

The CORA requests were fulfilled by both prosecutors and the state court 
system, but the public defender's office correctly cited case law as part of 
its reasoning for denying 9News' request.

HB 1101 seeks to tweak the law and open up more of the public defender's office 
records to the public.

"One of the arguments we hear all of the time is that the death penalty costs 
the state a tremendous amount of money. At this point I don't know how much is 
spent on it because there is no way that information is available," said Rep 
Rhonda Fields (D-Aurora), one of the bill's sponsors.

Rep. Fields' son was murdered by 2 men who currently sit on Colorado's death 
row.

"Why can't this basic information be provided? It's not anything that's 
supposed to be protected or something that's sensitive. It's basic information. 
I'm curious as it relates to how much was spent on my own son's trial, and I 
have don't have access to that information," said Rep. Fields.

Doug Wilson, the head of the Colorado Public Defender's Office, has declined 
numerous requests by 9News to comment on either the proposed legislation or the 
open record requests.

(source: KUSA news)








WYOMING:

Wyoming Senate approves fire squad death penalty



A bill passed the Wyoming Senate and is moving on to the House which will put 
into a law secondary form of execution: The firing squad.

Currently the state law has the gas chamber as the second option, but that 
poses a problem, because Wyoming doesn't have a gas chamber.

Sen. Bruce Burns said, "I don't have any great interest in if it's a firing 
squad or hanging or electrocution, the other part of the bill is more important 
which opens up the secondary form of execution."

Senator Burns says the majority of people in the state support the death 
penalty, but there is disapproval in the legislature, and house members are 
already speaking out against the bill.

Sen. Floyd Esquibel said, "To methodically execute someone goes against our 
human nature."

"We have made mistakes in this nation. We have executed innocent people which 
to me is unforgivable and the state should not in any way be in the business of 
executing innocent people," said Rep. Cathy Connolly.

Representative Connolly is sponsoring a bill in the house which abolishes the 
death penalty and imposes a maximum of life in prison for the most heinous 
crimes, which she says would immediately end the problems the Department of 
Corrections is seeing with trying to get lethal injection drugs. For some who 
voted in support of firing squads, they see this as an international issue.

The European Union is holding those drugs back.

In other words the European Union is trying to affect domestic policy in the 
United States.

There hasn't been an execution in Wyoming since 1992. This past November, a 
federal judge overturned the death sentence for the state's lone death row 
inmate, so even though an execution isn't likely in the near future Senator 
Burns says this execution bill will make sure steps are in place for when that 
time comes.

Representative Connolly says most Western democracies do not have the death 
penalty and argues abolishing it in Wyoming could save the state a lot of 
money.

(source: Fox news)



CALIFORNIA:

California's Chief Justice: 'Hard to Say the Death Penalty Is Working'



The 7 members of the California Supreme Court spend about 25 % of their time on 
death penalty appeals, an extraordinary allocation of scarce resources that no 
doubt frustrates them.

In an interview with KQED this week, I asked Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye 
to assess the state of capital punishment in California, given that there 
hasn't been an execution since 2006 even though there are more than 700 inmates 
on death row.

"It's difficult to say it's working," she said in her typically cautious 
manner. "And there's no talk in the state legislature of fixing it."

"Fixing it" would mean spending more public money to expedite appeals and 
reduce the average wait time of more than 20 years between convictions and 
executions. Faster executions? Of course that???s the last thing Democrats 
want.

In some ways Cantil-Sakauye has seen the high court shift leftward right out 
from under her. When Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger chose her to 
replace retiring Chief Justice Ronald George in 2010, the court had just one 
member appointed by a Democratic Governor - Carlos Moreno.

In Cantil-Sakauye's 1st week on the job, Justice Moreno announced he was 
leaving (perhaps because his dream of being Chief Justice himself had 
evaporated). Brown replaced him with UC Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu, 
whose nomination to the federal bench was scuttled by Republicans.

Since then Brown has named 2 more associate justices, Stanford law professor 
Mariano-Florentino Cuellar and federal government attorney Leondra Kruger. 
Things are changing at a fast enough pace that the court's website says "photo 
to come" next to the bios of Cuellar and Kruger.

Long Talks With Jerry Brown

None of Gov. Brown's nominees had any previous experience as judges. All 3 are 
Yale Law School grads like Brown. Will that matter?

"I think time will tell if that makes a difference or not," Cantil-Sakauye 
said, adding that Justice Liu was "a wonderful colleague and brilliant."

As for the other 2, "they appear so far to be very deferential to the trial 
courts and understanding of their role."

When asked what she thought Gov. Brown was looking for in appointing 3 
inexperienced (on the bench) justices she said thought the governor was looking 
for "new thinkers, bigger thinkers" on the bench. "It's a diversity of sorts 
he's looking for."

When Chief Justice Ronald George retired in the middle of the 2010 
gubernatorial election, he said he was stepping down so his replacement would 
be named by Gov. Schwarzenegger rather than Jerry Brown, who was widely favored 
to win.

It's doubtful Gov. Brown would have named Tani Cantil-Sakauye to the high 
court. Nonetheless she says, "I find him interesting and fascinating person and 
I can never judge where a conversation with him will go or where it will end. 
But it always lasts longer than we both anticipate."

(source: KQED news)








OREGON:

Trial in Cannon Beach killing set for late June 2016, mental health defense 
anticipated



A lawyer for Jessica Smith, the mother accused of killing her 2-year-old 
daughter and trying to kill her 13-year-old daughter in a Cannon Beach resort 
hotel last summer, said he'll likely pursue a mental health defense.

"I can very much anticipate filing motions concerning mental health issues," 
Smith's attorney, William Falls, said in court Thursday before the judge set a 
trial date for June 28, 2016.

Smith, 41, has pleaded not guilty to allegations of aggravated murder stemming 
from the July 31 drowning death of her younger daughter, Isabella, and 
attempted aggravated murder in the slashing of 13-year-old Alana.

Smith sat between her 2 defense lawyers in court. She was dressed in a bright 
yellow Clatsop County inmate suit, her wrists handcuffed together in front of 
her throughout the hearing. She wore makeup and had her long black hair in a 
bun, with a few curling locks falling against her cheeks.

She appeared to listen to the arguments, whispered to her lawyers at times and 
stood briefly and acknowledged to Clatsop County Judge Cindee Matyas that she 
waived her right to a speedy trial.

"Yes, I am your honor," she said, smiling at the judge, when Matyas asked if 
Smith was in agreement with the push by her lawyers to continue the case until 
next year.

Smith was taken into custody in August on a logging road off U.S. 26 shortly 
after the girls were discovered and gave a detailed interview to an FBI agent 
about what happened. The interview was recorded and videotaped, according to 
court records and testimony.

"This case is not much of a whodunnit," Clatsop County District Attorney Josh 
Marquis said as he questioned the need for the defense team to set a trial 
nearly 2 years from when the crimes occurred.

During most of the hearing, Marquis characterized two years as "way, way too 
long" and "kind of ridiculous." He pushed for a summer 2015 trial, citing 
concern for Alana Smith.

"Time goes by much much slower when you're 12, 13," he said.

Marquis and Jessica Smith's defense lawyers spent much of the time squabbling 
about the trial date.

The judge said she agreed that 2 years was too long and urged the 2 sides to 
reach a middle ground. Smith's lawyers then said they'd accept an April 2016 
date.

But Greg Smith, who lives in Washington and listened to the proceeding by 
phone, said he'd rather have the trial after his daughter could complete the 
school year.

"I think it would be preferable to wait," he said.

Alana Smith, had never attended school before her mother's arrest, is now 
enrolled in school for the first time and is in the custody of her father.

"We're trying to minimize the collateral damage to this child," Marquis said.

Though Marquis said he's not happy about having to wait, he told the court he 
wanted to respect the family's wishes.

Jessica Smith's lawyer signaled that he'd prefer to resolve the case before 
trial or proceed with a case in which the death penalty is removed as an 
option, leaving either life with the possibility of parole or a life sentence 
without the possibility of parole on the table.

Marquis said prosecutors have not decided yet whether to seek the death penalty 
because they have not received any discovery or mitigation information from the 
defense.

The defense must submit its discovery to the state by April 7. "I will furnish 
everything I can by that day, and hopefully get an ongoing dialogue (with the 
state) instead of this fussing back and forth," Falls told the court.

The defense lawyers asked for records from a second interview that Alana Smith 
gave to CARES Northwest forensic specialists in late December. The state 
expects to provide that material within 10 days.

Pretrial motions will be heard on May 12.

Falls and co-counsel Lynne B. Morgan have argued in court papers that defending 
Smith in a case that could bring the death penalty requires extensive 
preparation.

Marquis had urged the judge to give special consideration to Smith's surviving 
daughter.

The defense lawyers said they do not know what witnesses or experts they would 
call at Smith's trial because they're in the "very beginning" phase of 
preparing for a trial.

Marquis responded in a 5-page legal brief, pointing out that "experienced 
defense counsel" should already have a clear idea of what evidence the state 
will present at trial.

"This case is different than many in a couple of regards," Marquis wrote. "The 
state's discovery is virtually complete, and has been for months, giving 
experienced defense counsel a clear picture of what the state's evidence 
against their client will be and the names, addresses, and statements of 
witnesses, including substantial statements by their own client."

Marquis, in written documents, also argued that defense lawyers should not be 
allowed to file any legal papers with the judge contesting the trial date that 
are sealed, as defense lawyers had requested. Marquis said the defense can seek 
a delayed trial without having to disclose their trial strategy.

On Thursday, Falls did enter as an appellate exhibit a sealed envelope that he 
said contained information his team wanted to present to the court to preserve 
as evidence should an appeal ever be raised in the case. He said he was not 
asking the court to look at it now, and Judge Matyas said she had no intent to 
open it.

Cannon Police Chief Jason Schermerhorn discovered the girls on a king-sized bed 
in Room 3302 of the Surfsand Resort on the morning of Aug. 1 after housekeepers 
had knocked on the door and noticed blood inside.

Isabella Smith died of asphyxiation by drowning after she was heavily sedated 
with an over-the-counter antihistamine, the state medical examiner ruled. Alana 
Smith suffered cuts to her neck and wrists, and told medics that her mother had 
slit her throat and wrists with a razor blade, according to court documents. 
Alana Smith told authorities that her parents had separated in April. The 
children were set to have a visit with their father on the day they were 
discovered in the hotel room.

(source: The Oregonian)








USA:

100 jurors dismissed in Day 3 of Aurora theater shooting trial



The 3rd day of jury selection for the Aurora movie theater shooting trial ended 
Thursday with 100 jurors being dismissed, as attorneys on both sides began the 
hard work of poring over hundreds of juror questionnaires.

The reaJsons for releasing most of the jurors were not disclosed. As in 
previous days, a handful were dismissed because of medical issues, for not 
speaking English or for having a personal connection to the case.

Most of those dismissed came from the groups of jurors who filled out 
questionnaires on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning, when a combined 266 
jurors showed up for duty. That means dozens of jurors from those 2 groups will 
be called back for the second phase of individual questioning, which will begin 
in mid-February and will plod along at the pace of 18 jurors per day.

Sensing the slog, Judge Carlos Samour encouraged both sides to work together to 
release clearly unfit jurors from duty.

"Otherwise," Samour told the lawyers Thursday, "we're going to end up having 
individual questioning sessions with folks we all know from the get-go are not 
going to end up on this jury."

Though he said Thursday he thinks more jurors should probably be dismissed 
based on their questionnaires, Samour has previously said he will dismiss 
jurors at this initial stage only if both sides agree.

Hundreds more potential jurors filled out questionnaires at the courthouse 
Thursday, bringing the total number of jurors who have reported for duty in the 
case to around 665. In this 1st phase of jury selection, waves of potential 
jurors are expected to continue reporting to the courthouse for several weeks.

The questionnaires ask jurors for their views on the criminal justice system, 
the death penalty and mental illness. Jurors who say they have already made up 
their mind about the case and can't be fair are likely to be dismissed.

James Holmes faces 166 counts of murder, attempted murder and other offenses 
for the July 2012 attack on the Century Aurora 16 movie theater. Prosecutors 
are seeking the death penalty. Defense attorneys say Holmes was suffering a 
psychotic episode at the time of the attack.

(source: The Denver Post)