[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GA., OHIO, OKLA., ARIZ., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 27



GEORGIA----execution

Georgia Executes Warren Lee Hill Despite Low IQ Claim



A 2-time killer was executed in Georgia on Tuesday evening after his claim that 
he has the intellect of a child failed to sway the U.S. Supreme Court -- and 
his lawyer blasted his lethal injection as a "moral stain" on the justice 
system.

Warren Lee Hill, 54, was pronounced dead at 7:55 p.m. at the state prison in 
Jackson. He did not make a final statement and declined to request a special 
last meal, the Georgia Department of Corrections said.

"Today, the Court has unconscionably allowed a grotesque miscarriage of justice 
to occur in Georgia," Hill's lawyer, Brian Kammer said. "Georgia has been 
allowed to execute an unquestionably intellectually disabled man, Warren Hill, 
in direct contravention of the Court's clear precedent prohibiting such 
cruelty."

Hill was sentenced to death for the fatal beating of a fellow inmate in 1990. 
He was already serving a life sentence for murdering his girlfriend 5 years 
earlier. His lethal injection was first scheduled in 2012 and was postponed 3 
times for various appeals.

His lawyers had hoped a Supreme Court ruling last year that Florida's strict IQ 
cutoff for disability was illegal could be used to show that Georgia's standard 
-- which says disability must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt -- is also 
unconstitutional.

Less than an hour before the scheduled execution time, the high court rejected 
the challenge, with 2 justices dissenting.

"This execution is an abomination," Kammer said. "The memory of Mr. Hill's 
illegal execution will live on as a moral stain on the people of this State and 
on the courts that allowed this to happen."

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a challenge to Oklahoma's execution 
drugs that could affect lethal injections in other states - but Georgia uses a 
different chemical so that didn't affect Hill's case.

Meanwhile, a Texas appeals court issued a stay of execution for a death-row 
inmate tied to 5 murders. Garcia Glen White's lawyers had argued that cocaine 
use may have mentally impaired him, calling into question his decision to to 
ask for a lawyer while he was being interrogated. The defense also cited DNA 
testing that court suggest another suspect at the crime scene. The court did 
not say why it was granting White a reprieve.

Another Texas inmate denied a stay by state appeals court, Robert Ladd, has 
asked the U.S. Supreme Court to delay his execution on a mental disability 
claim. Ladd, who was convicted of killing a mother and 2 children in a 1978 
arson fire, is scheduled for a Thursday lethal injection.

Hill becomes the 2nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Georgia 
and the 57th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1983.

Hill becomes the 5th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA 
and the 1399th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

(source: Reuters and Rick Halperin)








OHIO:

Burris pleads guilty to murder, may face death penalty



Adam Burris pleaded guilty Monday to the December 2013 kidnapping and murder of 
26-year-old Kayla Thompson.

Despite his admission of guilt to 5 felonies - kidnapping, theft of a motor 
vehicle, attempted rape, aggravated robbery, and aggravated murder - Burris, 
33, could face the death penalty. A 3-judge panel will meet in mid-February to 
discuss if capital punishment should be considered, court records show.

Thompson, a pizza delivery driver and mother of 2, was reported missing around 
2 p.m. Dec. 26, 2013, after she failed to return from Burris' home. A sheriff's 
deputy responded to Thompson's last delivery on McPherson Avenue and spoke with 
a woman there. The woman reportedly said Burris left driving a pizza delivery 
vehicle.

Deputies used Burris' cellphone to track him, and Ohio State Highway Patrol 
troopers stopped him in the delivery vehicle on Interstate 70 in Guernsey 
County around 7:15 p.m. Burris eventually led detectives to Thompson's body 
near a boat ramp at Dillon State Park.

Guernsey County Prosecutor Daniel Padden said the kidnapping and murder are 
thought to have occurred at the McPherson Avenue address.

A competency evaluation was conducted last year, and Burris was deemed fit to 
stand trial, which was to begin Feb. 3.

Instead, 3 area judges - Judge David Ellwood, of Guernsey County; Judge Linton 
Lewis, of Perry County; and Judge Kelly Cottrill, of Muskingum County - are 
expected to convene Feb. 11 to decide whether to accept Burris' plea, then 
determine whether to pursue the death penalty, court records show. A 3-judge 
panel is mandated in all state cases involving a capital punishment 
specification, Padden said.

Ellwood had previously issued a gag order in the case. That order was lifted 
Tuesday, Padden said.

(source: Times Recorder)








OKLAHOMA:

Noted death penalty abolitionist seeks Oklahoma moratorium



Noted author and death penalty abolitionist Sister Helen Prejean is urging 
Oklahomans to reconsider the death penalty while the Supreme Court decides 
whether the state's lethal injection method is constitutional.

The Roman Catholic nun and author of the book "Dead Man Walking" joined a group 
of death penalty opponents Monday calling on Oklahomans to consider joining the 
18 states that have abolished it. The group also delivered more than 30,000 
online petition signatures to Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin's office.

Prejean is a spiritual adviser to Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip, 
who is scheduled to be executed Thursday for orchestrating the beating death of 
an Oklahoma City motel owner in 1997.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review Oklahoma's execution protocol, and 
the state has requested a stay.

(source: Associated Press)








ARIZONA:

Defense rests in penalty phase of Jodi Arias trial



Defense attorneys for convicted killer Jodi Arias have rested their case in the 
penalty phase of her trial in Phoenix without calling her back to the witness 
stand, court officials said on Tuesday.

Arias, 34, faces the death penalty for the 2008 killing of her ex-boyfriend, 
Travis Alexander, who was found in the shower of his Phoenix-area home, stabbed 
27 times, his throat slashed and shot in the face.

She says she was acting in self-defense while prosecutors said it was jealous 
rage. The former California waitress was found guilty of 2st-degree murder in 
May 2013 but the jury deadlocked on her sentence.

As part of her sentencing retrial that began in October, Arias spent parts of 2 
days in late October and early November testifying before jurors in Maricopa 
County Superior Court without the public or the media present for the 
proceedings.

The state's highest court later ruled that judge Sherry Stephens erred in 
closing the courtroom and that any additional testimony would be open and a 
transcript of her previous testimony also was released to the public.

It was not clear if the order that Arias' testimony be public was a factor in 
the decision by defense lawyers not to put her back on the witness stand. 
Neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys discuss the case with reporters.

The jury will be allowed to consider her partial testimony, officials said. 
Prosecutors did not get an opportunity to cross-examine her.

Arias had told jurors that she struggled to admit to herself that she killed 
Alexander, 30, and expressed remorse, according to the transcript.

Arias said her behavior following the murder was an attempt to hide her 
involvement in a bloody killing that gained nationwide attention.

The jury that found her guilty in 2013 quickly determined that she was eligible 
for the death penalty but deadlocked on her sentence.

The new jury, seated in October, will hear the rebuttal case from prosecutors 
looking to execute Arias for the crime. The sensational case is expected to 
last through this month.

If this jury cannot decide, Stephens will sentence Arias to life in prison or 
life with the possibility of parole after 25 years.

(source: Global Post)








USA:

After botched executions, states add secrecy to the lethal injection process



At least 3 horrifically botched executions last year - in Ohio, Oklahoma, and 
Arizona - heightened public alarm and revulsion at the risk of cruel and 
unusual methods of capital punishment. Short of abolishing the death penalty, 
the solution for states is to seek and ensure more humane methods. Instead, 
some are taking a sneakier, and constitutionally more suspect, route: dropping 
a veil of secrecy over executions.

The most recent example, and one of the most obnoxious, is legislation passed 
in a lame-duck session of Ohio's legislature last month following the 
shockingly bungled execution a year ago of Dennis McGuire, a convicted murderer 
who choked, gasped and writhed for 26 minutes before succumbing.

The law, signed just before Christmas by Gov. John Kasich (R), offers anonymity 
to compounding pharmacies that agree to manufacture the drugs used in state 
executions, as well as to others involved in carrying out executions. The bill 
would shield the identity of and public records pertaining to other medical and 
non-medical personnel who furnish supplies or administer the drugs used in 
executions.

The effect is to impose a gag order on potentially adverse reports that could 
inform the public debate over capital punishment. By making much relevant 
information secret, the law gives government accountability a black eye.

More than a dozen states have adopted similar laws and policies, and others are 
considering measures that are wildly overbroad.

A notable case is Virginia, where Gov. Terry McAuliffe's (D) administration has 
submitted a bill to the legislature that goes well beyond the Ohio law. The 
legislation, sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Richard L. Saslaw (D-Fairfax), 
would make practically everything about executions in Virginia a state secret - 
even the building in which they take place. The information would be exempt 
from the state's Freedom of Information Act and even off-limits to plaintiffs 
in most civil lawsuits.

It's hard to see the compelling need for that kind of blatant censorship, which 
in other states has been challenged by death row inmates, civil liberties 
groups and media outlets as an infringement on the First Amendment. Depriving 
the public of information on the dark side of capital punishment, and 
impoverishing the public debate, will not make botched executions any more 
palatable.

Taxpayers who provide the funds that pay for the drugs used in lethal 
injections deserve to know when mishaps occur. The fact that such mishaps might 
arouse public disgust does not justify granting anonymity to drug companies 
that enter into government contracts. If it did, states might conclude that any 
unpleasant news, and the resulting inconvenient public reaction, would occasion 
suspending the First Amendment.

The death penalty has been on a long and steady decline in America, with fewer 
states using it and those that retain it executing and condemning to death ever 
fewer prisoners. The fact that this trend has been impelled largely by public 
opinion is no excuse for shrouding ever-rarer executions under a cone of 
silence.

(source: Washington Post)