[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MO., OKLA., NEB., WYO., UTAH, NEV., HAW.

[Rick Halperin]

July 1



MISSOURI:

Chief Justice: executions don't reflect on her term, Missouri high court's 
ideology


According to the outgoing Chief Justice of Missouri's Supreme Court, it isn't 
because of her ideology, or that of the Court, that Missouri has resumed 
executions in earnest.

Missouri has executed four people this year and 16 since November, 2013, with 
the state Supreme Court having set 1 execution date per month in that span. 
Missouri last year executed 10 inmates; as many as Texas.

Mary Rhodes Russell has been Chief Justice during that time. Her term in that 
role expires today. Speaking about the legacy of her term, Russell said there 
are 2 factors that led to that series of executions.

"There's been a backlog of people with the death penalty with appeals pending 
in the federal courts. Some of those appeals were pending and stayed because of 
a controversy over the method of execution, the drug that was to be used," said 
Russell."When those individuals with pending appeals had their cases heard and 
their cases resolved and their appeals exhausted, and the Department of 
Corrections went with pentobarbital as the drug of execution and it seemed to 
pass federal court constitutional standards, or muster, then there was a method 
of execution that was accepted and there were a number of people who had been 
backlogged whose appeals were exhausted."

Russell said once those 2 circumstances were in place, the Attorney General's 
office began filing motions for the setting of execution dates for those men.

"It's required by law that the Supreme Court shall set execution dates. It's 
not that we agree or disagree with the death penalty," said Russell. "It's the 
law and when we take the job to be a judge on the Supreme Court we take an oath 
to follow the law. Whether we like the law, which is written by the 
legislature, that's their policy. We're required to follow the law and do our 
job in the process."

Missouri is next scheduled to execute David Zink on July 14, for the 2001 
murder of Amanda Morton of Strafford.

(source: missourinet.com)






OKLAHOMA:

Defense tells Oklahoma court that death row inmate convicted of 3 deaths should 
get retrial


A defense attorney for an inmate who was convicted in the 2010 deaths of a 
south-central Oklahoma woman and her two children urged an appeals court 
Tuesday to reverse his death sentence because legal errors tainted his trial.

Attorney Michael Morehead of the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System said Shaun 
Michael Bosse, 32, of Blanchard, should get a new trial because prosecutors 
implied to jurors that Bosse's refusal to allow a warrantless search of his 
pickup truck was evidence of his guilt.

"Mr. Bosse exercised his constitutional right," Morehead told the Oklahoma 
Court of Criminal Appeals. Federal courts have ruled that a person's refusal to 
permit a search of their property under the Fourth Amendment's prohibition 
against unreasonable searches and seizures cannot be used against them.

"Mr. Bosse has an absolute right to refuse consent," Morehead said. "He wrote 
'refused' on the consent form. Mr. Bosse did assert his right at the relevant 
time."

Assistant Attorney General Thomas Tucker denied that errors occurred in Bosse's 
2012 trial, during which he was convicted of 3 counts of 1st-degree murder and 
1 count of 1st-degree arson for the deaths of 25-year-old Katrina Griffin and 
her children, 8-year-old Christian Griffin and 6-year-old Chasity Hammer.

Their bodies were discovered inside their burned-out mobile home in the rural 
McClain County town of Dibble. Evidence at Bosse's trial indicated that Griffin 
died from multiple sharp force trauma, and Christian from multiple stab wounds. 
Chasity died from smoke inhalation and burns in the fire.

Bosse refused a law enforcement request to search his vehicle shortly after the 
victims' bodies were discovered. Investigators suspected it contained items 
that were taken from the victims' mobile home.

Tucker said Bosse's initial refusal was diminished by his eventual agreement to 
allow the vehicle to be searched, after its contents had been removed. 
Prosecutors at his trial referred to his initial refusal and eventual consent 
to search during closing arguments to the jury.

"It was not error," Tucker said.

But Morehead said the commentary amounted to constitutional error that merits a 
new trial for Bosse.

"That was improper comment on his exercise of a constitutional right," Morehead 
said.

Appellate judges said they will study the issue and did not indicate when they 
may hand down a ruling.

McClain County District Attorney Greg Mashburn, who prosecuted the case, 
listened to the arguments from the court's gallery and said afterward he does 
not expect Bosse's conviction and sentence to be overturned.

"I just look forward to seeing what the court does," Mashburn said.

During closing arguments at Bosse's trial, Mashburn said there was more than 
enough circumstantial evidence to prove Bosse committed the crimes, including 
the presence of the victims' blood on Bosse's clothing, scratches on his 
knuckles and arm and pawn tickets in his wallet indicating he hocked some of 
the nearly 140 items taken from the family's home.

(source: Associated Press)






NEBRASKA:

Former death row inmate died of rare salivary gland cancer


A man who spent 30 years on Nebraska's death row for 2 cult murders died of a 
rare cancer in his salivary glands, according to a death certificate obtained 
Tuesday.

A death certificate released to The Associated Press lists the cause of death 
for Michael Ryan as "metastatic carcinoma of parotid gland origin." Ryan died 
May 24 at the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution in southeast Nebraska.

He was convicted in the 1985 torture and killing of 25-year-old James Thimm at 
a farm near Rulo, where Ryan led a cult, and in the beating death of Luke 
Stice, the 5-year-old son of a cult member. He was sentenced to death in 
September 1985.

State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha told a legislative committee in March that 
Ryan suffered from terminal brain cancer. It's not clear whether the cancer had 
spread.

A corrections department mug shot of Ryan released shortly before his death 
showed him with a protrusion on part of his left cheek and neck, covered by a 
large bandage.

The death certificate says Ryan, 66, died roughly a year after the disease's 
onset and was cremated on June 2 in Omaha. Salivary gland cancers make up less 
than 1 % of all cancers in the United States, according to the American Cancer 
Association.

A grand jury will still review Ryan's death, as state law requires for all 
inmates who die while in custody. Johnson County Attorney Rick Smith, whose 
jurisdiction includes the prison, said Tuesday that the grand jury has not yet 
been convened because the cause of death has not been certified to a district 
court.

Ryan's son, Dennis Ryan, and cult member Timothy Haverkamp were sentenced to 
life in prison for 2nd-degree murder in Thimm's death. Authorities have said 
Dennis Ryan fired the gun that killed Thimm after days of torture.

The younger Ryan was later released from prison after winning a new trial and 
being convicted of the lesser charge of manslaughter. Haverkamp was released 
from his prison in 2009 after serving 23 years of a 10-years-to-life sentence.

The Ryans and about 20 cult members lived on the farm. The group hated Jews and 
stored weapons in preparation for a final battle between good and evil, 
authorities have said. Ryan told his followers that Thimm had angered their 
god.

Nebraska has only carried out four executions since 1973, largely because of 
court challenges and complications in obtaining the legally required drugs for 
lethal injections. Ryan's case was frequently mentioned in public debates over 
the death penalty and the state's method of execution. Nebraska lawmakers 
abolished the death penalty in May, despite Gov. Pete Ricketts' veto.

A group heavily financed by Ricketts, Nebraskans for the Death Penalty, has 
started gathering signatures to try to preserve capital punishment by placing 
it on the 2016 general election ballot.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Smith, Chambers at odds over death penalty


State Sen. Ernie Chambers is at odds with Madison County Attorney Joe Smith, 
referring to him as "The Bungler" and alleging that Smith cost taxpayers at 
least $1.3 million.

Chambers sent the Daily News a copy of a June 25 memo he wrote in which he 
criticizes Smith after the county attorney was featured in a newspaper article 
saying the Legislature's repeal of the death penalty in Nebraska was a 
disgrace.

Chambers was one of the leading proponents of repealing the death penalty.

When asked about the memo Monday, Smith took issue with Chambers' statements 
and questioned the newsworthiness of the memo itself.

"I'm not sure that anybody in the state should respond to a state senator when 
they say something silly like that," Smith said.

The focus of Chambers' comments was the prosecution of the suspects in the U.S. 
Bank shootings in Norfolk. The senator alleges Smith refused to allow the U.S. 
Attorney's office to prosecute the individuals, "thereby heedlessly and 
needlessly costing (Madison) County taxpayers at least $1.3 million and 
ensuring years of appeals in an admittedly broken, ineffectual state system of 
capital punishment."

If the U.S. bank cases had been prosecuted on the federal level, the federal 
government would have responsible for the cost, rather than Madison County.

But Smith said Chambers is misinformed.

The primary reason Smith said he decided to prosecute the cases was that he was 
going to seek the death penalty. "That was primary. But even if I hadn't been 
seeking the death penalty, and even if the feds had been willing to take it as 
a death penalty (case), I would still have to consider the fact that it 
happened here and these were citizens of the county."

Smith said it's possible that federal prosecutors would not have sought the 
death penalty.

"I know a couple of days after the homicides, some federal prosecutors came 
down and were given a full briefing by Norfolk Police Division. (Federal 
officials) are entitled to a briefing, too," Smith said. "I could prosecute, 
they could prosecute, we could both prosecute. Either way, I chose to prosecute 
and they didn't. I wanted the death penalty, not because I'm fond of the death 
penalty, but because I was in a bank with five dead citizens and blood on all 
the walls. ... The death penalty has a place. It's always had a place.

Chambers said he believes Smith's professional judgment and moral vision "are 
beclouded by his bitter, personal and vengeful attitude. ... It, furthermore, 
exemplifies the unseemly distorting and corrupting influence of the death 
penalty on official and public morals."

Smith said that comment is "almost nonsensical."

"I will say certainly that seeking the death penalty after murderers kill 7 
people and to expect that nobody would do anything, that public officials would 
just ignore that, is inane." The 7 people is a reference to the fact that, 
subsequent to the U.S Bank cases, 2 more deaths were attributed to some of the 
same suspects.

(source: Norfolk Daily News)

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

Anti-Death Penalty Activists Are Winning The Fundraising Battle In 
Nebraska----In May, the state abolished the death penalty. Now, the fundraising 
race is on between groups trying to put the death penalty up for a statewide 
vote - or keep it off the ballot.


After the Nebraska legislature successfully abolished the death penalty in the 
state, an expensive battle has begun to bring it back. But so far, the side 
against the death penalty is winning the fundraising battle.

The money is all about the potential for a statewide vote on the death penalty.

In May, the state's conservative legislature narrowly overruled Republican Gov. 
Pete Rickett's veto of the measure that abolished the death penalty. Ricketts 
vowed there would be a referendum to give voters the option to bring it back. 
Nebraskans for the Death Penalty will need to collect 57,000 signatures by 
August to get the vote on the ballot. If they can manage to collect 114,000 
signatures, the death penalty will remain on the books until voters weigh in.

The group estimates that it would need to spend about $900,000 to do so. So 
far, though, the group has been outraised by an organization opposing the death 
penalty referendum, according to campaign finance reports filed with the 
Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission.

Nebraskans for the Death Penalty raised $259,744 - and more than 75% of that 
came from the governor's family. Ricketts and his father, the founder of TD 
Ameritrade, have given $200,000 to the group.

Another $10,000 was given to the pro-death penalty organization by an Omaha 
police union.

Nebraskans for the Death Penalty has spent almost all of the money it has 
currently raised in starting the signature collecting process. The group has 
$26,000 in cash remaining, but has $25,000 in unpaid legal and consulting 
bills.

On the other side, Nebraskans for Public Safety (an anti-death penalty group) 
has not yet filed its full campaign finance report as of Thursday evening. But 
the group has disclosed receiving a $400,000 contribution from a progressive 
organization called Proteus Action League. The group is a 501c(4), meaning it 
does not disclose its donors.

This isn't the 1st time Proteus Action League has spent money against the death 
penalty - the group spent more than $3.4 million on anti-death penalty efforts 
in 2012, according to an IRS filing.

The anti-death penalty group Nebraskans for Public Safety, which is affiliated 
with Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and the American Civil 
Liberties Union of Nebraska, has spent some of the money on television ads 
urging voters to not sign the petition.

Regardless of the outcome, Ricketts believes he will still be able to carry out 
the executions of the 10 men on death row. In pursuit of that, his Department 
of Correctional Services has spent more than $50,000 on execution drugs from a 
seller based in India.

Since the drugs are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, the 
federal government says it intends to detain the shipment when it arrives.

(source: buzzfeed.com)






WYOMING:

Judge hears arguments on death penalty for Eaton

A lawyer representing a Wyoming convict said Tuesday he doubts his client ever 
will be executed for the murder of a Montana woman because of his age and 
failing mental health.

In response to a directive from the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 
Denver, U.S. District Judge Alan B. Johnson of Cheyenne held a hearing Tuesday 
to address whether the state of Wyoming may still again seek the death penalty 
against Dale Wayne Eaton, 70.

Johnson didn't immediately rule on the question, but told lawyers he will 
require written arguments.

In 2004, Eaton was sentenced to death in state court for the 1988 murder of 
18-year-old Lisa Marie Kimmell of Billings, Montana. He appealed his death 
sentence to Johnson's court in 2009.

Eaton's current lawyers don't dispute that he killed Kimmell. His DNA matched 
genetic material found in her body, which was dumped in the North Platte River. 
Investigators later unearthed her missing car on his property in Moneta.

Ron and Sheila Kimmell, the victim's parents, attended Tuesday's court hearing. 
They declined comment afterward.

Johnson last fall overturned Eaton's death sentence, ruling he hadn't received 
an adequate defense at trial. The judge said that in order for the state to 
seek the death penalty against him again, it had to file notice and appoint 
lawyers within 120 days to represent him in a new state court sentencing 
hearing.

Before Johnson overturned his death sentence, Eaton had been the only person on 
death row in Wyoming.

Eaton's lawyers had appealed Johnson's order to the Denver appeals court 
claiming it would be impossible for him to get a fair sentencing hearing 
because many people who had known him as a free man and could have testified 
about his character had died in the years since his original sentencing 
proceeding.

Casper District Attorney Mike Blonigen filed notice in state court in Natrona 
County early this year that he intended to seek the death penalty again against 
Eaton. However, the state didn't appoint new lawyers to represent Eaton in 
state court.

The appeals court recently directed Johnson to determine whether the state had 
foreclosed its option of seeking the death penalty against Eaton again by 
failing to follow Johnson's order.

David Delicath, lawyer with the Wyoming Attorney General's Office, told Johnson 
on Tuesday that Eaton's own appeal to federal court served to put the new round 
of death penalty proceedings on hold.

Delicath said the state had done what it could to get the death penalty 
proceedings moving again. He said that because nothing significant had happened 
in state court, the state shouldn't be penalized for failing to get lawyers to 
represent Eaton there.

Delicath argued that "losing the right to sentence Mr. Eaton for the brutal 
murder," would be a disproportionate penalty for the state.

Missouri lawyer Sean O'Brien, a death penalty specialist and a member of 
Eaton's legal team, said it's plain the state had failed to comply with 
Johnson's order to appoint lawyers to represent Eaton in the new state court 
death penalty proceedings. O'Brien said that amounted to a clear constitutional 
violation.

O'Brien said Eaton has been in solitary confinement at the state penitentiary 
in Rawlins since he was first sentenced to death. "We are losing reliable 
witnesses," he said. "The other thing we are losing as time passes is Mr. 
Eaton's sanity."

O'Brien said he doesn't believe Eaton will ever be executed because of his 
advanced age and deteriorating state of mind. O'Brien said he and the other 2 
lawyers representing Eaton in his federal appeal want to continue representing 
Eaton in state court but haven't been retained by the state.

Johnson said he will order both sides to submit arguments on the issue whether 
the state implicitly waived its right to seek the death penalty again by filing 
papers in state court on the death penalty issue without appointing lawyers to 
represent Eaton there.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Inmate's declining health causes stay in Wyoming death penalty case


A scheduling hearing Tuesday resulted in a stay to be granted in reference to 
the Dale Wayne Eaton case by Judge Alan B. Johnson, who ordered a halt to 
proceedings to pursue the death penalty.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys were told to pursue further research and 
determine a timeline for the next hearing, according to a report in Oil City.

"The depreciating mental condition of Eaton and the aging of witnesses and 
evidence is what drives the court to order a stay on this case," the judge 
said.

Johnson will be briefed at a later date on whether or not prosecutors have 
waived the right to pursue the death penalty and writ of habeas corpus that 
would make pursuing the death penalty in a new sentencing hearing not possible.

Eaton is housed in solitary confinement in Rawlins and suffers from dementia. 
It is to be determined whether or not his mental state will play a factor in 
future sentencing.

Eaton was sentenced to death for the slaying of Billings teen Lisa Marie 
Kimmell.

(source: KTVQ news)






UTAH:

SCOTUS Ruling on Death Penalty Has Utah Links


Utah leaders opted to make the firing squad a backup for executions if lethal 
injection drugs are not available. 3 death row inmates had already chosen to 
die by firing squad a decade ago, before a change in state law.

Utah leaders opted to make the firing squad a backup for executions if lethal 
injection drugs are not available. Three death row inmates had already chosen 
to die by firing squad a decade ago, before a change in state law.

The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for death row prisoners to 
continue being executed by lethal injection. It's a case that's been watched in 
Utah, where the use of firing squads is a backup method of execution.

The court majority cited a Utah firing squad case from 1879 in its 5-4 
decision. Asst. Utah Attorney General Thomas Brunker says the ruling means less 
legal wrangling over death penalty methods.

"Having that requirement that [death-row convicts] have to identify an 
alternative method will largely shut down that litigation," he says.

Utah has 8 people on death row. 3 have asked to die by firing squad, and Utah 
lawmakers have anticipated trouble with lethal injection drugs even before the 
ruling. They passed legislation in the 2015 session to allow firing squad 
executions if the lethal injection drugs are not available.

Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clinton, sponsored that bill. He said Monday that, even with 
the court's ruling on lethal injection, more states are already thinking about 
adding the firing squad to their options.

"I think lethal injection, as we know it, is gone," he says.

The reason is that execution drugs have become harder to obtain from European 
manufacturers as well as American pharmaceutical companies.

Ray says: "The most efficient way and -- if you want to call it humane -- to me 
is the firing squad because the time of death is about 5 seconds versus 
anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes with the lethal injection -- even when it's 
working right."

The Utah lawmaker says he agrees with Justice Breyer, who said in his 
dissenting opinion that it's a good time to begin a broader discussion about 
the death penalty.

(source: KUER news)






NEVADA:

New Life For NV's Death Chamber And The Other 200 New Laws Taking Effect


Nevada has more than 80 inmates on death row at the Ely State Prison. These are 
men and women scheduled to die by lethal injection.

And the governor has signed into law a bill investing some $900,000 in a new 
death chamber.

Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Steve Sebelius told KNPR's State of Nevada 
that even though there is no execution scheduled for the state the new death 
chamber will go forward.

The Department of Corrections successfully argued that every day they wait will 
cost the state more money.

That's just one new horizon facing Nevada. Wednesday, some 200 laws approved by 
the state Legislature go into force.

(source: KNPR.org)



HAWAII:

Prison Agreement Undercuts Hawaii Values on Death Penalty----2 Hawaii inmates 
on the mainland could be sentenced to death next year and be killed by a 
controversial means approved Monday by the U.S. Supreme Court.


On its face, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision Monday to allow the continued 
use of a specific, controversial form of lethal injection in death penalty 
cases wouldn't seem to have much to do with Hawaii. After all, Hawaii 
eliminated capital punishment 58 years ago - 2 years before it even became a 
state.

But 2 Hawaii inmates serving time in a for-profit Arizona prison will go to 
trial next year on charges they murdered a fellow inmate in that prison, and 
prosecutors will seek the death penalty for both. Because the Supreme Court on 
Monday upheld the use of a controversial drug that happens to be used in 
Arizona executions, the high court may have set the stage for Miti Maugaotea 
Jr. and Micah Kanahele to die from the effects of a drug whose use wouldn't 
even be a consideration in their home state.

The SCOTUS decision centered on the sedative midazolam, which is used in 
executions in Oklahoma, Florida, Ohio, Louisiana, Kentucky and, of course, 
Arizona and is under consideration by a handful of other states. Midazolam has 
been used in multiple cases where an execution went awry.

In Ohio, for instance, an inmate being executed last year "struggled, made 
guttural noises, gasped for air and choked for about 10 minutes" before 
succumbing, according to the Associated Press reporter who witnessed the 
execution. A similarly difficult execution took place in Arizona last year, as 
well, with death significantly prolonged, according to the Washington-based 
Death Penalty Information Center.

In a 5-4 decision, the justices ruled Monday that the Oklahoma inmates who 
brought the case failed to make an effective case that midazolam might cause 
severe pain and failed to identify a preferable alternative method of 
execution.

The tension between the justices in announcing the hotly contested decision was 
so great that 2 dissenters - Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg 
- came close to announcing they wanted to rule the death penalty 
unconstitutional, prompting bitter rejoinders from Justices Clarence Thomas and 
Antonin Scalia.

"Rather than try to patch up the death penalty's legal wounds one at a time," 
Justice Breyer wrote in a detailed, 46-page dissent, "I would ask for full 
briefing on a more basic question: whether the death penalty violates the 
Constitution."

That's the question that ought to have been answered in Monday's decision. The 
8th Amendment bans "cruel and unusual punishment," and in 3 executions in which 
midazolam was used last year, the deaths were unusually long and obviously very 
painful. Allowing the continued use of a sedative that contributed to such 
outcomes represents an abdication of legal responsibility on the part of the 
majority and puts the righteous indignation of the court's minority in 
perspective.

'A Society Which Does Not Put People to Death'

Hawaii executed 75 people between 1897 and 1944, and the last execution, in 
which a Filipino was hung for killing a woman in a Kauai pineapple field, 
spurred Hawaii's territorial lawmakers to end the death penalty.

Part of the reason was that Hawaii disproportionately executed people of color 
- Filipinos, Japanese and Native Hawaiians. "According to an analysis of these 
executions published in the Hawaii Journal of History, 64 % of those put to 
death were either Hawaiian or Filipino. A total of 24 Hawaiians were killed and 
another 24 Filipinos were. Only a single Caucasian was executed," Civil Beat 
columnist Ian Lind wrote last year.

Since then, the death penalty has come up as a potential sentence in Hawaii 
only once. Last year, former Army soldier Naeem Williams was tried here for the 
beating death of his 5-year-old daughter. Because the case was heard in the 
federal court system, which does have the death penalty, Williams faced it as a 
possible sentence. He received life in prison instead.

In discussing that case last year with the Associated Press, University of 
Hawaii law professor Williamson Chang, a frequent Civil Beat contributor, 
described the death penalty as being at odds with the state's culture.

"We're used to a society which does not put people to death," he said. "It's a 
slap in the face to the values of Hawaii."

Chang may be right: Legislators have tried more than 15 times to reinstate the 
death penalty, according to DPIC, but each effort failed.

Was Death Part of the Incarceration Bargain?

The possibility that Hawaiians might be executed for crimes committed while 
incarcerated elsewhere might not be as unlikely as one would think. Mahina Uli 
Silva, for instance, was indicted for allegedly killing his cellmate in Arizona 
in 2010 and initially faced the death penalty. He later pleaded guilty to 
2nd-degree murder.

In all, about 1,400 Hawaii prisoners are in out-of-state for-profit prison 
facilities run by Corrections Corporation of America in Arizona.

Kanehele and Maugaotea both face trial for the 2010 murder of another Hawaii 
prisoner, Bronson Nunuha. Trial is set for August of next year, and prosecutors 
will seek the death penalty, an official with the Pinal County (Arizona) 
Attorney's Office confirmed Tuesday.

The crimes that Kanehele and Maugaotea are accused of are horrific. Media 
accounts say their alleged victim was found stabbed 140 times, with the 
initials of Kanehele and Maugaotea's prison gang carved into his chest.

But both inmates are only incarcerated in Arizona because Hawaii found 
outsourcing its prison needs to CCA a more cost-effective option than building 
more prisons of its own. While they and others are there, are we comfortable 
with them being subject to the penalties of Arizona - even a punishment so 
singular and controversial that we took the highly uncommon step decades ago of 
outlawing its use in Hawaii?

Our decision in 1957 would suggest we are not. As Chang said last year, Hawaii 
is a society that does not put people to death, no matter how heinous their 
crimes. And as Justice Breyer wrote on Monday, the death penalty may well 
violate the very basis for our democracy - the U.S. Constitution.

If we believe in the values that we claimed in 1957, we're compelled to think 
hard about putting Hawaii inmates in facilities where further crimes might 
result in a penalty we never would have imposed ourselves.

It may be too late for Hawaii to save the unfortunate lives of Kanehele and 
Maugaotea, whose previous violations and alleged brutal murder of Bronson 
Nunuha have set in motion wheels of justice that may be beyond this state's 
control.

But if we really believe in the values that we claimed in 1957, we should think 
hard about putting Hawaii inmates in facilities where further crimes might 
result in a penalty we would never have imposed ourselves. Gov. David Ige, 
Attorney General Doug Chin and director of the Department of Public Safety 
Nolan Espinda should use Monday's controversial Supreme Court decision to 
examine anew our options under the agreement with CCA and determine whether 
punishment by death was intended to be part of the incarceration bargain.

Hawaii is 1 of 19 states plus the District of Columbia that either don't have 
the death penalty or don't have an enforceable death penalty statute. It's an 
appropriate point of pride for our state, and we should take steps to ensure 
that it doesn't deserve a troubling red asterisk.

(source: civilbeat.com)