[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., LA., TENN., NEB., CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

July 6



FLORIDA:

Jailed parents challenge death penalty over son's death


2 Pensacola parents who could face capital punishment if convicted of the 
murder of their toddler are challenging the constitutionality of the death 
penalty.

In July 2014, Christopher L. Redd, 40, and Jennifer Gail Perry, 30, were 
charged with 1st-degree murder in the death of their 2-year-old son, Bryson 
Redd. Bryson suffered severe burns over roughly 40 % of his body at Redd and 
Perry's Strong Street residence.

Investigators say the couple did not seek medical care for the child for 
approximately two weeks. Bryson succumbed to his wounds in the hospital, and an 
Escambia County grand jury concluded that the parents' failure to seek 
professional medical care for Bryson constituted murder. The state announced 
shortly afterward it would seek the death penalty.

In June of 2015, Redd and Perry's attorney Martin Lester filed four motions 
challenging the constitutionality of several aspects of Florida's death 
penalty, one of which argues that current Florida statutes make it easier for 
defendants to get the death penalty than life in prison.

Standard jury instructions on imposing the death penalty tell jurors, "Should 
you find sufficient aggravating circumstances do exist (to recommend the death 
penalty)...it will be your duty to determine whether the mitigating 
circumstances outweigh the aggravating circumstances."

Lester argues that because mitigating factors must "outweigh" aggravating 
factors, the statute creates a higher burden of proof for a life sentence than 
for the death penalty.

A judge ultimately decides the sentence in any death penalty case, but the 
judge is to give great weight to the jury's recommendation in his decision.

Judge Ross Goodman is presiding over the case, and a motion hearing is 
currently scheduled for July 13. A trial date has not yet been set.

(source: Pensacola News Journal)






LOUISIANA:

Suspected cop killer could face death penalty


A man arrested in connection with the shooting death of a New Orleans police 
officer is scheduled to be back in Orleans Parish criminal court Monday.

Travis Boys is expected to enter a plea during his arraignment. Boys is being 
charged with 1st-degree murder of a police officer, aggravated escape, illegal 
possession of a firearm and aggravated battery after fatally shooting officer 
Daryle Holloway while being transported to jail.

District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro's office has announced it's seeking the death 
penalty for 33-year-old Boys.

(source: Associated Press)






TENNESSEE:

Tennessee lethal injection trial


Tennessee's death penalty procedures are scheduled to be debated at trial this 
week in front of a Davidson County judge.

The case has been pending since 2013, and depending on the outcome, could lead 
to executions or further delays. Trial is scheduled to begin Tuesday.

Here are key questions and answers about the case, and its possible impact:

Q: What's the background?

In November 2013, a group of death row inmates filed a lawsuit in Davidson 
County Chancery Court claiming Tennessee's lethal injection protocol is 
unconstitutional. Among other arguments, they say it creates risk of cruel and 
unusual punishment that is banned by the Eighth Amendment. About half of the 
inmates on death row are now involved in the case.

Q: What is Tennessee's protocol?

The procedure says inmates will be executed by lethal injection using a single 
drug: pentobarbital. The legislature approved the electric chair as a backup 
method in 2014 in case lethal injection drugs were unavailable. Manufacturers 
have stopped the chemicals from being used in executions, and some states are 
looking for other drugs or turning to pharmacies that compound other drugs to 
make pentobarbital.

Q: What's at issue at trial?

The inmates, through their attorneys, say the protocol is not adequate and does 
not explain how to carry out the executions. They say the use of compounded 
pentobarbital creates risk of pain and suffering and lingering death.

Q: Who will testify?

According to court papers, attorneys for the inmates plan to call members of 
the Tennessee Department of Correction leadership, as well as medical experts 
to talk about effectiveness of the lethal injection drugs.

The state is expected to call medical examiner Dr. Feng Li and other medical 
experts.

Q: Who decides if it's constitutional, or not?

Davidson County Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman will hear the trial.

In 2010, she heard a case challenging Tennessee's previous method of execution 
- which involved 3 drugs for lethal injection - and declared it 
unconstitutional on grounds it "allows for death by suffocation while 
conscious." (Several of the attorneys who argued that case and experts who 
testified in it are involved in the current challenge.) A year later, she 
approved the state's proposal that actions such as shaking an inmate were 
adequate to determine if procedures were effective.

Attorneys: TDOC does not have lethal injection drugs

Q: So what's the possible outcome?

If Bonnyman finds the protocol is unconstitutional, the Department of 
Correction could make small changes, institute a whole new protocol or opt for 
the state's backup, the electric chair. If she finds the protocol is 
sufficient, the state could request to schedule executions.

It is very likely Bonnyman's decision will be appealed, no matter which way she 
rules. In short: This issue will be tied up in courts for a while.

Q: Who is on death row?

There are 67 people on death row. Only 1 is a woman. 8 are from Davidson County 
cases. 10 have multiple death sentences. The oldest inmate is 70. The youngest 
is 32.

The men are housed at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. The 
only woman is imprisoned at Tennessee Prison for Women, also in Nashville.

No execution dates are set.

(source: The Tennessean)






NEBRASKA:

Buying an outcome is not really winning


According to The World-Herald, more than 80 % of the money raised by the group 
Nebraskans for the Death Penalty has come from contributions by Gov. Pete 
Ricketts and his father.

The people's representatives did not respond to the message that "Pete needs a 
win." Failing to get what he wanted via the legislative process, the governor 
apparently believes he can buy it by bankrolling a referendum. Perhaps his 
money will allow him to satisfy his obsession with a failed policy that is both 
inhumane and ineffective.

If that's a win, I feel sorry for both the state and the governor.

Ken Keith, Omaha

----

Double standard on death-penalty fight


Why is it OK for the ACLU to give the group fighting against retention of the 
death penalty $400,000 and wrong for the Ricketts family to give $200,000 to 
the group fighting to keep the death penalty?

Nebraskans for the Death Penalty is legally circulating a petition to put the 
issue on the ballot for the registered voters of Nebraska to decide. Remind me 
again why the American Civil Liberties Union is fighting our civil liberty of 
petitioning to put an issue on a ballot for the legal registered voters of 
Nebraska to vote on?

Every registered voter should be signing this petition to let your voice be 
heard.

Brenda Ray, Fremont, Neb.

(source: Letters to the Editor, Omaha World-Herald)

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

Donation to referendum effort unseemly


When Pete Ricketts, private citizen, became Pete Ricketts, governor of 
Nebraska, he took an oath of office which reads in part, "... I will support 
the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of 
Nebraska, against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true 
faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely and 
without mental reservation or for purpose of evasion; and that I will 
faithfully and impartially perform the duties of the office ... according to 
law, and to the best of my ability."

Further, the Nebraska Constitution describes the role of governor this way:

"The supreme executive power shall be vested in the Governor, who shall take 
care that the laws be faithfully executed ..."

And so it is with some dismay that we learn that Ricketts is in large part 
bankrolling an effort to undermine and repeal a law duly passed by the 
Legislature.

We are talking, of course, about the petition drive launched to stop the repeal 
of Nebraska's death penalty and put the question to voters. There's nothing 
wrong with this effort; that's what the initiative and referendum processes are 
for. They give voters a way to pass laws that the Legislature won't, such as 
the recent vote raising Nebraska???s minimum wage, or to try to reverse 
legislation with which they disagree, in this case the abolishment of the death 
penalty by the Legislature. It is democracy at work at its most basic level, a 
way for private citizens to directly effect change.

Ricketts defends his right to donate to the death penalty petition drive. He 
has given $100,000. Ricketts the private citizen is a wealthy man and, like his 
father, TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, who also donated $100,000 to the 
death penalty drive, he is free to spend his fortune as he sees fit. There is 
nothing illegal about the donation.

The issue is that Pete Ricketts is no longer just a private citizen. Upon 
accepting the job of governor, he became a public servant, bound by the 
Constitution and his oath of office to uphold and carry out the laws of the 
state of Nebraska, even the ones he disagrees with.

Ricketts makes no secret of his support of the death penalty and his 
unhappiness with the Legislature's vote to abolish it and then to override his 
veto. He lobbied heavily before the override vote in an attempt to flip enough 
senators' votes to sustain his veto. It is perfectly within his role as 
governor to lobby, persuade and argue for or against legislation. But once a 
law is passed, Ricketts' job as governor is to carry out the will of the people 
as reflected in the vote of the senators they elected.

Ricketts has said that he thinks the Legislature is out of step with the people 
of Nebraska on this issue. It may be, and the referendum drive may be 
successful. Ricketts believes it will be. But it is nevertheless unseemly for 
Ricketts the private citizen to bankroll an effort to undo a law that Ricketts 
the governor is sworn to uphold.

(source: Editorial, Journal Star)






CALIFORNIA:

Death Penalty Sought For Mother, Boyfriend Who Tortured And Killed 8-Year-Old 
Son


Prosecutors with the Los Angeles County district attorney's office are 
reportedly seeking the death penalty for a mother and boyfriend who have been 
accused of torturing and killing the woman's 8-year-old son.

According to the LA Times, Pearl Fernandez and her boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre, 
were charged with murder following her son's death in May of 2013. 
Unfortunately, there have been numerous victimized children who have suffered a 
similar fate as Gabriel, but prosecutors are focusing in on the torture he 
suffered at the hands of the couple.

2 days prior to his death, Gabriel was allegedly beaten by Fernandez and 
Aguirre for not picking up his toys. However, the horrendous repercussions he 
suffered were far worse than most could fathom when thinking about punishing a 
child for less than favorable behavior.

Following the horrific beating, Gabriel was reportedly unresponsive. His 
condition forced Fernandez to seek immediate medical attention. When paramedics 
arrived, Gabriel was found naked in a bedroom.

The boy, who was reportedly not breathing, had a cracked skull and three broken 
ribs. It was also reported that he had BB pellets lodged in his lungs and 
groin. However, that's only the information regarding the preliminary trauma he 
suffered.

Los Angeles County Fire Department paramedic James Cermak offered a more 
specific perspective of the boy's injuries, insisting no part of his body 
looked untouched.

"It was just like every inch of this child had been abused."

Gabriel died 2 days later at a local hospital. The heinous abuse led to the 
grand jury's decision to indict the couple on charges of special circumstances 
of torture in addition to 1st-degree murder.

Although previous reports stated that the couple had struck a plea deal where 
they would both agree to life sentences without parole, on Wednesday, July 1 
prosecutors announced that the death penalty would be sought.

According to KTLA, the Department of Children and Family Services was also 
investigated following Gabriel's death. Apparently, his death wasn't the 1st 
documented abuse allegations that were reported. Months prior to his death, 
several agencies reportedly investigated allegations of child abuse, but 
unfortunately, he was never removed from the home.

(source: inquisitr.com)

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

BANK OF THE WEST ROBBERY----Call to seek death penalty controversial; Debate 
swirls over whether it's a necessary deterrent or cruel and unusual


Jaime Ramos is charged with the murder of wife and mother Misty Holt-Singh, the 
death of 2 other assailants, and the attempted murder of dozens of police 
officers tailing him after a bank robbery on July 16.

The 20-year-old is facing a potential death sentence.

But Ramos teeters on the plank during what some experts are calling an 
"interesting time," when the state's death penalty is entangled in litigation 
that has stalled hundreds of executions and when capital punishment is at the 
center of criticism and national debate.

But before Ramos might even make the list of condemned inmates, outside 
observers say the road to a death conviction is lengthy - if the case makes it 
to that point at all.

And while some say capital punishment is a necessary form of justice to murder 
victims and their families, others see it as cruel and costly.

Executions were halted in California in 2006 following a federal court decision 
that the state's 3-chemical lethal injection method was cruel and unusual 
punishment, which is barred in the U.S. Constitution. The decision came in the 
appeal of Stockton's Michael Morales, convicted of raping and killing 
16-year-old Terri Winchell.

Proponents of the death penalty are optimistic about where the discussion is 
going. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation recently 
settled a lawsuit filed by Winchell's brother, agreeing to take steps to create 
a new injection protocol by Oct. 27.

Kent Scheidegger, director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, believes 
once California establishes a "good protocol," executions will have to be 
carried out on inmates who relied on the cruel-and-unusual argument as their 
last resort after exhausting their other appeals.

But Scheidegger, who represented Winchell in the lawsuit, anticipates the clash 
over life and death will continue.

Last year, in another legal movement, a U.S. District Court declared the 
state???s death penalty unconstitutional, saying the process leading to 
execution is cruel and unusual punishment.

Clinical law professor Elisabeth Semel of Berkeley's Death Penalty Clinic, 
declined to comment on Ramos' case but said in general she worries that the 
ongoing court battles may be having an effect on the minds of judges and jurors 
charged with deciding the fate of defendants.

Semel, who has been active in challenging the state's lethal injection, said 
that some might feel compelled to make a public statement by sentencing someone 
to death, while believing the defendant will never be executed anyway. But the 
U.S. Supreme Court made it clear that such a decision must be made in the full 
belief that punishment will be carried out, she said.

Meanwhile, the political conversations continue on the future of the death 
penalty.

Semel said Californians are "very divided" on the issue. There is concern some 
condemned individuals are innocent; that the process is too lengthy, so why not 
just sentence people to life; that it's costing tax payers too much; and others 
have deep personal beliefs against it.

According to a 2011 study by the Death Penalty Information Center, each capital 
case in California costs an average of $1 million more than noncapital cases 
between pre-trial and trial proceedings. There are additional costs for 
automatic appeals, Habeas Corpus petitions, and incarceration costs.

California's process is designed to reduce the risk of executing innocent 
people, but it is long, expensive and complicated, said Mike Vitiello, law 
professor at University of the Pacific's McGeorge School of Law.

Death row inmates have a greater chance of dying of other causes during the 
decades of waiting. That has many states, even conservative states such as 
Nebraska, reconsidering the point of a death sentence, Vitiello said.

Scheidegger challenges the cost argument. He said if reforms were enacted to 
speed up the process, the state could execute inmates within 5 to 6 years. 
Studies list the biggest cost being keeping inmates on death row for 20 to 30 
years.

Virginia, Scheidegger said, executed Lee Boyd Malvo, also known as the "D.C. 
Sniper," in less than 6 years. "And that's entirely doable (in California)," he 
said.

The roadblock, he said, is "people who don't want the death penalty to work 
have considerable clout in the legislature, and they have managed to kill 
legislation in committee every time we've proposed them.

"It's grossly unfair to the families of murder victims to make them wait 
decades for justice in cases where there is no doubt whatsoever of the guilt of 
the defendant," Schedegger said.

William Jennings Choyce is the last person from San Joaquin County to be sent 
to death row, the 13th from the county since California restored capital 
punishment in 1978.

Since the reinstatement, no one from the county has been executed. Only13 
executions have taken place in California, and the number of condemned inmates 
has grown beyond 700.

Ramos is an interesting case for outside observers.

If Ramos' case makes it as far as a trial, Vitiello anticipates the defense 
might argue a death sentence is not appropriate in a felony murder case that 
involves an officer-involved shooting, where the defendant is charged as having 
provoked it but not having pulled the trigger. Ramos' age might also be 
considered, he said.

"Effective (defense) attorneys bring in all sorts of information that tries to 
undercut that this is one of the worst of the worst offenders," Vitiello said. 
"Usually people who end up killing are not the people who have had all the 
benefits you and I have had ... most people who end up on death row have had 
pretty horrible lives."

Scheidegger said that even so, the magnitude of Ramos' crimes "and the horror 
the victims were put through will swamp everything else. At least that's what I 
expect to happen.

"It was a very cold-blooded thing to do to go into a bank and take hostages out 
of it and use 1 of them as a shield," Scheidegger said. "This is very depraved 
conduct."

Scheidegger believes that in appropriate cases, "It is really the only just 
punishment."

Ramos, the only surviving suspect in the final shootout with police, was 
indicted along with Pablo Ruvalcaba, who is suspected of having dropped of the 
three armed robbers.

Only Ramos is facing death.

It is possible Ramos' case will be resolved before trial. Some observers say 
it's possible the death penalty might be used as leverage to get him to plead 
guilty in exchange for a sentence of life in prison.

Ramos is scheduled to return to court July 27 for a motion hearing. His trial 
is tentatively scheduled to begin in January.

(source: Stockton Record)