[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., FLA., OHIO, TENN.

[Rick Halperin]

July 19



TEXAS:

Rodney Reed supporters waiting for court's ruling on new evidence


A man convicted of murder in Bastrop County is sitting on death row and his 
family, friends and supporters are waiting to hear if he will be granted a new 
trial or exonerated by the Court of Criminal Appeals.

The support to free Rodney Reed has been growing every year since he was put on 
death row.

"I've gotten letters, I've gotten donations, I've gotten cards, as well as 
Rodney, and it's just been very overwhelmingly appreciated," said Rodney's 
mother Sandra Reed.

17 years after a guilty verdict was handed down, Rodney's surroundings haven't 
changed, but his family said the evidence has.

"I've heard that science doesn't lie. You have, as I say, four pathologists 
stating that she couldn't have died when the state said she did," Sandra said.

Rodney was sentenced to die on March 5, 2015, for the 1996 death of Stacy 
Stites. Because of the new evidence, the Court of Criminal Appeals stayed his 
execution, sparing his life so they could examine the data presented. That was 
in February.

"We want to let them know we are anxiously waiting for a response because this 
doesn't just affect Rodney, it affects all of us, the whole family as a whole, 
it affects our community, it affects the state whether they want to see it or 
not," Rodney's brother Rodrick said.

Saturday, Rodney Reed's family, friends and supporters put together a barbecue 
with live music to raise money for his defense fund. They are hoping the Court 
will grant an evidentiary hearing and give Rodney another chance to prove he is 
innocent.

"Time has a way of bringing about the truth, opening people's eyes. Over the 
years things have come forward, people have confessed," said Rodrick.

"We've been arguing over years that he didn't do this and that the DNA is old," 
said Sandra.

Rodney said he was romantically involved with Stites, whose body was found on 
the side of a road in Bastrop. Rodney, his lawyers, family and friends maintain 
he was wrongly convicted of the crime. They believe the real killer could have 
been Stites' fiance Jimmy Fennel.

In 2008, Fennel was sent to prison for sexually assaulting a woman while on 
duty as a Georgetown policeman.

"The most likely suspect was her fiance Jimmy Fennel and if they were to follow 
that information further we think they would uncover more evidence," said Lily 
Hughes with the Campaign to End the Death Penalty.

Rodney's supporters said they are prepared for the worst, but they have faith 
that justice will be served.

"We just want justice. We want fairness and we want him home," Sandra said.

Rodney was also charged with sex assault in 1987, but a jury found him not 
guilty.

(soure: myfoxaustin.com)






NORTH CAROLINA:

Some prosecutors play costly game: 'Bargaining with death'


Some members of the Mecklenburg County jury that in 2011 acquitted Mike Mead of 
capital murder in the death of his girlfriend, saving him from a potential 
death penalty, bought him drinks afterward as they laughed about the huge holes 
in the state's case.

But it was far from a storybook ending.

Mead had gone through hell and would continue to do so in the months ahead, 
including mental trauma and financial hardship. "It's like a light switch was 
flicked, and my entire world came crumbling down," Mead once wrote in a letter 
to loved ones, according to a new study.

Like too many citizens in this state, he was drafted into a game some 
law-enforcement officers and prosecutors play, that of going for the ultimate 
punishment, often using the death penalty as a bargaining chip, on the 
flimsiest of evidence.

This game's human and financial costs are high, as a new and landmark study 
from the nonprofit Center for Death Penalty Litigation in Durham makes clear. 
And those costs could rise.

While most of our law-enforcement officers and prosecutors are decent people, a 
relative few are anything but.

North Carolina hasn't had an execution in several years, mainly because of 
questions over lethal-injection protocol. But some prosecutors, with cases 
bungled or mishandled by investigators, have continued to use the death penalty 
as a bargaining chip to try to get defendants to plead guilty. And when the 
defendants won't play, prosecutors go for them in a state where there's often 
been little rhyme or reason as to why a defendant in 1 murder case faces the 
death penalty and one in another doesn't, except that the capital defendants 
are almost always of modest means.

The study finds that, since 1989 in North Carolina, 56 people have been 
capitally prosecuted "despite evidence too weak to prove their guilt." In other 
words, they were freed when juries acquitted them or when judges or prosecutors 
dismissed their charges or judges declared mistrials - after these defendants 
faced prosecutions that could have landed a needle in their arms.

"It's about winning," Jerry Anderson told the authors of the study. "It doesn't 
matter who's right and who's wrong."

The former Caldwell County farmer, facing the death penalty in connection with 
the murder of his wife, was freed after his trial ended with a hung jury, with 
the lone holdout saying he had a vision from God to vote guilty.

These defendants spent anywhere from a few months to several years in jail. A 
defendant with the mind of a child was locked away for 14 years in a mental 
institution. A relative few were under house arrest, but still had to pay the 
costs of electronic monitoring.

And in almost all of these cases, prosecutors never apologized. Not even a "my 
bad, buddy, for putting you through hell."

That's beyond shameful, especially considering that the 56 cases in the study 
involved "instances of witness coercion, hidden evidence, bungled 
investigations, the use of improper forensic evidence and highly unreliable 
witnesses," the study's authors say. They also note "tunnel vision:" when 
investigators and prosecutors zero in on the wrong defendants and refuse to 
consider other suspects. That's what happened to Darryl Hunt of Winston-Salem, 
who spent more than 18 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit before he 
was exonerated in 2004.

All this is costly in financial terms, too. The study finds that the state 
spent nearly $2.4 million just in defense costs to pursue the 56 failed cases, 
given the high costs of death-penalty cases. That's a colossal waste of 
taxpayer money, and it doesn't even cover the costly lawsuit settlements some 
of these bungled cases lead to.

And the whole time some police and prosecutors were pursuing the wrong 
defendants, the real criminals were on the streets, committing 
God-only-knows-how-many-more crimes.

There are few efforts to correct these abuses in charging in murder cases. 
North Carolina has gotten pretty good at correcting high-profile wrongful 
convictions - years after police and prosecutors blew cases. But what's really 
needed are measures to prevent these abuses from happening in the first place. 
Criminal prosecutions of law-enforcement officers and prosecutors who put the 
wrong person behind bars, whether through gross recklessness or intentionality, 
would be a fine start, a strong signal that such conduct won't be tolerated.

The stakes of this game are incredibly high. As the authors of the study note, 
"If the death penalty continues to be used in this way, more innocent people 
will be sentenced to die - and possibly executed."

(source: Commentary, John Railey----Winston-Salem Journal)






FLORIDA:

Man who killed neighbor found guilty in retrial; state will ask for death


A jury found a Jacksonville man guilty of 1st-degree murder in the 2008 death 
of his neighbor.

Randall Deviney was convicted of Dolores Futrell's murder in 2010 and was 
sentenced to death, but the conviction was overturned by the Florida Supreme 
Court, which found that police coerced Deviney's confession.

Deviney went on trial a 2nd time, and a jury found him guilty on Friday. The 
state says it will ask for the death penalty. The sentencing phase is set for 
July 23.

According to the state attorney's office, Futrell called 911 when she 
discovered Deviney was trying to steal money from her purse. The 911 call was 
disconnected shortly thereafter.

Futrell ran to her backyard in an attempt to get away from Deviney, who was 
armed with a knife. The state attorney's office says Deviney then attacked the 
victim. During the struggle, the victim's throat was cut and she was stabbed 
numerous times. The victim fought for her life and managed to get the Deviney's 
DNA under her fingernails.

Futrell was found in her home with her clothes off and undergarments cut.

Futrell's family was in the courtroom for the entire trial and said they are 
pleased with the verdict and wanted people to remember this:

"She was a human being. That she loved people," said Debra Wright, the victim's 
sister. "She liked life and he enjoyed life. She didn't let her multiple 
sclerosis keep her down."

(source: actionnewsjax.com)






OHIO:

Compassion for the most despised


A few weeks ago, I met Sister Pat and Fred, 2 people who might be saints - in 
Perrysburg.

Sister Pat is Patricia Schnapp, a Roman Catholic Mercy sister and professor of 
English at Siena Heights University in Michigan. She is funny and intensely 
literate. She was a friend of the great American writer James Baldwin. She went 
to grade school with "Jimmy" Bacik, then a shy gangly kid who played baseball 
and showed no promise of later theological or pastoral brilliance.

Sister Pat has also taught, as a volunteer, in the Michigan prison system for 
many years. There, she told me, she has experienced some of the best students 
of her teaching life - the most curious and dedicated to the texts they are 
studying. In decades of doing this work, she said, she has never had an inmate 
show up for a book discussion who has not read the book. Most have made copious 
notes. She also said she has never once met an inmate who told her: "I am 
innocent. I didn't do it."

Sister Pat has promised to take me to class at prison one day.

Fred Moor is an amazing guy - a small businessman who seems to be involved in 
just about every Catholic social justice cause in greater Toledo.

He was the business partner, and, because he is a humble sort, I think he would 
also say a sort of intellectual protege, of Ken Cappelletty, who died in 2013 
and owned Ken's Flower shops.

Mr. Cappelletty was a Catholic deacon and the founding and guiding spirit of 
the Peace and Justice Committee of St. Rose Parish, Perrysburg. Many 
interesting people and causes have come out of that committee. One of the most 
admirable, disturbing, and perplexing is a little 8-page bi-monthly newsletter 
called Compassion.

Compassion, is a magazine produced solely by death-row inmates for death-row 
inmates - about 3,000 subscribers. Its publication is supervised and financed 
by a committee headed by Mr. Moor and Sister Pat. But the prisoners do all the 
writing and editing. Art by some of these inmates was profiled by Blade writer 
Tahree Lane in The Blade several weeks ago.

Begun in 2001, Compassion has some interesting ground rules:

-- Its stated purpose is to give offenders a forum to "express compassionate 
and introspective feelings."

-- But equal, and sometimes greater, weight is given to a 2nd purpose: "To 
develop healing communication between capital punishment offenders and murdered 
victims' families."

-- To that end, a college scholarship fund for family members of murdered 
victims was established. To date, the inmates have awarded more than $46,000 in 
scholarships.

A former Compassion editor, a death-row inmate, wrote: "In no way are the 
scholarships to the immediate family members of murdered victims meant to atone 
for the loss they have experienced." There can be no compensation. The 
scholarships are an act of compassion, and, perhaps, a very small step toward 
justice.

-- No inmate receives special consideration in prison for his work on 
Compassion.

-- Compassion urges prisoners to set a "standard of moral decency" for 
themselves in prison.

-- Finally, Compassion does NOT lobby against the death penalty. That's not 
its business or its point.

Some of the themes in the writing, in the several issues I've read, are: 
accountability, responsibility, guilt, contrition, violence, forgiveness, and 
redemption. Big themes.

Much of the inmates' writing is quite dark and involves the inability of 
death-row prisoners to get past what they did - "an ultimate mistake I cannot 
take back," writes one.

Some of the best writers for Compassion, Sister Pat told me, were eventually 
executed. But most languish in the system for the rest of their lifetimes. A 
great many entered the system as very young men. Several killed more than 1 
person. More than a few wish and hope to be executed. Sometimes this is the 
only true closure to be found.

One man's essay was about how both his parents sexually abused him and 
prostituted him. It was coldly clinical, yet bottomless in pathos. But at no 
point does he call himself a victim. He speaks of "the hell I caused myself."

Members of St. Rose parish handle all money transactions for Compassion. No 
inmate has access to any of the magazine's funds.

And this is what I find admirable: Mr. Moor saying, "We believe death-row 
prisoners are not the sum of the worst act in their lives and they have 
potential to cultivate and achieve good."

Death-row convicts are not the sum of their evil deeds.

That is a profound and radical Christianity.

What is disturbing and perplexing is the nature of these men's crimes - the 
barbarity of them.

I look at pictures of some of these inmates and I am chilled. I read their 
writing, and I do not feel hope. Only horror and sadness. I think of the late 
Richard Pryor saying, after, he gave a benefit performance in a prison, "I'm 
glad most of those dudes are in there." He was a comedian, but he was not 
exactly kidding in that instance.

I think of Hannah Arendt writing these monumental words about Adolf Eichmann: 
"And just as you supported and carried out a policy of not wanting to share the 
earth with the Jewish people and the people of a number of other nations - as 
though you and your superiors had any right to determine who should and who 
should not inhabit the world - we find that no one, that is, no member of the 
human race, can be expected to want to share the earth with you. This is the 
reason, and the only reason, you must hang."

I look at Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the young man who, with his brother, killed and 
maimed so many at the Boston Marathon. He has been given the death penalty. 
Someone needs to figure this kid out. Does he fully understand what he did? Is 
he missing some hard wiring in his brain? Or is there simply no there there? 
Would the rest of his life in prison, mostly solitary, really be more humane 
than death?

I look at Dylann Roof, accused of killing 9 people in Charleston because they 
were black - hate killings, race killings.

How does society answer such a person? As Miss Arendt did? Or as Compassion 
does? And black Charleston did.

Miss Arendt's response could be seen as the defense of civilization.

How would I feel if someone I loved had been killed by someone now on death row 
or someone about to go there?

I would want nothing to do with him; or with reconciliation with a stone cold 
killer; or with scholarship money from murderers.

Someone in Charleston said that instant forgiveness seems unearned. Too 
God-like for mere human beings.

That's WHY I respect Mr. Moor and Sister Pat so much.

And why I think it is vitally important that Compassion does not lobby against 
the death penalty. Or argue for anyone's innocence. Or even for their "changed" 
natures. It argues only that a few good deeds can still somehow come out of 
depraved and broken lives. It argues only for the souls within those lives. 
That's a tremendous testament to mercy.

Victims' family members who are interested in applying for a scholarship should 
contact Compassion at 140 South Boundary St., Perrysburg, Ohio, 43551, or call 
(419) 874-1333.

(source: Commentary, Keith Burris, The Toledo Blade)

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

SUPPLIES CUT OFF; Ohio still seeking execution drugs ---- Death penalty on hold 
until 2016


Ohio has swapped out the drugs it uses to execute death-row inmates 5 times in 
6 years and it still isn't sure it's got the right combination - or a steady 
supply of killing drugs - to start and continue with executions.

State officials have dangled the promise of secrecy before compounding 
pharmacies, hoping they'll replicate the drugs from scratch to do an end-run 
around U.S. and European drug-makers that won't sell drugs to put people to 
death.

The state confirmed it has taken the unusual step of getting an import license 
with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in hopes of locating a willing 
seller elsewhere.

And still, the state's lethal injection gurney has not been used in more than 
17 months and won't be for another 6 months at the earliest. Ohio, like many of 
the 30 other states with capital punishment, has been unable to obtain the 
drugs it would prefer to use to put condemned inmates to death.

"DRC continues to seek the drugs necessary to carry out court-ordered 
executions," said JoEllen Smith, spokesman for the Ohio Department of 
Rehabilitation and Correction. "This process has included multiple options."

In the meantime, a new 6-member legislative committee charged with taking a 
long-term look at Ohio's execution process has yet to meet.

The state is trying to get its hands on supplies of pentobarbital or sodium 
thiopental, the barbiturates it prefers to use separately in massive doses.

But manufacturers - most European owned - refuse to sell either drug to state 
prisons in death penalty states. The European Union, which considers the death 
penalty to be a human rights violation, prohibits the export of execution drugs 
to such facilities.

Ironically, Ohio has abandoned one drug that is readily available - midazolam - 
whose use the U.S. Supreme Court last month refused to block. But the state has 
shown little inclination of reincorporating the sedative into its lethal 
injection protocol.

Ohio's 1-time use of midazolam in January, 2014, in conjunction with the 
morphine derivative hydromorphone, to put Dennis McGuire of Montgomery County 
to death did not go as planned. Witnesses described McGuire as making choking 
sounds and struggling against his restraints for 26 minutes after the drugs 
began to flow into his veins and before he died.

The litigation and moratoriums that followed prevent another execution from 
taking place in Ohio before Jan. 21, 2016. There are 141 inmates on Ohio's 
death row.

In its June ruling upholding Oklahoma's execution method, the U.S. Supreme 
Court found that condemned inmates failed to show that the use of midazolam 
amounted to cruel and unusual punishment as prohibited by the U.S. 
Constitution.

"What's notable in the Supreme Court decision is that, while it rejected a 
challenge to Oklahoma's protocol, it didn't mandate that states use any 
particular drug or drug combination," said Robert Dunham, executive director of 
the Death Penalty Information Center. The nonprofit center studies and provides 
data on capital punishment but does not take a position on it.

"States that previously used midazolam are not required to go forward with 
that," he said. "A state doesn't have to ignore the botched executions in 
Oklahoma, Arizona, and Ohio. Ohio was very concerned about the executions that 
were botched in its state, and I think they are generally concerned about the 
process. Ohio wants to proceed with care to try to avoid a repeat."

Some states have looked at alternatives to lethal injection. Tennessee has 
resurrected the electric chair. Oklahoma has adopted nitrogen gas, never before 
used in a U.S. execution. Utah brought back the firing squad. All would be 
fallbacks if lethal injection is unavailable.

There's been no such move in Ohio, but the issue could be on the table when a 
special joint Ohio House-Senate committee eventually meets to talk about the 
future of the death penalty in the state.

"If not the legal and practical method of lethal injection, then we should be 
looking at other means of effecting the death penalty that are not cruel and 
unusual punishment," said Sen. Bill Seitz (R., Cincinnati), an appointee to the 
panel.

"We should stay well within prior precedent," he said. "I don't want to be a 
guinea pig. There are other forms that have been upheld in the past, including 
the firing squad."

Mr. Seitz said he was concerned that the panel hasn't met yet, given it must 
make recommendations to the General Assembly in time for passage of a new law 
before the current compounding pharmacy secrecy law expires in a year and a 
half.

He said he doesn't believe an end to capital punishment in Ohio is on the 
table.

"In other states, they've gone from the ridiculous to the archaic," said Rep. 
Nickie Antonio (D., Lakewood), a death penalty opponent. "I'm not even going to 
mention all the different things that have been suggested that we might go back 
to."

John Murphy, executive director of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, 
said the association has not advocated for alternative forms of execution - 
yet.

"We may need to look at that with this difficulty of securing the drugs, 
something like [nitrogen gas], which doesn't involve injection," he said. "Not 
the electric chair, but I hope a different method."

Ohio used the electric chair from 1897 to 1963 before the U.S. Supreme Court 
struck down death penalty laws of that time. When Ohio resumed carrying out the 
death penalty in 1999, convicts could choose electrocution as an option along 
with lethal injection.

But the electric chair was never again used here. When an inmate indicated he 
planned to choose the chair in 2001, lawmakers mothballed it.

Access issues

Texas was the 1st state to use lethal injection in 1982.

For a decade after 1999, Ohio, like most states, used sodium thiopental as the 
1st drug in a 3-drug protocol. It was used to render an inmate unconscious 
before other drugs stopped his breathing and then his heart.

After major problems finding usable veins caused then-Gov. Ted Strickland to 
call off the 2009 execution of Romell Broom of Cuyahoga County well after the 
process had begun, Ohio became the 1st state in the nation to switch to a 
massive dose of a single drug, sodium thiopental, formerly the 1st in a 3-drug 
method.

Then the access problems began.

The drug's sole manufacturer, Illinois-based Hospira Inc., closed its North 
Carolina plant for reasons unrelated to executions. Sodium thiopental is no 
longer manufactured and marketed in the United States.

Hospira's new plant was in Italy, which doesn't have the death penalty. The 
company was pressured not to supply the drug to execution states, and the 
European Union later followed with an outright ban on the export of such drugs 
to death penalty states.

In 2011, Ohio switched to injectable pentobarbital and used it several times 
before it became unavailable. Its maker's Danish owner, Lundbeck, has licensed 
the U.S. manufacturing rights to Illinois-based Akorn Inc. But the company 
restricts distribution to prevent it from getting into the hands of agencies 
attached to executions.

"When we look back, pharmaceutical companies used to contact departments of 
correction and governors and say, 'Please don't use our drugs,'" said Megan 
McCracken, Eighth Amendment resource counsel at the Death Penalty Clinic at the 
University of California, Berkeley, school of law. "There was no muscle behind 
it," she said. "More recently, they've been electing to take affirmative steps 
to prevent their use." Pentobarbital remains readily available in the United 
States for hospitals and, in a variation, to veterinarians. But the state 
cannot go to a local veterinarian to get the drug.

"Drugs used in animals are labeled as FDA-approved and are regulated by the 
pharmacy board for animals only," said Dr. Rich Bednarski, professor of 
veterinary anesthesiology at Ohio State University???s college of veterinary 
medicine.

"If you have the same drug that is used by veterinarians and is also available 
for people, I have to use the veterinary drug, because that's the rule. To use 
a veterinary-labeled drug for people would be the same issue."

In the case of pentobarbital for killing dogs, the drug is approved in a 
stronger concentration and with added compounds than in the version used for 
human anesthesiology.

Limited options

The Food and Drug Administration has not approved any drug specifically for 
execution purposes.

Meanwhile, midazolam, despite its association with problematic executions in 
states including Ohio and Oklahoma, is a generic drug manufactured by multiple 
companies and is readily available in this country.

"Akorn is one of the companies that make midazolam," Ms. McCracken said. 
"They've put a control on midazolam that they announced earlier this year. 
What's interesting is, in its announcement, they noted that they only control 
about 1 % of the midazolam market."

Some states such as Missouri and Texas have managed to acquire supplies of 
execution drugs with many assuming they have done so through compounding 
pharmacies. Like Ohio, the states have laws to shroud the identities of their 
suppliers.

"That's who's left," Mr. Dunham said. "American pharmaceutical companies won't 
provide drugs for execution. It's illegal to export the drugs from Europe. Some 
states have looked at 3rd-party exporters.

"Nebraska had its debacle," he said. "Attempting to get execution drugs to 
forestall legislative repeal of the death penalty, they contracted with a 
supplier who did not have proper licenses. Because it would have been illegal 
to allow the drugs to enter the country, the federal government, under court 
order, was required to seize those drugs."

Nebraska recently abandoned the death penalty, overriding a gubernatorial veto 
to do it.

Death sentences

The Washington-based International Academy of Compounding Pharmacies has 
discouraged its members from participating in the execution process, noting 
they've been placed in this position because of actions taken by major drug 
manufacturers.

"IACP believes that a national discussion needs to be conducted on whether a 
pharmaceutical manufacturer can restrict the use of FDA-approved products only 
to purposes that adhere to their corporate values," reads the academy's written 
statement.

Mr. Dunham also noted that there are legal questions about using compounded 
drugs that haven't been FDA-approved.

The state recently filed its revised execution protocol with U.S. District 
Court in Columbus, adding a provision that the Department of Rehabilitation and 
Correction will have a sample of any compounded drugs it receives analyzed for 
identity and potency.

Ohio has acquired an import license through the Drug Enforcement Administration 
for sodium thiopental, but that doesn't mean that DEA will allow that drug to 
cross U.S. borders given the European Union prohibition.

In part because of the drug shortages, the number of executions carried out in 
the United States dropped to a 2-decade low in 2014. 35 inmates were put to 
death, 1 of them in Ohio. That's the lowest since 1994.

The number of death sentences imposed has declined nationally over the last 25 
years to a modern-day low of 73 last year.

"I know some legislators who have very strong feelings about the death penalty, 
but in view of what has been happening, I think it's time to take a look at 
it," said Sen. Edna Brown (D., Toledo), whose own bills to do away with capital 
punishment have gone nowhere.

"Maybe it's time for a new conversation," she said.

Among Ohio's neighbors, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Kentucky have the death 
penalty. Michigan and West Virginia do not.

Ohio hit a post-1999 peak of 8 executions in 2010. This year will be the 1st 
since 2000 that no executions have taken place.

(source: Toledeo Blade)

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

Ruling gives death row inmate a new trial


A Cleveland man sentenced to death for killing a police officer 15 years ago 
can have a new trial because prosecutors improperly excluded a black woman from 
the jury, a federal judge in Toledo has ruled.

A jury convicted Quisi Bryan, 44, of aggravated murder and recommended that he 
be sentenced to death in 2000 for the fatal shooting of Cleveland Officer Wayne 
Leon during a traffic stop at a gas station. Bryan didn't dispute during trial 
that he'd shot Leon.

U.S. District Court Judge James Carr's ruling on Thursday said a prosecutor 
injected a racial component into what otherwise were race-neutral concerns that 
the potential juror expressed in a court questionnaire. The prosecutor then 
dismissed her.

The prosecutor asked the woman about her jury questionnaire reference to The 
Ox-Bow Incident, a book and film that features a lynch mob hanging innocent 
men. The prosecutor said he dismissed the woman because she cited the story of 
the lynching of an African-American.

But the prosecutor's identification of the victim's race in The Ox-Bow Incident 
was incorrect, Carr wrote. And even if it hadn't been, Carr said, the 
prosecutor "directly and unilaterally injected a racial component into the 
equation."

These were significant signs that the potential juror's race played a role in 
the prosecutor's dismissal of her from the jury pool, Carr ruled.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty said in a statement on Thursday that he 
believes the judge's ruling will be reversed. Even with a new trial, McGinty 
said that Bryan would be sentenced to death again.

Following the case in 2000, Bryan was convicted of rape and several other 
sexual-assault charges in cases that happened before Leon's death.

"Since Officer Leon was murdered in cold blood, we have learned that Bryan 
killed Officer Leon not over a routine traffic stop, but because Bryan was a 
serial rapist who feared being identified as the man who had sexually assaulted 
5 different women in that area," McGinty said. "For killing Officer Wayne Leon, 
Quisi Bryan belongs on death row."

Bryan's attorney said the ruling is in line with established constitutional law 
that says a selection of a jury is fundamental to a fair trial.

"It's a strong and important decision that reflects the long-standing principle 
that you can't discriminate in how a jury is selected, and that discrimination 
won't be tolerated," attorney Alan Rossman said.

Bryan was the 1st person in Ohio to be sentenced to death for killing a police 
officer after the Legislature in 1998 expanded the state's death-penalty 
qualifications to include the crime.

(source: Associated Press)






TENNESSEE:

Bipartisan agreement


In regard to your July 12 Viewpoint guest columns about capital punishment, I 
was surprised and happy to see that both Republicans and Democrats were 
addressing the brokenness of the death penalty system in Tennessee.

We are used to seeing our representatives fighting one another; it was 
refreshing and gives me hope to see them joining together to look at a costly 
and unjust means of punishment in our state.

It is time for Tennessee to join with other states in abolishing the death 
penalty, saving millions of dollars and inevitably innocent lives.

Amy Howe, Memphis

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

Keep death penalty


In response to the 2 guest columns on the death penalty in your July 12 
edition, I must take issue with the idea of completely abolishing it ("Death 
penalty is bad use of scarce money," and "Capital punishment fraught with 
problems").

Dennis Prager, in his book "Think a Second Time," has a chapter devoted to the 
death penalty in which he outlines the arguments for capital punishment and 
those against it. He mentions the argument that an innocent person may be 
executed and makes the point that "far more innocent people will be murdered if 
there is no death penalty than if there is."

Of course we must be certain that the person is guilty beyond a reasonable 
doubt and that misconduct did not lead the person to death row. However, would 
someone really say that Charles Manson, Adolf Eichmann - or Dzhokar Tsernaev - 
should be spared the death penalty despite their evil crimes?

Why should the murderers among us be allowed to live the rest of their lives in 
prison, knowing that their victims will never be allowed the same things that 
they enjoy? Somehow, this does not seem like justice - although the death 
penalty opponents might think so.

If we are to abolish the death penalty and use only life in prison without 
parole, we must sentence them to as uncomfortable conditions as we legally can 
to deter anyone from even contemplating murder.

Sheldon Dan, Memphis)

(source for both: Letter to the Editors, Commercial Appeal)