[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----ILL., WYO., UTAH, ARIZ., USA

[Rick Halperin]

March 19



ILLINOIS:

Don't bring back death penalty to Illinois



We admire Rep. John Cabello, R-Machesney Park, who in just three years as a 
legislator has proved to be a hard worker and a quick study.

Nevertheless, we respectfully disagree with Cabello's proposal, House Bill 
4059, that would restore the death penalty in Illinois. With support for 
capital punishment eroding in the aftermath of botched executions - and with 
the U.S. Supreme Court scheduled to hear oral arguments next month in a case 
that challenges the most widely used lethal injection protocol - it seems an 
odd time to consider its return.

The most compelling argument against, of course, rests on the alarming number 
of wrongful convictions that have sent to death row individuals later found to 
be innocent.

Wrongful convictions, in fact, were what prompted Gov. George Ryan to impose a 
moratorium on executions in 2000 after a parade of men were freed from death 
row. Three years later, just before leaving office, Ryan cleared death row, 
sparing 167 people from execution. Most of their sentences were commuted, 
although a few received pardons.

Finally, in March 2011, Gov. Pat Quinn signed a bill abolishing capital 
punishment in the state.

To the best of our knowledge, Illinois never executed an innocent man. But it 
has happened elsewhere. In 2004, Texas executed Cameron Todd Willingham for the 
arson deaths of his 3 children. Months after Willingham's death, a nationally 
respected fire investigator concluded that the fire in which his children had 
died was not arson.

More recently, a South Carolina judge threw out the conviction of George 
Shinney, a black 12-year-old who was put to death in the state's electric chair 
in 1944 for the murder of 2 white girls.

There are other examples.

That's not to say murderers should get a pass. Hardly. But the problem with the 
death penalty is that you can't take it back. Better to throw the worst 
evildoers in prison for the rest of their lives.

And this month, four diverse Catholic publications - America magazine, National 
Catholic Reporter, National Catholic Register and Our Sunday Visitor - 
published a joint editorial with a single message: "Capital punishment must 
end."

We agree, and we trust that a majority of Illinois legislators do, too.


(source: Effingham Daily News)








WYOMING:

Death row inmate's federal appeal blocks state resentencing hearing



A new round of federal appeals from a Wyoming inmate convicted of killing a 
Montana woman will block at least for now a new sentencing hearing on whether 
the inmate should receive the death penalty.

Lawyers for inmate Dale Wayne Eaton this week filed an appeal of decisions by 
U.S. District Judge Alan B. Johnson.

Johnson in November overturned Eaton's original death sentence, ruling he 
didn't get an adequate defense at his state trial. The judge said prosecutors 
could ask another jury to sentence him to death or send Eaton to prison for 
life without parole.

Eaton's lawyers are appealing Johnson's ruling to an appeals court in Denver.

Eaton was convicted in 2004 of murdering 18-year-old Lisa Marie Kimmell of 
Billings, Montana. Eaton's lawyers don't dispute he killed her.

(source: Associated Press)


UTAH:

Former death row inmate convicted for 2nd time in 30-year-old killing



A former death row inmate was convicted Wednesday for the 2nd time in a 
30-year-old aggravated murder case after the Utah Supreme Court allowed him to 
withdraw his initial guilty plea.

Lawyers for 57-year-old defendant Douglas Lovell didn't argue during the 2-day 
trial that he was innocent and instead focused on trying to keep Lovell from 
returning to death row when he is resentenced.

The Ogden jury of 9 men and 3 women deliberated for about 90 minutes before 
convicting Lowell. The sentencing phase of the trial is expected to begin 
Friday.

The last time a death sentence was imposed in Utah was in 2008.

Prosecutors say Lovell stalked victim Joyce Yost to her driveway and raped her 
in 1985, then spent four months plotting to kill her to prevent her from 
testifying against him. Lovell broke into her home with a knife after his plans 
to hire a hit man fell through, Weber County Deputy Attorney Gary Heward said.

Lovell ignored her begging, drugged her and drove her to Ogden Canyon, where he 
strangled her, stomped on her neck and buried her in leaves, Heward said.

Even though Yost was missing, prosecutors still convicted Lovell of the rape by 
using Yost's testimony from a preliminary hearing. Lovell was serving 15 years 
to life when prosecutors say he twice acknowledged his role in the killing in 
recorded prison conversations with his estranged wife, who was secretly working 
with police.

"When you put it all together the evidence is overwhelming," Heward said during 
his closing argument in the current case.

Lovell had pleaded guilty in 1993 to avoid the death penalty, but a judge 
imposed it anyway after Lovell couldn't fulfill a condition of the plea deal to 
help investigators find the body of Yost. He cooperated, but the body was never 
located.

He was sentenced then to die by lethal injection and sent to death row.

The Utah Supreme Court allowed him to withdraw his guilty plea in 2010, ruling 
Lovell wasn't informed of his right to a presumption of innocence and a public 
trial. He was removed from death row.

Lovell appeared Wednesday in court in a dark blue suit and had little visible 
reaction to the verdict.

"What Doug Lovell did in 1985 is absolutely horrible. There's no excuse for 
it," defense attorney Michael Bouwhuis told the jury. However, he asked the 
panel to wait for more information during sentencing to make a decision on 
whether Lovell should be put to death.

(source: Associated Press)








ARIZONA:

Arizona woman won't be tried again in son's killing



An Arizona woman who sat on death row for more than 2 decades will not be tried 
again, meaning her case is closer to being permanently dismissed.

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that Debra Milke cannot be tried 
again for murder because of double jeopardy. Milke was convicted of killing her 
song Christopher in 1989. That conviction was thrown out two years ago because 
prosecutors didn't disclose a history of misconduct by the case's investigator.

In a statement today, Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said it was a 
"...dark day for Arizona's criminal justice system." He went on to say the 
state supreme court has deprived victims, in particular Christopher Milke of 
their rights to a fair trial.

Meanwhile, a Tucson attorney says Milke never got a fair trial.

"It's a really sad and a travesty that she had to spend literally decades in 
jail on a case that was tainted due to prosecutorial misconduct," said Michael 
Piccerata.

Piccerata has followed Milke's case over the years. When he was initially on 
trial, one key piece of evidence was unrecorded statements Milke made to a 
police officer. Turns out that police officer had a history of being 
untruthful, something Piccerata says the jury did know. The prosecution 
withheld that piece of evidence, Piccerata said, and if the jury had known the 
officer's past the outcome may have been different.

While Tuesday's ruling is a win for Milke, Piccerata says it's an example of 
why the death penalty should be abolished.

"Without more safeguards and without abolishment, people like this in a 
different time and without diligent lawyers which she finally had - there could 
have been a different outcome," Milke said.

Milke filed a lawsuit last Friday against the city of Phoenix, Maricopa County 
and others because she says she didn't get a fair trial.

(source: KGUN TV news)








USA:

Back to Firing Squads? Thank Death-Penalty Foes



For a nation that almost never puts murderers to death - there were 14,196 
homicides in 2013, but only 39 executions - Americans spend an awful lot of 
time debating whether and how to do it.

The Utah legislature last week passed a bill reinstating the firing squad to 
execute death row inmates, as a back-up in case lethal-injection drugs aren't 
available. It was in Utah five years ago that the last death by firing squad in 
the United States took place, when Ronnie Lee Gardner paid with his life for 
the courthouse murder of attorney Michael Burdell in 1985. Utah's governor 
hasn't said yet if he will sign the bill into law - but his isn't the only 
state grappling with the question of how capital punishment should be carried 
out.

In Wyoming, a proposal to restore the firing squad won initial approval earlier 
this year, though the state's legislative session expired before the law could 
be finalized. The Alabama House voted last week torevive the electric chair if 
lethal injection becomes untenable; in 2014, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam 
signed a comparable measure passed overwhelmingly by lawmakers in Nashville. 
And in Oklahoma, the House and Senate have approved a return to the gas 
chamber, using inert nitrogen gas to induce death painlessly.

This quest for substitutes to lethal injection is the result of a determined 
campaign by death-penalty opponents to keep pharmaceutical companies from 
selling the drugs used in executions to state prison systems. But it's one 
thing, it turns out, to impede the use of a specific method of executing 
murderers - even a method that had widely been regarded as the most humane 
alternative to electrocution or hanging. It's something quite different, 
something much more difficult, to overturn the longstanding American consensus 
that in the most terrible cases of murder, killers should pay with their lives.

Until a few years ago, lethal injection had gained broad acceptance as the 
safest, least brutal means of putting a murderer to death. Of the 1,403 
executions carried out in the United States since 1976, more than 85 % were by 
this method. The standard injection protocol used sodium thiopental or 
pentobarbital, powerful barbiturates frequently used to put down suffering 
animals and in cases of assisted suicide.

But the last American manufacturer of the drug halted production in 2011, and a 
European embargo on exporting the needed drugs for use in executions made it 
impossible to get the drugs from overseas. Some states, forced to improvise as 
their inventory dwindled, turned to unnamed compounding pharmacies, or they 
formulated new and largely untested lethal-injection protocols. In some 
instances, such as the bungled execution of Oklahoma murderer-rapist Clayton 
Lockett last year, the results have been gruesome and disturbing.

Perversely, death-penalty foes have succeeded only in making lethal injections 
less safe. "In pushing for outright abolition of capital punishment, we have 
undermined the countervailing effort to make it as clean and painless as 
possible," acknowledged Boer Deng and Dahlia Lithwick in an essay in Slate 
shortly after the Lockett fiasco. The upshot: "What was, until pretty recently, 
a fairly standard national method of lethal injection has been driven 
underground and into the dark by efforts in both the United States and Europe 
to end capital punishment altogether."

If anything, the prospects for lethal injection are even dimmer now. Ohio has 
postponed all executions for the rest of the year, in order to give authorities 
time to find new drugs. Pennsylvania and South Carolina have depleted their 
supplies of pentobarbital, the primary lethal-injection drug. Even Texas, the 
state with the most experience in administering the death penalty, is about to 
run dry.

But while lethal injection may become unworkable, strong support for the death 
penalty endures.

Behind the legislation in Utah, Tennessee, Oklahoma and other states to 
authorize other execution methods as alternatives to lethal injection is not a 
primitive hankering to kill, but a civilized commitment to justice. However 
unfashionable it may be in some precincts to say so, most Americans intuitively 
understand that the death penalty is not only lawful but enlightened. Everyone 
knows that few murderers will ever face execution. But that no murderer should 
ever face execution? That would be intolerable.

Society's attitude toward evil is revealed in how it penalizes those who commit 
evil. For greater crime there must be greater punishment; with the very worst 
punishment, death, reserved for the very worst crime: cruel and premeditated 
murder. There are some offenses so monstrous that those who perpetrate them 
forfeit their right to live. Justice requires a death penalty, even if we must 
debate how best to carry it out.

(source: townhall.com)

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

Faith of Jeb Bush: Aligned with Catholic hierarchy on most issues, but not on 
death penalty



He arrived a few minutes early - no entourage, just his wife and daughter - 
and, sweating through a polo shirt in the hot morning sun, settled quietly into 
the 14th row at the Church of the Little Flower.

A bit of a murmur, and the occasional "Morning, Governor," passed through the 
Spanish Renaissance-style church, with its manicured grounds and towering 
palms, as worshipers recognized their most famous neighbor, Jeb Bush. He held 
hands with the other worshipers during the Lord's Prayer, sang along to "I Am 
the Bread of Life" and knelt after receiving communion.

"It gives me a serenity, and allows me to think clearer," Mr. Bush said as he 
exited the tile-roof church here on a recent Sunday, exchanging greetings and, 
with the ease of a longtime politician, acquiescing to the occasional photo. 
"It's made me a better person."

20 years after Mr. Bush converted to Catholicism, the religion of his wife, 
following a difficult and unsuccessful political campaign that had put a strain 
on his marriage, his faith has become a central element of the way he shapes 
his life and frames his views on public policy. And now, as he explores a bid 
for the presidency, his religion has become a focal point of early appeals to 
evangelical activists, who are particularly important in a Republican primary 
that is often dominated by religious voters.

Holy ghosts have haunted some newspaper profiles of George W. Bush's younger 
brother, including an in-depth Tampa Bay Times piece back in January:

The Times story mixes fresh reporting - including the scene at Bush's church 
and emailed responses to questions by the former governor ??? with excellent 
research on what Bush has said in the past about his religion:

Many of his priorities during his 2 terms as governor of Florida aligned with 
those of the Catholic Church - including his extraordinary, and unsuccessful, 
effort to force a hospital to keep Terri Schiavo on life support, as well as 
less well-known, and also unsuccessful, efforts to appoint a guardian for the 
fetus of a developmentally disabled rape victim and to prevent a 13-year-old 
girl from having an abortion. He even, during his first year in office in 1999, 
signed a law creating a "Choose Life" license plate.

He differed from his church, significantly and openly, over capital punishment; 
the state executed 21 prisoners on his watch, the most under any Florida 
governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. But he has won praise 
from Catholic officials for his welcoming tone toward immigrants and his 
relatively centrist positions on education - 2 issues in which he is at odds 
with the right wing of his party.

"As a public leader, one's faith should guide you," Mr. Bush said in Italy in 
2009, explaining his attitude about the relationship between religion and 
politics at a conference associated with Communion and Liberation, a 
conservative Catholic lay movement.

Along with Bush's own words, the newspaper provides insight from Catholic 
clergy familiar with him ??? from the priest who officiated at his wedding to 
Florida bishops who recall his time as governor:

The bishops who led Florida's 7 Catholic dioceses met annually with Mr. Bush, 
often opening their gatherings with prayer. Each year, the bishops would try to 
convince Mr. Bush that the death penalty should be ended in Florida, and each 
year they failed.

"Anybody could see he was a devout Catholic - he was new to the Catholic faith 
and took his faith seriously," said Bishop John H. Ricard, who oversaw the 
Pensacola-Tallahassee Diocese when Mr. Bush was governor. "He approached the 
whole thing, especially the death penalty, with seriousness and respect, but we 
just agreed we would disagree. We were firm in our position, but I think he was 
sincere about his."

But there is one significant journalism hole here. I wish that the Times had 
made clearer that the church hierarchy views the death penalty differently 
than, say, abortion or euthanasia. As I understand it, there are 2 levels of 
church doctrine and authority here. While recent popes have stated their 
opposition to the death penalty, as practiced in most modern societies, a 
Catholic's position on capital punishment is more of a matter of individual 
conscience. Opposition to abortion, however, is a matter of firmly stated 
doctrine. Thus, a Catholic politician who publicly opposes church teachings on 
abortion might be denied Holy Communion.

That point aside, this story is must reading for anyone interested in faith's 
role in Jeb Bush's life and political career.

(source: getreligion.org)

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

Is Hillary Still Pro-Lethal Injection?



It's not wildly popular anymore, and there's no real political imperative for a 
Democrat to back it. Are you listening, Madame Secretary?

Michael Cavadias is a writer and Democratic Party activist in New York City. He 
has worked for and organized fundraisers for The Campaign to End the Death 
Penalty and New Yorkers Against The Death Penalty.

Hillary Clinton is running for president. She's hired a lot of very important 
people. They've raised a lot of money for her. Everyone knows she's running, 
including Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, Vermont Senator Bernie 
Sanders, and former Maryland Governor Martin O???Malley, each of whom is making 
political gesticulations to her left, most notably on economic policy.

Democratic primary voters will be paying excruciatingly close attention to 
whatever economic moves Clinton might make in the populist direction. There is, 
however, another issue dividing the progressive wing of the Democratic Party 
from the centrist Clintonian wing, which so far is getting no attention: 
capital punishment. The base is ambivalent, and has been for decades. 
Abolitionists were ascendant in the 1960s and 1970s; proponents made a 
significant comeback in the 1990s. Today, support for executions among the 
Democratic base is dwindling, verging on outright revulsion, in the shadow of 
several highly publicized botched executions.

Hillary's record of support for capital punishment is long, and it's something 
she's used as a political wedge. But next year could get complicated for her if 
other candidates decide to make an issue of her position.

In the final hours of his governorship, O'Malley commuted the sentences of the 
last 4 death row inmates in Maryland to life without parole, which followed his 
signing of a bill to repeal the state's death penalty, on May 2, 2013 - 
something he worked for years to pass into law. These actions reflected his 
personal convictions, and were also deliberate preparation for a possible run 
for the Democratic nomination for President next year.

It wasn't so long ago that actions like these would have been seen as 
disqualifying. Sure, one could win Democratic primary votes being opposed to 
the death penalty, but it was considered general election suicide, especially 
after Michael Dukakis's disastrous answer to Bernard Shaw's question about 
capital punishment in a 1988 debate.

Dukakis was the last Democratic nominee to oppose capital punishment Only a few 
years after Dukakis' run, executions were once again in vogue among the party's 
leaders. Dukakis became a cautionary tale of what happens to Democrats who 
can't prove they are as tough as Republicans on crime. But was it really that 
Dukakis opposed executions, or that he simply gave a tone-deaf answer to a 
question that required a deft show of compassion, outrage, and ultimately 
reason? Whatever the answer, Dukakis' misstep proved influential on Bill 
Clinton's 1992 campaign, in which he highlighted his support of capital 
punishment, as did Hillary.

The 2016 primary campaign could be the first opportunity in a generation for 
progressives to make support for capital punishment an issue.

Politics is full of craven politicians who toss aside principles in favor of 
expediency. But Bill Clinton's behavior in the case of Ricky Ray Rector is 
particularly disturbing. Everyone remembers - how Clinton decided to approve 
the execution during the heat of the New Hampshire primary as the Gennifer 
Flowers scandal was brewing around him, how the brain-damaged Rector left his 
dessert in his cell as he was taken to his death, telling the guards that he 
was "saving it for later." Later, as president, Clinton went on to sign the 
"Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996," which severely 
restricted death row inmates' access to habeas corpus proceedings. This 
augmented the 1994 crime bill, which expanded the list of federal death penalty 
crimes from only a handful to over 60, contributing to the highest execution 
rate in the modern era of American capital punishment.

Perhaps because of this ambitious slate of executions, Democratic support of 
capital punishment abated, slowly, near the end of the decade, particularly in 
light of the release of several death row inmates who were proven innocent by 
exculpatory evidence, such as DNA testing. The most famous of these cases was 
Anthony Porter, who was set for execution in 1999, but who was exonerated just 
over 48 hours before his sentence was carried out. This prompted Illinois 
Governor, George Ryan - notably a Republican - to issue a state moratorium on 
executions. He eventually commuted the sentences of everyone on Illinois death 
row to life in prison. Six more states abolished capital punishment between 
2007 and 2013.

All these changes in public perceptions of the death penalty took place against 
the backdrop of a sustained, national drop in crime. In 2004, John Kerry was 
the first nominee since Dukakis to oppose the death penalty. In fact, during 
one of the debates Kerry proudly voiced his opposition to executions, citing 
his experience in Vietman, saying "I know something about killing. I don't like 
killing. I don't think a state honors life by turning around and sanctioning 
killing." Kerry lost of course, but his opposition to the death penalty was 
barely mentioned by the Bush campaign and was not seen as a contributing factor 
in his defeat. And although Barack Obama supports executions in very limited 
circumstances, he does so to a much lesser extent than most recent Democratic 
standard-bearers have, and it's barely been an issue.

Where does this leave Hillary Clinton? Her publicly stated position is 
unchanged. She supports the death penalty. But a candidate like O'Malley, who's 
running as a strong anti-death penalty campaign, might prompt voters to 
question her commitment to human rights. In the past, Democrats have given 
pro-death penalty candidates a pass on the grounds that it's a necessary 
position to win general elections. But with low crime rates and ever-declining 
support for capital punishment, that should be less true in 2016.

Thus, the 2016 primary campaign could be the 1st opportunity in a generation 
for progressives to make support for capital punishment an issue. And thanks to 
Elizabeth Warren, who has rattled the Clinton camp with her economic populism, 
the Democratic base is now emboldened and willing to demand more of their 
candidates.

It's understandable that the base has largely ignored capital punishment in 
recent presidential cycles. They want to win elections, and are therefore 
pragmatic. However, the current political landscape is one in which a candidate 
can be both pragmatic and oppose the death penalty.

Make no mistake, the Democratic base does care about the death penalty. It 
might have been put on the back burner for practical reasons in the past. But 
with issues around police brutality, mass incarceration, sentencing reform, and 
social justice motivating activists around the country, it's becoming more and 
more of a risk for candidates like Clinton to ignore this, and riskier still if 
candidates and interest groups actually stand
up to hold her accountable.

(source: The Daily Beast)