[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, MISS., NEB., UTAH, CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

March 24



OHIO:

Youngstown murder convict to be re-sentenced



He has been sitting on Ohio's death row for more than 17 years and has been 
behind bars even longer than that.

But now a Youngstown man convicted of murder is hoping for another chance at 
life.

Willie Herring, 37, sat in court Monday afternoon with one of his 
public-defender attorneys chatting with family members. In January 1998, 
Herring was convicted and sentenced to die for masterminding a robbery and 
shooting inside the old Newport Inn on Youngstown's south side.

Herring was 1 of 5 men accused in the April 1996 robbery and shooting that left 
3 people dead and 2 others wounded. 4 other defendants also were convicted, but 
none received the death penalty.

Prosecutors at the time said Herring obtained the firearms used in the crime 
and passed the guns out to the other defendants.

In December 2014, the Supreme Court of Ohio determined Herring's original 
defense team failed to provide enough information during the penalty phase of 
his trial. Now, prosecutors and defense lawyers are trying to determine whether 
another penalty phase of the case is needed.

"That is what the statute calls for, that a jury would have to impaneled just 
to basically determine what the appropriate sentence would be," Mahoning County 
Prosecutor Paul Gains said. "It is a balancing act on finality as opposed to 
what we might see as justice with regard to the death penalty, or life in 
prison, and you've got different options here."

The new sentencing hearing was held before Mahoning County Common Pleas Court 
Judge John Durkin, who presided over Herring's original trial. It was the 
judge's 1st death penalty case.

State law at the time of the crime would leave only death or life in prison 
with parole eligibility after 20 years as potential sentences.

Another hearing is set for May 28. For now, Herring will remain in the Mahoning 
County Jail.

(source: WKBN news)

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

Attorneys meet in '96 murder case



While attorneys discussed his fate behind closed doors Monday, Willie Herring 
chatted with friends and family in the Mahoning County Common Pleas courtroom 
of Judge John Durkin.

Herring, who was convicted of three slayings during a 1996 robbery, was 
sentenced to death before an appeals court overturned the sentence but not the 
conviction. He looked at pictures on phones held by family members and also 
chatted with one of his attorneys for about an hour as a hearing took place to 
establish how to conduct a new sentencing process.

No action was taken on the record Monday.

Prosecutor Paul Gains said Herring's case is a unique challenge. That's because 
of a change by the state Legislature to allow people to still be sentenced to 
death - even after their death sentence is vacated - by ordering a new 
sentencing hearing.

"It's all new," Gains said. A new pretrial hearing has been set for May 28. 
Gains said one of the reasons for that is because Herring has different 
attorneys for this phase of the case than he did for the appeal, and they need 
time to get know the case.

Herring had been convicted of 3 counts of complicity to commit aggravated 
murder, 2 counts of attempted aggravated murder and 2 counts of aggravated 
robbery, all with firearm specifications, for the April 30, 1996, robbery and 
shooting at the Newport Inn, 179 W. Indianola Ave.

Police said Herring and four others attempted to rob the bar and shot 5 people, 
3 of whom died. They said the robbery was planned at Herring's home. Herring 
was 18 at the time of the crime.

A jury recommended he be sentenced to death, and Judge Durkin agreed. But in 
December, the state Supreme Court vacated his death sentence, saying that 
improper mitigation was presented by Herring's defense lawyers to jurors during 
the mitigation phase of the trial. The high court decision affirmed a similar 
decision by the 7th District Court of Appeals.

The high court ruled that a new sentencing hearing must take place to determine 
if Herring should receive the death penalty. Gains said Monday that would 
entail swearing in a new jury as it hears arguments on why Herring should be 
put to death and from his lawyers as to why his life should be spared. He said 
a new proceeding simply would be to decide what sentence Herring should be 
given, not about his guilt or innocence.

Previously, if a sentencing hearing was vacated, a defendant was brought back 
and resentenced to either 20 years to life in prison or 30 years to life in 
prison, Gains said.

Gains said he also is concerned about the 2 surviving victims in the case, both 
of whom he said have been contacted by his office and kept abreast of 
developments, and he wants to wrap it up as quickly as he can to give them some 
closure.

"There has to be some finality here," Gains said.

(source: Youngstown Vindicator)








MISSISSIPPI:

Mississippi Supreme Court hears arguments in death row inmate's appeal in rape 
case



The attorney for death row inmate Charles Ray Crawford argued Monday before the 
Mississippi Supreme Court that the man's 1994 rape conviction should be tossed 
because he received poor legal representation at his trial.

Defense attorney Glenn Swartzfager told the justices there were numerous errors 
in Crawford's rape trial including poor performance by the defense, 
prosecutorial misconduct and questionable rulings and jury instructions from 
the trial judge. He said Crawford's trial lawyer failed to challenge jury 
instructions and failed to object to inadmissible testimony and prejudicial 
prosecutorial comments.

Crawford, now 49, is on death row for the 1992 slaying of Kristy Ray in the 
Chalybeate community in Tippah County. Crawford argues he received ineffective 
defense counsel to fight the rape charge, which was used by prosecutors to seek 
the death penalty.

Prosecutors argued Crawford got a fair trial and that if there was any error, 
it was Crawford's for waiting 20 years to file an appeal.

Assistant Attorney General Scott Stuart told the justices there was sufficient 
evidence to support the verdict. He said the court record shows there was no 
error at the trial and at no point before or during trial that Crawford was not 
represented by counsel.

Crawford was arrested in 1992 and charged with rape and aggravated assault. 
While free on bond, he was arrested and charged with murder in the death of a 
young woman. He was convicted of rape in 1993 and sentenced to 66 years in 
prison. He was then found guilty of murder in 1994 and sentenced to death. 
Prosecutors had argued the death penalty was justified because Crawford's past 
as a rapist constituted an aggravated factor and called for the harshest of 
punishments.

According to his lawyers, Crawford could get off death row - where he now 
resides on the unrelated capital murder conviction - if his appeal in the rape 
case is successful.

The Supreme Court has said it will not set an execution date for the murder 
until the rape appeal is resolved.

If the Supreme Court upholds Crawford's conviction in the rape case, Attorney 
General Jim Hood could petition the court to set an execution date. Crawford's 
lawyers argued the death sentence would be negated if the conviction is 
reversed.

In 1993, Crawford was out on bond awaiting trial on charges of aggravated 
assault and rape. 4 days before his trial, the 20-year-old Ray, a student at 
Northeast Mississippi Community College, was abducted from her parents' home.

After his family and attorney notified police that they feared Crawford was 
committing another crime, he was arrested. Crawford told authorities he did not 
remember the incident but later led them to Ray's body, buried in leaves in a 
wooded area.

(source: Associated Press)








NEBRASKA:

Time to end the death penalty



I am excited that our local leaders are getting on board with the effort to 
repeal the death penalty. Regardless of how one feels about the death penalty 
in theory, in reality, Nebraska's death penalty is broken.

We risk executing innocent people, to date, 150 men have been released from 
death rows around the country. Nebraska isn't immune to this, and anyone who 
values innocent life should be greatly concerned. Nebraska's 3 Catholic Bishops 
called for repeal of Nebraska's death penalty on St. Patrick's Day, then 3 days 
later the Pope said it was "unacceptable" for states to impose capital 
punishment.

Clearly momentum is growing, and I look forward to when Nebraska will be done 
with the death penalty forever.

Carol Knierium, York

(source: Letter to the Editor, York News Times)








UTAH:

Utah becomes only state in America to approve death by firing squad



Utah Gov. Gary Herbert has signed a law authorizing the use of firing squads to 
carry out death penalty sentences if officials cannot acquire lethal injection 
drugs, making the state the only one in America to approve of the method.

"Those who voiced opposition to this bill are primarily arguing against capital 
punishment in general and that decision has already been made in our state," 
said Marty Carpenter, spokesman for Herbert, as quoted by the Guardian.

"We regret anyone ever commits the heinous crime of aggravated murder to merit 
the death penalty and we prefer to use our primary method of lethal injection 
when such a sentence is issued. However, when a jury makes the decision and a 
judge signs a death warrant, enforcing that lawful decision is the obligation 
of the executive branch."

Although Utah is not expected to execute another inmate for years, capital 
punishment opponents have railed against the measure.

"It's an embarrassment to Utah," Ralph Dellapiana of the group Utahns for 
Alternatives to the Death Penalty said to the Associated Press. "We should be 
taking the moral lead on this. You can' be both pro-life and pro-death."

Last week, Herbert said he was "leaning toward" signing the bill so that the 
state could have a viable alternative to lethal injection when the appropriate 
drugs are not available. He has also called the use of a firing squad "a little 
bit gruesome,"though that did not keep him from signing the bill.

"The debate is really more than just the firing squad. It's should we have 
capital punishment or not?" he said at the time, according to NBC News. "It's 
not our preference, but we need to have a fallback."

The move comes as multiple states seek alternative methods for carrying out 
death penalty sentences, as many companies refuse to sell various drugs used in 
lethal injection combinations to state correctional departments.

Currently, death row inmates in Utah can be executed by way of a firing squad, 
but they must choose the option themselves. Now, the state will be able to 
employ a firing squad regardless of the prisoner's choice.

The last prisoner to be executed by firing squad in the state was Ronnie Lee 
Gardner in 2010.

While Utah may be the only state condoning the use of this method, other states 
are also looking into different means of execution. Last year, Tennessee became 
the first state in the US to authorize death via electric chair in the absence 
of lethal injection drugs, though the law faces a legal challenge from inmates 
who argue the method is unconstitutional.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in Oklahoma are considering a bill that would allow gas 
chambers to be used in executions.The Supreme Court is currently reviewing the 
state's lethal injection formula to determine whether it violates the Eighth 
Amendment???s protection against cruel and unusual punishment, since the state 
had a number of botched executions.

(source: rt.com)

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

Utah Enacts Firing Squads as Backup Execution Method



Utah Gov. Gary Herbert signed a bill Monday making the firing squad the method 
of execution if the state can't come up with the drugs for lethal injections.

State lawmakers approved the bill earlier this month, making Utah the latest 
state to look for alternative methods in the wake of nationwide drug shortages. 
Death penalty opponents have been urging the Republican governor to veto it.

"We regret anyone ever commits the heinous crime of aggravated murder to merit 
the death penalty, and we prefer to use our primary method of lethal injection 
when such a sentence is issued," said Marty Carpenter, a spokesman for Herbert.

"However, when a jury makes the decision and a judge signs a death warrant, 
enforcing that lawful decision is the obligation of the executive branch."

The last person executed by firing squad was Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010. 
Because he was convicted before 2002, he had the option of choosing the bullet 
over the needle. The new law will let the state impose the firing squad.

Gardner's brother, Randy Gardner, called the move "pretty backwoods" and 
scoffed at claims by the law's proponents that the firing squad is more humane 
than other methods.

"There's no humane way to execute anyone," the brother said. "I had the 
opportunity to see my brother after and 4 bullets hit his chest and I could 
have put my hand in anyone of the holes. It didn't look very humane to me.

"He was tied down with a hood over his head. Terrorists around the world and 
ISIS -- when they execute people, that's what they do."

Utah has 8 inmates on death row. Other states that have run low on execution 
drugs have considered the electric chair and gas chamber as backups.

(source: NBC news)

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

Utah's firing squad: How does it work?



Gov. Gary Herbert on Monday gave his stamp of approval to a law that brings 
back the firing squad in the only state that has used it in the past 40 years - 
Utah.

Under the law, firing squads will be a backup method if lethal-injection drugs 
aren't available.

Utah and other states have struggled to keep up their inventories as European 
manufacturers opposed to capital punishment refuse to sell the components of 
lethal injections to U.S. prisons.

A closer look at how Utah's firing squad works:

----

WHAT HAPPENS ON EXECUTION DAY?

The prisoner is seated in a chair that is set up in front of a wood panel and 
in between stacked sandbags that keep the bullets from ricocheting around the 
room.

A target is pinned to the inmate's heart. Shooters aim for the chest rather 
than the head because it's a bigger target and usually allows for a faster 
death, said Utah Rep. Paul Ray, who sponsored the proposal.

The prisoner is offered a 2-minute window to offer final words. In 1977, Gary 
Gilmore used that chance to say, "Let's do this" before he died.

5 shooters set up about 25 feet from the chair, with their .30 caliber 
Winchester rifles pointing through slots in a wall. Assuming they hit their 
target, the heart ruptures and the prisoner dies quickly from blood loss.

In 2010, Ronnie Lee Gardner was declared dead 2 minutes after he was shot. He 
was the last person killed by firing squad in the U.S.

WHO ARE THE SHOOTERS?

The gunmen are chosen from a pool of volunteer officers, with priority given to 
those from the area where the crime happened.

There are always more volunteers than spots on the squad, Ray said recently.

The shooters' identities are kept anonymous, and one of their rifles is loaded 
with a blank round so nobody knows which officer killed the inmate.

HAVE FIRING SQUAD EXECUTIONS EVER GONE WRONG?

Not in recent history, said Deborah Denno, a Fordham Law School professor who 
has long studied executions. Utah's 3 firing squad executions in the past 4 
decades went as planned, she said.

But the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes 
capital punishment, warns a firing squad is not a foolproof execution method 
because the inmate could move or the shooters could miss the heart, causing a 
slower, more painful death.

One such case appears to have happened in 1879, during Utah's territorial days, 
when a firing squad missed Wallace Wilkerson's heart and it took him 27 minutes 
to die, according to newspaper accounts.

Denno said errant shots to Wilkerson's shoulder might have been intentional to 
make him suffer.

CAN ORGANS BE DONATED AFTER FIRING SQUAD EXECUTIONS?

Yes. Unlike a lethal injection that poisons the organs, the bodies of people 
executed by firing squad remain usable.

Gilmore, executed by firing squad in 1977, agreed to donate his eyes, kidneys, 
liver and pituitary gland for medical use. His kidneys proved unusable because 
of bullet wounds.

Gardner did not donate his organs.

ARE ANY UTAH INMATES IN LINE FOR THE FIRING SQUAD?

Yes. Ron Lafferty, who claimed God directed him to kill his sister-in-law and 
her baby daughter in 1984 because of the victim's resistance to his beliefs in 
polygamy, has requested the firing squad.

Lawmakers in the state stopped offering inmates that choice in 2004, saying 
firing squads attracted intense media interest and took attention from victims. 
But Lafferty got the option because he was convicted before 2004.

The other Utah death-row inmate who could be next up for execution, Doug 
Carter, has chosen lethal injection. Under the new law, Carter would get the 
firing squad if the state can't get its hands on the lethal injection drugs.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Utah move on firing squads latest attempt to fix the unfixable



Utah's decision to turn to the firing squad if it is unable to secure drugs for 
lethal injection is the latest attempt by a US state to keep alive a punishment 
that should have long ago been consigned to the history books, said Amnesty 
International today.

"Whether by shooting, lethal injection, hanging, asphyxiation or electrocution, 
the death penalty is a cruel, brutalizing and outdated punishment that is a 
symptom of violence, not a solution to it. The Utah legislature should be 
expending its energies on abolishing the death penalty, not trying to fix the 
unfixable," said Rob Freer, USA researcher Amnesty International.

On Monday 23 March, Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed a law allowing the use of 
firing squads when the drugs needed to administer the lethal injection was not 
available.

This move clearly goes against the global and national trend towards abolition 
of the death penalty. Since 2007 six US states have abolished the death penalty 
for all crimes and the governors of Oregon, Washington and, in 2015, 
Pennsylvania have established moratoriums on executions in their states.

The USA is the only country in the Americas currently executing prisoners and 
is 1 of the only 9 countries in the world to have carried out executions every 
year between 2009 and 2013. The other countries were Bangladesh, China, Iran, 
Iraq, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen.

On April 1 Amnesty International will publish its annual Death Penalty Report. 
The report covers the key trends in the use of the death penalty in the past 
year, and looks at how executions and death sentences have increased and 
decreased in all countries.

(source: Amnesty International)








CALIFORNIA----death row inmate dies

After 28 years on California's death row, inmate dies of natural causes



A California inmate sentenced to death 28 years ago died in hospice care this 
week, the state said Monday, bringing the total of condemned inmates who passed 
away from natural causes to 68 in a state that has not carried out an execution 
in years.

The death of Teofilo Medina, Jr., 70, at a medical facility near Sacramento 
comes amid ongoing controversy in California over how the death penalty is 
administered, including a recent decision by a federal judge declaring the 
state's use of capital punishment unconstitutional, because inmates lingered on 
death row for years or even decades.

"This is just another wake-up call to say that California's death penalty 
system doesn't work," said Ellen Kreitzberg, a death penalty expert at Santa 
Clara Law school near San Jose. "It doesn't contribute to any legitimate 
purpose for punishment."

Medina had been on death row since 1987 for a California robbing and killing 
spree that began shortly after he was released from an Arizona prison on a rape 
conviction. He was the 2nd death row inmate to die of natural causes this 
month, the state said.

The death penalty was voided in numerous states, including California, by the 
U.S. Supreme Court in 1972, but many soon adopted sentencing reforms that met 
the high court's requirements. Among them was California, which reinstated its 
death penalty in 1978.

But a lengthy appeals process, along with a lack of political pressure to carry 
out executions, has left California with 751 people on death row. Since the 
penalty was reinstated, 13 inmates have been executed, 23 have committed 
suicide and 68 have died of natural causes, the state said Monday. 1 was 
executed in Missouri.

The state has not put an inmate to death since 2006.

In 2012, a ballot measure to abolish the death penalty lost narrowly, garnering 
47 % of the vote.

Last year, a Field Poll showed support for capital punishment at a 50-year low 
in California, with 54 % of voters supporting the death penalty, down from 68 % 
in 2011.

Opposition to the death penalty has also grown amid concerns that the drugs 
used for lethal injections have led to botched executions and painful deaths.

The exoneration of some inmates by the Innocence Project and other legal 
activists has also prompted new skepticism.

The state announced Medina's death, but did not immediately comment on his 
lengthy stay on death row.

(source: Reuters)

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

Miguel Felix could get death penalty----Guilty verdict in decade old murder 
case



Guilty is the verdict for a man on more than 20 charges in a deadly spree of 
home invasion robberies that resulted in the murder of a man in Desert Hot 
Springs a decade ago.

Miguel Felix was convicted of killing Armando Gonzalez in Gonzalez's Desert Hot 
Springs home.

The murder happened in August of 2004.

The jury will now decide if Felix should get the death penalty for the crimes 
that happened between the summer of 2004 and the spring of 2005.

The sentencing phase of the trial is now set for the second week of April.

(source: KESQ)

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

Killer Scott Peterson living a 'cushy' life on death row



10 years after he was sentenced to death in a murder case that gripped the 
nation, notorious San Diego-born killer Scott Peterson is living what's been 
described as a "cushy" life behind bars. In a 1 hour-special this past weekend, 
Geraldo Rivera talked to journalist and author Nancy Mullane who has seen the 
killer in prison and described him as a "quite buff looking young man" as he 
played basketball shirtless in white boxer shorts with other inmates outside. 
She said the scene looked like "some college athletes out on a neighborhood 
court." 'An exclusive life inside San Quentin'

Mullane further said that Peterson is being housed in what she called the best 
section of the prison that includes a basketball court, an outdoor shower and 
toilet, tables and a roof shielding the inmates from the sun.

The author, who wrote "Life After Murder: 5 Men in Search of Redemption," is 
also executive producer of the radio show "Life of the Law." He said there are 
men on death row who are in their cells 23 to 24 hours per day and rarely see 
another person.

"They are not having the life Scott Peterson is having," she said. "Scott 
Peterson has an exclusive life inside San Quentin."

Peterson, 42, was convicted of killing his 27-year-old wife Laci, who was 8 
months pregnant with the couple's 1st child, at their Modesto home in 2002 on 
Christmas Eve. He then dumped her body and that of her baby boy, already named 
Conner, into the San Francisco Bay. Their badly decomposed bodies - all that 
was left of Laci was her torso - washed ashore 4 months later.

Peterson was arrested in La Jolla in 2003. He had dyed his hair blond and was 
carrying $15,000 in cash at the time.

The former fertilizer salesman and University of San Diego High School grad was 
convicted in 2004 and sentenced to die by lethal injection on March 16, 2005. 
He was then transferred to San Quentin State Prison where he has been living 
ever since. His case is being appealed.

There are currently 745 inmates on death row in California, according to the 
Death Penalty Information Center. The last execution was that of Clarence Ray 
Allen who was convicted of organizing the murders of 3 people. At the time of 
his death on Jan. 17, 2006, Allen had been on death row for 23 years and 1 
month.

There have been just 13 men executed in the state since 1978.

Capital punishment in California was put on hold in 2006 due to what federal 
courts ruled were numerous problems with the lethal injection method.

In 2014, a U.S. federal judge handed down a decision that said the state's 
death penalty was unconstitutional calling it an "arbitrary and irrational 
system that serves no legitimate purpose."

That decision, by U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney of Santa Ana, is being 
appealed. According to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle, if the case is 
upheld it could end capital punishment in the state even though voters have 
three times approved the capital punishment system.

In the meantime, the man whose crime was called "cruel, uncaring, heartless and 
callous," by the judge who sentenced him, is playing basketball in the prison 
that overlooks the bay in which he dumped his wife's body.

(source: Union-Tribune)