[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., FLA., KAN., NEB., UTAH, USA

[Rick Halperin]

March 24



PENNSYLVANIA:

Death penalty costly, ineffective



Each day consists of opportunities to make known our voices for those who 
cannot. Today, I speak in further encouragement of the seeking of justice; I 
ask for the 186 inmates in the state of Pennsylvania to no longer await 
execution in prison's hot seats of death row. The continuation of the death 
penalty, a brutal and morally degrading law, should receive careful 
reconsideration due to the hefty expenses it accumulates and its lack of use in 
Pennsylvania within the past 15 years. As 18 states, including the District of 
Columbia, have abolished the death penalty, it is time for the Keystone State 
to join the list.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf promised his citizens an examination of the death 
penalty's overall fairness and potentially a repeal of the law. As Berks County 
District Attorney John Adams states in the Reading Eagle, Dec. 14, "Definitely, 
the death penalty extremely strains our resources."

Additionally, the cost of the state's death penalty is estimated at around $350 
million. Inspired by the neighboring state of Maryland, which issued a cost 
study resulting in the abolition of the law, a report was commissioned by state 
legislators back in 2011; however, it was never carried out. According to The 
Patriot-News, a recent cost study, sponsored by state Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, 
calls it "historic." Based on Maryland's study, which shows $2 million more 
toward those on death row rather than life sentencing, Pennsylvania could 
possibly save up to $370 million.

Millions of dollars are thrown away, so why should this inactive law remain? As 
I previously mentioned, the last execution in Pennsylvania occurred 15 years 
ago, and only 3 have taken place within the past 35 years. While the death 
penalty exists and yet lacks enforcement, what purpose does it serve? As time 
urges examination of outdated concepts and reformation of state finances, do 
not hesitate to speak up. Support our state leaders today in their commitment 
to seek brighter futures for Pennsylvania, saving money, time and lives. Thank 
you.

Kelsea Dvorak, New Freedom

(source: Letter to the Editor, York Daily Record)







FLORIDA:

Low Bar For Florida Death Penalty Juries Triggers High Court Review



The Supreme Court will examine Florida's capital punishment system in its next 
term, and legal experts believe Florida's death penalty itself may be in 
danger.

A solution could be in a legislative fix now moving slowly through the Capitol 
in Tallahassee. It's been passed by one Senate committee but the House is 
showing little interest in the companion bill.

The Supreme Court case involves a murder conviction and death sentence from 
Escambia County and whether it violates the court's 2002 holding in Ring vs. 
Arizona. That decision emphasized Sixth Amendment jury responsibility for death 
sentences, even when they are only recommendations to the judge. Until now, 
subtleties in Florida law had seemed to keep the state in a grey area in which 
Ring did not apply.

But since Florida -- alone among the 32 death-penalty states -- allows jury 
recommendations of death by simple majority and doesn't require a provably 
rigorous examination of aggravating and mitigating circumstances, state law is 
now seen as requiring too little of its 1st-degree murder juries.

Juries must determine guilt unanimously. Between 2000 and 2012, according to a 
Senate staff analysis, juries recommended death penalties by 12-to-0 in only 60 
of 320 cases. 96 others were decided by votes of 11-to-1 or 10-to-2.

In the Escambia County case, the jury vote for death was 7-to-5. The jury left 
no record of whether it had even considered defendant Timothy Hurst's claim 
that he was mentally disabled.

In Tallahassee, most of the discussion about the death penalty bills is about 
the unanimity requirement and whether it contributes to Florida's status as the 
number-one state for death row exonerations.

"Florida is an outlier," said Senate bill sponsor Thad Altman (R-Brevard 
County). "You require a unanimous jury vote for guilt in a capital case. Why 
would you not if you're going to take a human life?"

Altman is a conservative Republican who has some misgivings about the death 
penalty but would rather not see it struck down. His bill would impose a 
unanimity requirement on jury penalty recommendations and proof of the 
aggravating and mitigating factors to the same standard as the rest of the 
trial evidence. Jurors would have to approve those, too, also unanimously.

The same requirements are in the House bill sponsored jointly by State Rep. 
Jose Javier Rodriguez (D-Miami Dade County) and Clovis Watson (D-Alachua 
County). Rodriguez says the politics are complicated and no committee has 
agreed to hear it.

"There are those of us who are very intent on reform and there are some people 
who see this reform measure as sort of soft on crime," Rodriguez said. "It's 
really not at all that."

Like Altman -- with whom he generally disagrees -- Rodriguez thinks if there 
must be a death penalty, it must be fairly applied. And that's a view shared by 
one of the death penalty's most implacable opponents, the Catholic Church.

"We support the bill, very, very much," said Ingrid Delgado, who lobbies the 
Legislature for the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, which is often 
against the death penalty. "Our bishops for a very long time have been saying 
that it shouldn't exist in our state that we should discontinue it in our 
state. However, as long as we do have the death penalty, then the process 
should be as just and reliable as possible.

Perhaps predictably, the bill is favored by defense lawyers and opposed by 
prosecutors. At a meeting of the Senate committee that ultimately passed 
Altman's bill, they argued over how requiring unanimity might affect murder 
case juries.

Rex Demming of the Florida Public Defenders Association said the current simple 
majority rule makes it too easy to condemn the defendant.

"Jurors are exhausted by the time they get to the penalty phase. They've sat 
through days or weeks of testimony and they're ready to get it done. When they 
hear, 'All you have to do is go back there, get a simple majority vote and come 
back,' they're more than anxious to do that," Demming testified.

But Alachua County State Attorney William Cervone, speaking for the Florida 
Prosecuting Attorneys Association, said requiring unanimity would remove 
nuances that can help the sentencing judge. "It is very instructive for the 
judge to know that the jury felt 12-to-0 or the jury felt 7-to-5 in making this 
ultimate decision on this very important question," Cervone told the committee.

If the death penalty reform bill doesn't pass and the Supreme Court rules as 
predicted, Florida's death penalty could collapse of its own weight.

(soruce: WLRN news)








KANSAS:

John E. Robinson death penalty appeal hearing takes 3 hours in Topeka



After more than a decade of preparation, lawyers for convicted serial killer 
John E. Robinson Sr. got a little more than 1 hour Tuesday to make their case 
for a new trial.

During oral arguments before the Kansas Supreme Court, the defense raised a 
multitude of factors they say prevented Robinson from getting a fair trial.

Attorneys for the state countered that Robinson's 2002 prosecution in Johnson 
County was handled fairly and his convictions and death sentence should be 
upheld.

The justices questioned prosecutors about how they construction the 2 capital 
murder charges that put Robinson on death row. In each count, prosecutors cited 
the same deaths of 4 other women in Missouri as being were part of a continuous 
scheme or course of conduct, 1 of the factors that allows prosecutors to seek 
the death penalty under Kansas law.

If the court finds that structure to be a problem, the state could lose 1 of 
Robinson's 2 capital murder convictions. Jurors also convicted Robinson of 
1st-degree murder in a 3rd woman???s death after the longest criminal trial in 
Kansas history.

Robinson, now 71, killed the 3 women over a 15-year period.

He later pleaded guilty in Cass County to killing 5 other women and was 
sentenced to life in prison in Missouri.

The Johnson County convictions - the subject of Tuesday's hearing - involved 
the deaths of a 27-year-old Michigan woman, Suzette Trouten, and a 21-year-old 
Indiana woman, Izabela Lewicka. Both moved to the Kansas City area after 
meeting Robinson online.

Their bodies were found in June 2000 stuffed inside barrels on property 
Robinson owned in Linn County, Kan.

Robinson also was found guilty in Kansas of killing Lisa Stasi, a 19-year-old 
Kansas City woman last seen by her family in 1985. Her body has not been found, 
but authorities discovered that her infant daughter had been raised by members 
of Robinson's family after he arranged an adoption that they believed was 
legitimate.

Kansas has not executed an inmate since the state re-instituted the death 
penalty in 1994.

(source: Kansas City Star)








NEBRASKA:

Conservative group hosts death row survivor



Nebraska Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty and the Creighton 
University chapters of the Young Americans for Liberty and Students for Life 
will host an evening of discussion with former death row inmate Ray Krone 
Tuesday in Omaha.

A lifelong Republican and an Air Force veteran, Krone was a death penalty 
supporter until he was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1992 and sentenced to 
death in Arizona. A decade later, DNA tests proved his innocence and led 
authorities to the actual killer.

"It's too dangerous to give the government the power to kill us under any 
circumstances," he says in a news release.

Krone is one of the 151 people to be released from death rows across America 
and is director of membership and training for Witness to Innocence, an 
organization led by death row exonerees.

The discussion with Krone is set to begin at 6 p.m. in the ballroom of the 
Harper Center at Creighton. More, contact Matt Maly of Nebraska Conservatives 
Concerned About the Death Penalty, 402-650-4485 or matt at nadp.net.

(source: Lincoln Journal Star)








UTAH:

Utah Citizens Group Pushes to End Death Penalty in US



The debate over the US state of Utah decision to allow executions by a killing 
squad needs to bring to light the issue of ending the death penalty in the 
United States once and for all, Utah Citizens' Counsel member Dee Rowland told 
Sputnik on Tuesday.

"My hope is that this discussion of the method of execution in Utah will result 
in lifting the awareness of the fact that with modern abilities to separate an 
accused murderer from the public, the use of the death penalty will finally be 
seen as obsolete and will cease," Rowland said on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah told Sputnik they were 
opposed to Herbert's move, and hoped for a wider conversation on the death 
penalty and the detractors of it.

The Utah Citizens' Counsel is an independent, non-partisan group of senior 
community advocates dedicated to improving public policy on complex issues 
through dialogue and consensus building.

(source: sputniknews.com)

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

Utah's authorization of firing squads to carry the death penalty bucks 
international trend



Utah's decision to reintroduce the firing squad as an execution method if 
lethal injections drugs are unavailable bucks an international trend.

The change in law makes Utah only the 2nd U.S. state to adopt firing squads in 
executions after Oklahoma, which relies on it only as a method of last resort. 
The U.S. is the only country in the Americas to allow the use of firing squads 
in civilian cases besides Cuba.

Many countries that use firing squads usually reserve them for military cases 
or during war time. An exception is Indonesia which is preparing to execute 10 
drug smugglers, 9 of them foreigners, by firing squad after judicial reviews 
are complete.

China, where thousands of people are believed to be executed each year, 
traditionally used firing squads. But in recent years China has begun using 
lethal injections and that is now believed to be the main technique. The exact 
number of executions in China is a state secret, but it is thought to be the 
most in the world.

Firing squads remain the preferred method of execution in Somalia and 
Equatorial Guinea and are known to have been used in Iran, Iraq and Saudi 
Arabia. North Korea is believed to use them.

According to Amnesty International at least 778 executions, excluding China's, 
were carried out around the globe in 2013 - the last year for which numbers 
were available - compared to 682 in 2012. The organization did not provide a 
breakdown of executions methods.

At least 1,927 people were known to have been sentenced to death in 57 
countries in 2013, up from 1,722 death sentences in 58 countries in 2012, 
according to Amnesty.

ASIA

Videos smuggled out of North Korea reportedly show public executions by firing 
squad. South Korea's spy agency believes North Korea used a firing squad last 
year to execute several people close to leader Kim Jong Un's uncle, Jang Song 
Thaek, who was considered the country's second most powerful person before his 
sudden purge and execution in December 2013.

Vietnam, with nearly 700 people on death row, switched from firing squads to 
lethal injection on humanitarian grounds in 2011. Since then it has only 
executed a handful of people because of the difficulty in acquiring the 
required drugs.

Taiwan's death row total stands at more than 100. The number of executions, 
carried out by handgun shooting either to the heart or to the brain, declined 
after 2000 due to public opposition, with none between 2006 and 2009. They 
resumed in 2010 following a change in president and renewed sentiment in favor 
of the policy.

Thailand executed prisoners by a machine gun or automatic rifle fired by an 
executioner until 2002, when the method was changed to lethal injection. There 
have been no executions since 2009.

MIDEAST

In Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, 3 countries that have some of the highest 
execution rates in the world, firing squads are rarely used.

In Saudi Arabia, the usual method of execution is beheading by a swordsman. In 
2013, a firing squad was used in the execution of 7 men convicted of looting 
and armed robbery. Press reports at the time suggested it was because a 
swordsman was not available.

During Iran's 1979 revolution, the Islamic clerical regime that came to power 
used firing squads to execute some senior military officers from the regime of 
the ousted shah. But the method is rarely used now, and the vast majority of 
executions are by hanging.

Hanging is also the method most commonly used in Iraq, although there have been 
cases where firing squads have been employed.

The United Arab Emirates uses firing squads for all executions, but death 
penalty sentences are rarely carried out. The most recently reported execution 
was in January 2014.

EUROPE

Capital punishment has been completely abolished across Europe with the former 
Soviet nation of Belarus being the sole exception.

Abolition of the death penalty is a pre-condition for entry into the European 
Union. The EU's Baltic Sea member Latvia was the last country to retain capital 
punishment for murder, but only during wartime. It was abolished in 2012.

The exact number of people executed in Belarus is believed to be three in 2014, 
according to human rights' groups, but there is some uncertainty about that 
figure because of the general lack of transparency there. It is believed to 
have been below 10 executions in the past decade. Execution is done by shooting 
in the back of the head, but the death penalty's use is shrouded in secrecy.

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Somalia and Sudan routinely execute the most people in this region. In 2013, 
Somalia executed 34 people while Sudan put 21 to death, according to Amnesty 
International. Somalia generally uses firing squads to carry out its death 
sentences; two soldiers were executed by shooting on Tuesday, according to the 
country's military court.

The death penalty is legal in more than a dozen other countries in the region, 
although only 5 carried out executions in 2013. In recent years, the only other 
country in the region to use firing squads was Equatorial Guinea, which shot 4 
people last year but then issued a moratorium on future executions, Amnesty 
said.

LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

In general, the death penalty has been abolished across the region, if not by 
law in each country, then on a de facto basis, according to the World Coalition 
Against the Death Penalty. The last known execution in the region was in Cuba 
in 2003 by firing squad.

(source: Associated Press)








USA:

Death penalty dilemma in U.S. leads Utah to allow firing squads----Utah 
recently passed law allowing firing squads for capital punishment



Utah became the only jurisdiction in the United States to allow firing squads 
to carry out death sentences on Monday. The governor signed a bill that makes 
the method a backup option when lethal injection drugs aren't available.

32 states authorize capital punishment, but it is becoming increasingly 
difficult to carry out because of a shortage of the drugs used in lethal 
injections, the primary method used. States have been trying new combinations 
of different drugs, and executions haven't always gone smoothly with the new 
protocols.

Numerous legal challenges have been launched, and some executions have been 
botched, leading some states to review their methods and to seek alternatives. 
Other states simply aren't carrying out capital punishment because their 
governors are opposed to it.

Here is a look at what's happening with some of the states that have the death 
penalty on the books.

Arizona, Ohio, Oklahoma

These 3 states have put executions on hold because of botched executions last 
year. It took Joseph Wood nearly 2 hours to die in Arizona. In Ohio, Dennis 
McGuire gasped and snorted for an extended period before dying. Clayton Lockett 
in Oklahoma had a heart attack soon after being injected.

Pennsylvania

Calling it a "flawed system," Gov. Tom Wolf made Pennsylvania the most recent 
state to impose a moratorium in February. It will remain in effect pending the 
results of a task force that is reviewing the punishment. Pennsylvania has one 
of the largest death row populations in the country - 188 people - but has 
carried out only three executions since 1976.

Oregon

Gov. John Kitzhaber imposed a moratorium in November 2011 saying he wanted no 
part of the "inequitable" system and vowing that no executions would be carried 
out as long as he is in office. An inmate was scheduled to die within weeks of 
that decision. 37 people are on death row.

Washington

Gov. Jay Inslee imposed a moratorium in February 2014, affecting 9 people on 
death row. State legislators opposed to the death penalty introduced a bill in 
January seeking to abolish it. They have tried and failed before, but are 
hoping the governor's personal moratorium will help build support this time. 
Washington is the only state where inmates are offered the choice of death by 
hanging instead of lethal injection, the default method. No one has been 
executed since 2010.

Colorado

The state has rarely used the death penalty and hadn't executed anyone since 
1997 before Gov. John Hickenlooper imposed a moratorium in 2013. He said that 
if the death penalty is to be carried out it should be done so "flawlessly," 
but the system is not flawless. Three inmates are on death row.

Delaware

Legislators opposed to the death penalty introduced a bill earlier this month 
to repeal it. If it passes, Delaware would be the 19th state to ban it, but the 
15 people currently on death row could still be executed. Opponents have tried 
and failed before to overturn the death penalty in Delaware.

Florida

Florida's death penalty will be on trial at the U.S. Supreme Court this 
session. It agreed to hear a case about how juries recommend death sentences 
and whether the rules are constitutional. In Florida, juries do not have to be 
unanimous in their recommendation.

California

The state has the country's largest death row population, more than 700 people, 
but the state imposed a moratorium in 2006 after a successful court challenge 
that forced the state to change its lethal injection protocols. New regulations 
were introduced in 2010. Last summer a federal judge in the state declared the 
death penalty unconstitutional, but the ruling only applied to a single case.

Tennessee

In 2014, Gov. Bill Haslam signed a law that authorizes the use of the electric 
chair if lethal injection drugs are not available. Some states give death row 
inmates the option of the electric chair, but Tennessee's law now makes its use 
mandatory if drugs can't be used.

Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, Wyoming

There are no formal moratoriums, but these states have not carried out an 
execution in more than 5 years. Kansas, for example, hasn't imposed the 
sentence since 1965. New Hampshire hasn't executed anyone since 1939. It has 
one person on death row. The legislature came 1 vote short of abolishing the 
death sentence last year.

Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, North Carolina

These states have put executions on hold pending court challenges over the 
drugs being used in lethal injections.

Missouri

Missouri's oldest death row inmate Cecil Clayton was executed on March 17. The 
74-year-old convicted murderer had an IQ of 71, according to his lawyers, who 
argued that he should have been ineligible for the punishment because he wasn't 
mentally healthy. The part of the brain that controls impulse and judgment had 
been removed from Clayton after a sawmill accident. The last-minute appeals all 
failed.

States with the death penalty

Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, 
Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, 
Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, 
Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, 
Washington, Wyoming.

States without the death penalty

Alaska, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, 
Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Rhode 
Island, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin.

(source: CBC news)