[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., N.C., FLA., ALA.

[Rick Halperin]

March 28



TEXAS:

Legislature must fix Texas death penalty; THE POINT - Lawmakers have neglected 
their duty to put greater specificity in the law.



Texans who support capital punishment might want to believe that the system has 
evolved into an excruciatingly fair, airtight application of society's utmost 
punishment.

If only that were the case, this newspaper might not stand with opponents of 
state-sponsored killing.

Each year brings a new set of execution dates that expose weaknesses in the 
system and offend the sense of justice. We trust that state lawmakers are alert 
to them and are willing to apply fixes.

Take Texas law on executing the intellectually disabled. Actually, there really 
isn't a law, despite the Supreme Court's 2002 landmark imperative against 
executing people with low IQs. The Texas response relies in part on a Court of 
Criminal Appeals ruling suggesting that someone like the fictional, dull-witted 
character Lennie in Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men is the type who ought to 
be spared the executioner's needle. Allusions to American literature have no 
place in deciding life-and-death matters in Texas.

The Legislature has neglected its duty to put greater specificity in the law, 
despite a steady flow of condemned inmates whose mental abilities have been in 
question.

Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, has legislation (SB 226) to remedy this. It would 
have the courts treat questions of intelligence like sanity questions, 
impaneling a jury to decide the matter before trial.

Today, the same jurors who decide guilt-innocence also decide whether a person 
they just convicted is bright enough to be killed. The Ellis bill would 
separate the matters and take emotion out of the mix.

This bill should pass and fill an embarrassing void in Texas law.

It was also embarrassing for the state when lawyers for mentally ill killer 
Scott Panetti discovered in the Houston Chronicle on Oct. 30 that his execution 
date had been set 2 weeks prior and was just weeks away. That's right: There 
was no direct, official notification to counsel that the state obtained a death 
warrant - and the clock was ticking toward an appeals deadline.

The remedy for this shamefulness would be companion bills by Rep. Senfronia 
Thompson, D-Houston, (HB 2110) and Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, D-McAllen, (SB 
1071). Texans should not tolerate stealth death warrants.

Nor should Texans tolerate the idea of an execution before all relevant 
evidence has been tested for DNA evidence that might bear on the case. Yet 
that's not a guarantee today, because of a screwy court decision requiring a 
defendant to prove "a reasonable likelihood" of biological material that could 
be tested. How might a defendant produce that proof if not through testing? 
Hence, a remedy by Ellis (SB 487) to eliminate this Catch-22 in state law.

This list of fixes could go on, but we'll mention just one more: the right of 
Texans to know everything about the execution process. That means everything - 
right down to the drugs used, their supplier and expiration dates. A bipartisan 
bill (HB 1587) by Reps. Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, and Tony Tinderholt, 
R-Arlington, would secure the public's right to know.

(source: Editorial, Odessa American)








PENNSYLVANIA:

Montgomery County taxpayers pay $105K to defend double killer



Montgomery County taxpayers will have to pick up a tab of more than $100,000 in 
legal fees for a man who insisted on representing himself at trial and ended up 
with 2 death sentences.

Judge William R. Carpenter has ordered the county to pay defense attorney 
Stephen G. Heckman, the court-appointed trial counsel for Raghunandan 
Yandamuri, $60,000 for his work in Yandamuri's behalf, and defense lawyer Henry 
S. Hilles III, Yandamuri's court-appointed penalty phase counsel, $45,600 for 
his efforts to save Yandamuri's life.

A jury last October convicted Yandamuri on 2 1st-degree murder charges stemming 
from the October 2012 stabbing death of 61-year-old Satyavathi Venna and the 
suffocation death of Saanvi Venna, her 10-month-old granddaughter, in a botched 
kidnapping-for-ransom.

Heckman, appointed trial counsel by the court in November 2012, performed 952.8 
hours of legal services for Yandamuri including 165 hours of in-court time and 
787.8 hours of out-of-court time, according to a detailed billing that Heckman 
provided the court.

In capital cases, Montgomery County pays court-appointed lawyers $75 an hour 
for out-of-court work and $150 an hour for in-court time, according to Court 
Administrator Michael R. Kehs. However, each case is also reviewed on an 
individual basis by the president judge and administrative judge, Kehs added.

The court last July set a cap of $30,000 but that does not pertain to this case 
since both lawyers were appointed prior to the cap, he added.

After repeated attempts to change Yandamuri's mind, Judge Steven T. O'Neill 
granted Yandamuri's request to represent himself at trial.

No reason was offered in open court as to why Yandamuri wanted to represent 
himself but it was apparent at earlier hearings both Yandamuri and Heckman 
disagreed on what avenues of defense should be pursued in the case.

At the same time O'Neill gave the OK for Yandamuri to represent himself, the 
judge directed Heckman to serve as Yandamuri's standby counsel to aid Yandamuri 
in legal matters and to be prepared to take over the case if Yandamuri changed 
his mind.

Hilles' billing covered the 681.7 hours of legal services he performed in 
Yandamuri's behalf including 165 hours of in-court time and 516.7 hours of 
out-of-court time.

Unlike Heckman, Yandamuri did allow Hilles to represent him during the 
death-penalty phase of the trial.

When the trial concluded with the jury handing Yandamuri 2 death sentences, 
Hilles said he believed that Yandamuri, who worked in the information 
technology field, could have spared himself the death penalties if he had 
allowed Heckman to represent him at the trial and followed Heckman's 
recommendations.

The charges against Yandamuri stem from an incident that began on Oct. 22, 
2012, at 1:15 p.m. when Upper Merion police were dispatched to the Marquis 
Apartments complex in response to a 911 call reporting both a killing and a 
missing child.

When they arrived, they found the lifeless body of the grandmother in the 
kitchen.

The grandmother, a native of India, had arrived in the United States in June 
2012 for a 6-month visit to see her new grandchild.

Police could not find the baby but they did find a ransom note asking the 
parents for $50,000 in cash. That note included the nicknames of the parents, 
nicknames known only to close family friends.

Authorities, including township police, county detectives and the FBI, held out 
hope through the week that the child would be found alive.

Yandamuri was brought to the police station for questioning on Oct. 25. After 
initially denying any involvement in the incident, Yandamuri allegedly admitted 
he was responsible for the death of the grandmother and the baby, according to 
the criminal complaint.

Acting on information that Yandamuri gave them, authorities found the baby's 
body in an unused sauna in another building at the apartment complex at about 4 
a.m. on Oct. 26, 2012.

Yandamuri gave both a written and videotaped confession but later maintained 
those confessions were coerced from him by detectives.

(source: The Intelligencer)








NORTH CAROLINA:

NC lawyers face bar complaints for Racial Justice Act work



2 defense attorneys face accusations of professional misconduct for a piece of 
their work on the first successful challenge under the Racial Justice Act.

Gretchen Engel, director of the Durham-based Center for Death Penalty 
Litigation, and Cassandra Stubbs, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties 
Union Capital Punishment Project, were among a team of attorneys who used the 
short-lived law to convert a North Carolina death row inmate's sentence in 2012 
to life without possibility for parole.

Now the attorneys face possible punishment from the N.C. State Bar.

Some legal analysts have characterized the allegations of wrongdoing as so 
minor and "questionable" that they think politics could be at play.

It is unclear who filed the complaints against the attorneys. That's not part 
of the public record.

At issue is whether Engel and Stubbs violated professional codes of conduct in 
relaying information to the courts after interviewing 2 African-American men 
excluded from serving on the 1994 jury that decided the fate of Marcus Reymond 
Robinson.

Robinson, an African-American male, was sentenced to death almost 2 decades ago 
for the 1991 killing of Erik Tornblum, a white teenager.

In April 2012, Judge Gregory Weeks issued a landmark ruling in Cumberland 
County Superior Court saying prosecutors across the state had engaged in 
deliberate and systematic racial discrimination when striking black potential 
jurors in death penalty cases.

Under the Racial Justice Act, Weeks was able to reduce the death sentence for 
Robinson to life in prison with no possibility for parole.

Prosecutors, according to a Michigan State University Law School study that was 
part of the record in the Robinson case, used peremptory challenges to remove 
blacks from juries more than twice as often throughout North Carolina as they 
used them for whites. In Cumberland County, it was almost 3 times as often.

Prosecutors have disputed those statistics and immediately banded together not 
only to appeal the Weeks ruling but to orchestrate the overturning of the 
unique North Carolina law that allowed inmates to use statistics to bolster 
claims of racial bias.

Engel and Stubbs recently found out that someone filed complaints against them 
with the State Bar, the organization that oversees North Carolina lawyers.

The bar allegations focus on sworn statements the attorneys introduced from the 
men who had been part of the 1994 jury pool but not selected for the panel.

The bar complaint contends the lawyers included inaccurate information for the 
court to consider that ranged from a wrong address to a recollection from one 
of the potential jurors that did not jibe with the official trial transcript.

When Engel and Stubbs received notice of the allegations against them, 
according to their attorneys Amos Tyndall of Chapel Hill, and Brad Bannon and 
Alan Schneider of Raleigh, they brought them to the attention of Judge Weeks.

"He noted that the affidavits were not introduced for substantive purposes, and 
the purpose for which they were introduced was not even in dispute," Bannon and 
Schneider, the attorneys for Stubbs, said in a joint statement. "He gave them 
no weight, and he did not rely on them in 378 pages of orders explaining his 
rulings."

The Racial Justice Act proceedings for Robinson extended over 20 days of 
testimony. Eighteen witnesses testified, and more than 298 exhibits were 
included in the record.

"Weeks also made another important finding," Bannon and Schneider said in a 
statement echoed by Tyndall, the attorney for Engel. "[I]f there were any 
inaccuracies in the 2 affidavits, they were not the product of intentional 
misconduct, willfulness or bad faith."

Engel and Stubbs plan to ask for hearings before the State Bar to fight the 
complaints.

Legal scholars and analysts with no ties to the cases of Racial Justice Act 
proceedings questioned whether the high-profile nature of the Robinson case 
might be playing a part in the misconduct allegations.

"The State Bar does not explain publicly why it chooses to proceed on some 
complaints from the public and not on others, so we have to guess," said Bernie 
Burk, a UNC-Chapel Hill law professor with expertise in ethics and professional 
responsibility. "The Racial Justice Act case at issue is very high-profile and 
extremely controversial, with many people holding strong views on both sides. 
And the complaints suggest that the people who accused the defense lawyers 
believe that the discrepancies they've identified were, in the words of the 
ethical rules, 'prejudicial to the administration of justice.'

"Given the high profile and intensity of the controversy and the gravity of 
what the accusers claim, the Bar may have felt that the best course is to hold 
a formal proceeding that will result in an evidentiary record and a reasoned 
decision, so that everyone will understand the reasons for the result."

Michael Frisch, a Georgetown University law professor who worked for 18 years 
as a bar prosecutor for the District of Columbia, wrote about the 2 cases on a 
blog he started to offer insight into such proceedings.

"I look at this prosecution, and I see the charges looking very questionable to 
me," Frisch said in a telephone interview Friday. "I wouldn't see them 
prosecuting this if it was Joe Schmo on the street or a prosecutor. And as a 
result, this is leading me to believe this is a politically motivated 
prosecution."

(source: Charlotte Observer)








FLORIDA:

We must review, improve state's death-penalty process



Florida's death-penalty process needs improvement.

Recently the Florida Senate Criminal Justice Committee voted 5-0 to pass Senate 
Bill 664, a bill that would require, in capital-case penalty-phase proceedings, 
that a jury vote unanimously, rather than by a simple majority, to recommend 
sentences of death. Sen. Thad Altman, R-Viera, filed this bill, as he has done 
during the past several legislative sessions.

This is the 1st time the bill received a vote.

Altman's effort responds to State v. Steele, a state Supreme Court opinion that 
urges the Legislature to revisit the death-penalty statute to address a 
significant anomaly in the law.

The state Supreme Court noted that Florida is an outlier - the only state to 
allow penalty-phase juries both to recommend death sentences and to find the 
presence of aggravating circumstances surrounding a capital crime (a legal 
threshold for imposing death sentences) by a simple majority.

Florida law requires juries to vote unanimously to convict a defendant at 
trial; and while judges are the final sentencing authorities, they must place 
great weight upon juries' penalty-phase sentencing recommendations (either 
death or life in prison without the possibility of parole).

The backdrop is compelling.

More death sentences reportedly were imposed in Florida recently than in any 
other state; more executions have been carried out during the administration of 
Gov. Rick Scott than during the administrations of any of his contemporaries 
within a comparable time frame; and according to the Death Penalty Information 
Center in Washington, D.C., more exonerations have occurred in Florida than in 
any other state since 1973.

The Senate's Bill Analysis and Fiscal Impact Statement notes that the U.S. 
Supreme Court recently agreed to review Hurst v. Florida, a capital case in 
which the jury recommended a sentence of death by a vote of 7-5.

The court will consider "whether Florida's death sentencing scheme violates the 
Sixth or Eighth Amendments in light of that court's decision in Ring v. 
Arizona, 536 U.S. 584 (2002)."

The Ring decision required that juries, not judges alone, must make the crucial 
factual determinations that would subject a convicted murderer to the death 
penalty. The Florida Supreme Court has not applied Ring to Florida's 
non-unanimous jury recommendations.

If the Legislature ultimately passes - and Scott signs - Altman's bill, Florida 
would more favorably align with virtually every other capital-punishment state 
in the U.S. All require some form of unanimity.

Beyond the unanimous jury legislation, the Florida Bar Board of Governors 
recently renewed its support for a comprehensive review of Florida's entire 
death-penalty process by all branches of government.

Irrespective of whether one supports or opposes capital punishment, a review by 
state officials arguably is long overdue.

(source: Op-Ed; Raoul Cantero, a former state Supreme Court justice appointed 
by Gov. Jeb Bush, practices law in Miami. Mark Schlakman, of FSU's Center for 
the Advancement of Human Rights, was on the ABA's Florida Death Penalty 
Assessment Team. Tallahassee Democrat)

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

Father of starved infant to stay in Polk County Jail



Roy Stephens, who's accused of starving his newborn infant to death last 
December, will remain in jail without bond until he stands trial, a circuit 
judge ruled Friday.

Circuit Judge Donald Jacobsen stated in his ruling that the presumption of 
guilt is great enough to justify holding Stephens in custody.

In a hearing earlier in the day, Stephens' lawyers had sought pretrial release 
for him, saying the medical examiner who conducted the autopsy on the 
22-day-old baby, Betsey Kee Stephens, hadn't adequately explored other causes 
for her death. But Jacobsen rejected that argument.

Defense lawyer Byron Hileman, representing Stephens, said he wasn't surprised 
by the judge's ruling, in part because the state is seeking the death penalty 
against his client.

"The granting of bond in a death penalty case is extremely rare," he said 
Friday. "I know of one case in 40 years. But the hearing did give us an idea of 
the state's theory in the case, and that will help us in preparing our 
defense."

Stephens, 48, and his 23-year-old wife, Ruby, of Tennyson, Ind., were visiting 
family in Polk County last Christmas when they told emergency responders in 
Lakeland their 22-day-old baby, Betsey, had stopped breathing.

An autopsy revealed the baby weighed only 4 pounds and 1 ounce, and she had no 
food in her stomach or intestines, indicating she hadn't been fed for at least 
a day, according to testimony Friday.

Stephens and his wife told authorities the baby had been fed regularly since 
she was born Dec. 1, and had been breastfed as recently as 2 hours before she 
died, police reports said.

Both Ruby and Roy Stephens are charged with 1st-degree murder, aggravated child 
abuse and aggravated manslaughter of a child, and prosecutors are seeking the 
death penalty for both.

Both will be back in court for a status hearing May 7.

In Friday's hearing, Associate Medical Examiner Vera Volnikh testified the baby 
had lost 36 % of her birth weight by the time she died on Dec. 23.

"She was extremely dehydrated," Volnikh said. "There is no fat tissue on the 
baby. You can see the outline of the bone under the skin. There's no fat in the 
cheeks."

Most babies lose about 5 percent of their birth weight in the first couple 
weeks of life, she said, but 36 % was extremely abnormal. Hileman asked Volnikh 
if she considered other causes for the child's condition, including 
failure-to-thrive syndrome. He suggested through a litany of questions that the 
medical examiner didn't probe far enough before ruling the cause of death as 
starvation by neglect.

"Her investigation of causability was limited to routine tests," Hileman said 
in his argument to Jacobsen.

Volnikh said she checked for parasites and infection in the baby's 
gastrointestinal system, and looked for genetic abnormalities.

"This child didn't have any," she said. She said those issues generally lead to 
a slow decline in health.

"This child was 22 days old," she said. "Any mother could see that this baby is 
not gaining weight."

Assistant State Attorney John Waters argued the baby's empty stomach and 
bladder provided medical evidence that she wasn't being fed. He also cited the 
Stephens' efforts to collect on a $10,000 life insurance policy on their 
daughter the day after she died.

"That goes to the mindset of these individuals," he said.

(source: Panama City News Herald)








ALABAMA:

Bill would shroud executions in secrecy



Among the functions of state government, nothing even approaches the 
significance of execution, of taking the life of an individual as the ultimate 
punishment for crime. The solemn weight of that responsibility should never be 
discounted and if there is any action of government that should be open and 
transparent, surely it is this one.

Yet the entire process - the death of a human being at the hands of the state - 
would be shrouded in secrecy if a bill now before the Legislature passes in its 
current form. That cannot be allowed to happen.

This is not about whether the state should impose capital punishment, although 
our state certainly could use some serious debate of that issue. It is about 
whether the death penalty is to be imposed in secrecy, whether a person may be 
executed by the state in a process hidden from its citizens.

We find the prospect profoundly disturbing. And we also find disturbing the 
unjustified insertion of language into a bill that began as a measure dealing 
with the identity of companies or persons who make the drugs used in lethal 
injections. That at least is a debatable matter, but the bill has been 
dramatically transformed to empower the Department of Corrections to operate in 
a legally impenetrable atmosphere.

The bill now states that "any person who participates in an execution or 
performs any ancillary function related to an execution" is covered by the same 
shield of secrecy as the drug manufacturers and thus "shall be confidential, 
shall not be subject to disclosure, and shall not be admissible as evidence or 
discoverable in any action of any kind in any court or before any tribunal, 
board, agency or person."

Such sweeping language is troubling enough, but a briefer insertion in the bill 
is even more damaging to the public interest. In fact, it likely renders that 
blanket secrecy language redundant.

This portion of the bill states that DOC "policies and procedures" regarding 
executions are exempt from "Section 36-12-40." Most people, probably even most 
legislators, wouldn't know that Section 36-12-40, not otherwise identified in 
the bill, is the state's open records act.

The effect of this bill would be to deny Alabamians any opportunity to know 
anything about executions carried out by the DOC. No matter how hideously 
botched an execution might be, no matter what legitimate questions there might 
be about injection drugs or electrocution, no matter how much a situation might 
cry out for inquiry, the door to information is locked as tight as a 
maximum-security cell.

That is utterly wrong and cannot be condoned. The bill goes before a Senate 
committee this week, where this shameful, secretive language should be stricken 
at once.

(source: Montgomery Advertiser)