[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----LA., TENN., ILL., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

May 17



LOUISIANA:

Seabaugh's bill could put death penalty on fast track



The Louisiana House of Representative Judiciary Committee will again take up a 
bill aiming to strip oversight and funding of death penalty cases away from the 
Louisiana Public Defender Board.

House Bill 605 was sponsored by Republican state Rep. Alan Seabaugh, of 
Shreveport. A hearing on the bill took place Thursday. The Louisiana District 
Attorneys Association backed Seabaugh.

The house committee recognized criminal defense attorneys, judges, the 
Louisiana State Bar Association and the Louisiana Conference of Catholic 
Bishops as some of the bill's opponents.

Seabaugh expects the committee to meet again this week and discuss the bill, 
which has undergone dozens of amendments since at least Tuesday.

If the full Legislature approves it, the bill would create a new 5-member 
committee, comprised of three active or retired judges, one appointment from 
the Louisiana District Attorneys Association and one appointment from the 
Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

But opponents of Seabaugh's bill say it could create an unconstitutional system 
- making it impossible for death penalty convictions to withstand an appeal and 
create an uneven balance of power in an adversarial system.

"It just doesn't make sense. It's flawed. I can't think of any other place in 
the United States where we deliver justice in that fashion," said George 
Steimel, an LACDL lobbyist.

The representative doesn't feel that way. Seabaugh doesn't believe the 
constitutional argument is valid. He says the bill is a way to address wasteful 
spending by the state public defender board. He says the board uses public 
dollars to drag out death penalty cases by hiring multiple expert witnesses and 
unnecessary lawyers.

Seabaugh accused the board's current members of being anti-death penalty 
advocates using state dollars to price out capital punishment in Louisiana - 
often at the expense of other indigent clients.

"It's not just a funding issue. It's an administrative issue. And, the people 
that run the board are anti-death penalty crusaders and they're trying to do 
anything that they can to stop capital prosecution," he said. "And that 
includes bankrupting the system to saying, 'We don't have the money to afford 
it; therefore, we cannot provide the counsel, therefore, the prosecution cannot 
go forward.'"

Jay Dixon, state public defender, did not return calls by deadline. But, he 
disputed much of the testimony Seabaugh and the district attorney association 
offered during the hearing - including an accusation that he recently asked the 
house appropriations committee for $115 million.

The bill would redirect 25 % of the monies deposited in the Louisiana Public 
Defender Fund to the five-member committee.

Steimel contends death penalty clients would be at the mercy of a committee 
that is equally prosecution and defense.

"I don't think anyone would want a lawyer who is managed by the judiciary and 
the prosecutors as part of a team," he said. "It's a team - a group that's 
making all of the decisions."

The bill is flawed, he said. No one wants their adversary deciding who's going 
to represent them in court.

The bill also requires members of the proposed committee to possess the 
qualifications required of a juror to serve on capital cases. This means they 
wouldn't mind imposing a death sentence.

Marjorie Esman, executive director of ACLU of Louisiana, said constitutional 
problems arise if defendants aren't given a vigorous defense.

Like Steimel, Esman also found the makeup of the proposed board problematic. 
She said it doesn't make sense in an adversarial legal system.

"It might be a prohibitive legal conflict of interest for a prosecutor to be on 
a panel that governs defense. You can't do that," she said.

Seabaugh says the committee would be neutral. He's proposing to put it under 
the Louisiana State Law Institute. Originally, the bill called for the 
Louisiana Supreme Court to have administrative oversight of the committee.

But the Supreme Court wanted nothing to do with it. Seabaugh amended the bill 
to replace the Supreme Court with the law institute. He admits it might have 
been problematic for the court.

The Louisiana Public Defender Board received approximately $33 million in state 
funding in 2013, according to a 2014 Louisiana Legislative audit. Nearly $17.5 
million of the state public defender board's 2013 budget paid for capital and 
non-capital defense at district offices.

The audit found the public defender board to be underfunded. The report said it 
provided inadequate representation for capital defense services in accordance 
with state statutory requirements.

E. Pete Adams, Louisiana District Attorneys Association executive director, and 
Calcasieu Parish District Attorney John DeRosier testified with Seabaugh in 
support of the proposed changes.

"We cannot allow the pricing of capital punishment cases out of the market as a 
way to get rid of it," DeRosier said.

(source: Shreveport Times)








TENNESSEE:

Henry Lee Jones sentenced to death - again - for 2003 murders of Bartlett 
couple



A Shelby County jury on Saturday found Henry Lee Jones guilty of 2 counts of 
1st-degree murder in the 2003 slayings of an elderly Bartlett couple and 
sentenced him to death.

Jones had been convicted and sentenced to death in 2009 for killing Clarence 
and Lillian James in their Bartlett home, but he got a new trial when the 
conviction was overturned last year. The state Supreme Court ruled the jury 
should not have been told of charges faced by Jones in the death of 19-year-old 
Carlos Perez 4 days later in Melbourne, Florida.

This time, the jury only heard about the Florida case during the penalty phase, 
rather than the earlier guilt-or-innocence phase, said James Gulley, a private 
lawyer appointed to help Jones.

Jones had defense lawyers in his 2009 trial, but he went against their advice 
by taking the stand in his own defense. This time, he insisted on representing 
himself during much of the trial, though Gulley said Jones let him help him 
briefly during the end of the trial on Friday.

During the sentencing phase Saturday, when the jury had to decide whether to 
send him to life in prison or to death, Jones insisted on representing himself 
again.

Jones put on no evidence that would counter the prosecution's contention that 
he deserved to die, even though the court would have permitted the reading of 
his brother's earlier statements about their traumatic childhood. Judge W. Mark 
Ward advised Jones to accept legal advice and defend himself.

"It could be something that saves your life," the judge said.

But Jones chose not to, and his lawyer took a seat in the spectators' area.

Dressed in a red jail smock, Jones said during closing arguments that the 
prosecutors were acting unjustly.

"The most evil people, which they call me, I think they need to reflect on 
themselves," he told jurors. "It's no evidence that I committed this crime ... 
Ladies and gentlemen, please do not sentence me to death. Thank you."

Then prosecutor Tom Henderson began speaking to the jurors softly, prompting 
Jones to speak up.

"I can't hear him, your honor," Jones said.

Henderson turned toward Jones and nearly shouted.

"It's about control, and he's not in control anymore," Henderson said.

He said the jurors should follow the law. He and prosecutor Jennifer Nichols 
had argued that they'd proven many of the aggravating factors needed for a 
death sentence.

Jones was convicted of killing the James couple during a robbery, and among 
other things the prosecutors said he'd inflicted cruel violence on the elderly 
couple, killed them to eliminate them as witnesses, and had gone on to kill 
Perez in Florida, making it a mass murder.

The jury began deliberations on the death sentence shortly before 5 p.m. and 
returned their verdict about 6:15 p.m.

Judge Ward appointed Gulley, the backup defense lawyer, to handle an appeal. 
That prompted a stronger reaction from Jones than the sentence itself.

"No no no no no!" Jones said. The judge responded, "We'll hash that out at the 
next court date." It will take place June 5."

"I'm obviously relieved. And that is the penalty that we wanted and I think 
that justice was served," said Veronica James Lewis, 43, a granddaughter of 
Clarence James.

She testified earlier Saturday that her grandfather had attended her wedding in 
2002 and had a wonderful time, and the double killing the following year was a 
tremendous shock.

"It haunts the entire family," she said.

Jones already faces the death penalty in Florida for the murder there. He was 
convicted by a jury in 2013 and a judge imposed the death sentence in 2014. In 
that case, too, he represented himself.

(source: Copmmercial Appeal)








ILLINOIS:

How Gov. Ryan ended death penalty at Tamms



The tiny community in deep Southern Illinois that waged a full-press 
fundraising campaign and courtship with the state to earn its 1st "supermax" 
prison, was to become Illinois's death row capital - the final destination for 
inmates sentenced to die and whose appeals had run out.

But with 3 sighs and a lick of his lips, according to The Associated Press 
reporter who witnessed the lethal injection that day, Andrew Kokoraleis on 
March 17, 1999, became the 1st person executed at the new facility in Tamms, 
and last person executed by the state of Illinois.

Former corrections' officials instrumental in the construction of the facility 
some 20 years ago said Tamms was chosen, in part, to house the state's 
execution chamber because of its remote location and distance from Chicago. 
Previous executions in northern Illinois had drawn scores of media and 
protesters and disrupted prison operations, they said.

The fact that the death chamber was used even once continues to weigh on 
former-Gov. George Ryan. When the Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal, 
the final call for executing Kokoraleis rested with then-newly elected Ryan.

"He wouldn't have died if I hadn't of signed the order," Ryan told The Southern 
Illinoisan earlier this month. "I was uncomfortable doing it, and not because I 
thought he was innocent. ... If someone else had signed the order, I probably 
wouldn't have felt too bad about it. Who am I to say the guy should die? ... 
That's an awesome responsibility."

Early death penalty supporter

Prior to his rise to governor, Ryan not only the supported the death penalty, 
he spoke in favor of it on the Illinois House floor in 1977 as a state 
representative from Kankakee, and voted with the majority of his colleagues to 
reinstate the death penalty in Illinois after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted its 
ban on government executions in 1976.

But while Ryan was campaigning for governor, an inmate named Anthony Porter, of 
Chicago, was scheduled to die for a 1982 murder of 2 teenagers. Citing Porter's 
IQ of 51, the man's attorney won a temporary reprieve.

After that, journalism students, led by Professor David Protess at Northwestern 
University, went to work on his case.

The students, under Protess' direction, unearthed evidence of a confession of 
the murder by another Chicago man, Alstory Simon, and Porter was freed after 18 
years behind bars.

Ryan said he was troubled by the overturning of that conviction of a mentally 
disabled man in a string of actions taken that just barely saved his life from 
a wrongful execution by the state.

"I got to be governor, and a guy is sitting on death row for 15 or 20 years, 
only to be found innocent and turned loose," Ryan said. "In America, I couldn't 
understand how that could happen. How could someone sit on death row for 15 
years and be innocent of a crime they were sitting there to die for?"

Emptying death row

As history unfolded, Ryan would go on to place a moratorium on the death 
penalty in Illinois in January 2000, and three years later, in January 2003, on 
his way out of office in a cloud of controversy, commute the sentences of 167 
men and women on death row to life in prison.

Tamm's claim as the state's only would-be death chamber faded away.

With his decision, Ryan became the darling of anti-death penalty advocates.

Governor behind bars

Upon his federal racketeering conviction in 2006, Ryan went on to serve more 
than 5 years in federal prison and 7 months on home arrest for accepting cash 
and gifts for himself, friends and family in exchange for state contracts.

Alstory Simon, the man who was convicted of the double-homicide that freed 
Porter and set into motion a chain of actions leading up to the General 
Assembly and Gov. Pat Quinn abolishing the death penalty in January 2011, also 
was exonerated of the crime and freed in 2014.

Protess, the professor who fought to free Porter, left the prestigious 
journalism school at Northwestern amid controversy in 2011. And in February of 
this year, Simon filed a lawsuit against Protess and the school seeking $40 
million, alleging the university allowed a "culture of lawlessness" among those 
students and others working to free inmates, leading to his wrongful 
conviction, according to court documents.

Execution still weighs on him

But before all that happened, Ryan would decide whether to give the green light 
to execute Kokoraleis at Tamms in the newly built execution chamber. The 
Republican governor had just been sworn into office after defeating downstate 
Democrat Glenn Poshard.MO< Ryan sought the council of trusted associates, and 
said he "made sure before we executed him there was no doubt in my mind about 
his guilt."

Prosecutors said Kokoraleis and others who were part of a satanic "Ripper Crew" 
that killed and maimed as many as 18 women, cutting off parts of their breasts 
and eating some of the flesh as a sacrament of sorts.

Kokoraleis testified that, at one point, the box in which reputed leader Robin 
Gecht kept the severed parts contained as many as 15 breasts.

Ultimately, Kokoraleis was sentenced to death for kidnapping a 21-year-old 
Elmhurst woman at the real estate agency where she worked. As she was missing, 
her mother pleaded with the killers, according to published reports: "If the 
worst has happened, please let us bury her. Because if you don't, I'll find her 
anyway -- if I have to dig up all the ground in the state. And then I'll go 
looking for you."

She was found 5 months later in a cemetery.

Gecht is presently at Menard Correctional Center, in Chester, and scheduled to 
be released on parole in October 2042, according to the Illinois Department of 
Corrections. He will be 88.

Kokoraleis' brother, Tommy Kokoraleis, also convicted, is at the Illinois River 
Correctional Center, and is scheduled to be released on parole in September 
2017. He will be 56. Another convicted gang member, Edward Spreitzer, is at 
Stateville Correctional Center serving a life sentence.

Ryan said, 16 years later -- in between doing what "old guys do," which for him 
means yard work, house chores, writing a book, giving speeches, and spending 
some time with family -- he still thinks about the final decision he made to 
allow the execution of Kokoraleis.

This past year, Ryan told his hometown newspaper in Kankakee he "regretted 
killing that Greek fella," according to a published report in The Daily 
Journal.

But Ryan, 81, told The Southern Illinoisan: "I really have no regrets about it, 
but it bothers me."

Ryan called Kokoraleis a "terrible guy." But, he said, what bothers him is "the 
fact that I put another man to death."

Ryan: Look at corrections policies

Moving beyond the death penalty, Ryan said the public needs to take a long, 
hard look at its corrections policies, especially as it relates to the 
imprisonment of people who do not pose a direct public safety threat.

"Nobody gets rehabilitated in the federal prison system, and I don't think in 
the state prison system," he said, noting he's working on a book that will 
include details of his time behind bars. "America incarcerates more people a 
year than any other country in the world."

Of those whose convictions are overturned, he said, "We've still destroyed 
their lives and it shouldn't be that way."

Ryan said there should be reform as it relates to indigent defense, and, 
calling it "pretty arbitrary," said focus should be placed on sentencing that 
can vary widely from county to county for similar crimes.

Ryan called it "inhumane" that he wasn't allowed to attend the funeral of his 
longtime wife, Lura Lynn Ryan, who died in June 2011. Though courts denied his 
requests to spend time with his wife after she became very ill with cancer, the 
prison???s warden in Terre Haute where Ryan was housed allowed him four visits 
that year and he was at her side when she died. "I tried to get home for the 
funeral and they refused," Ryan said.

Ryan was preceded in prison by former Gov. Otto Kerner, convicted of bribery, 
and former Gov. Dan Walker, who was convicted related to private business 
activities. Walker died on April 29, and Kerner in 1976.

He was followed by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who is serving out the 
remainder of a 14-year sentence at a federal prison in Colorado, convicted for 
attempting to sell President Barack Obama's vacated U.S. Senate seat, among 
other crimes.

Ryan said he did not much care for Blagojevich as a politician, but thought his 
sentence was excessive.

"I haven't figured out why they put Rod in jail for 14 years," Ryan said. 
"That's beyond me, but I'm sure there is a reason."

Ryan blamed harsh sentences on "overzealous prosecutors."

He stated a similar feeling about his own sentence, which also stemmed from the 
Operation Safe Road scandal. Prosecutors argued that Ryan, when he was 
Secretary of State, attempted to squash an investigation into staffers giving 
out driver's licenses in exchange for bribes.

That scandal came to light as federal investigators probed a deadly Wisconsin 
crash involving a commercial truck that killed 6 children.

The criminal justice system, "It's gone astray," Ryan said.

(source: The Southern Illinoisan)








CALIFORNIA:

David Whiting: Legacy of O.C.'s worst killing should be abolishing death 
penalty



The legacies of Orange County's worst mass murder are many, including a town 
that rose up and bonded. But for Bethany Webb, who lost her sister and nearly 
lost her mother, there can be no greater legacy than abolishing the death 
penalty.

Make no mistake. Webb's mission has nothing to do with forgiveness. Rather, it 
has everything to do with practicality. That, and avoiding the footsteps of a 
man who shot and killed 8 people.

Webb sits on the couch in her living room and after an hour of quietly sharing 
her grief, she jabs her finger in the air and angrily questions what is the 
point of risking killing the wrong person, wasting countless hours on court 
hearings, spending billions of dollars in California on death penalty cases?

"What happens on the day you watch them put a needle in his arm and watch him 
fall asleep?" she asks of those on death row. "Are you going to get 
satisfaction?"

Providing her own answer, Webb points out her sister, Laura Webb Elody, got 
none of the courtesies afforded to a convict on death row. No last meal. No 
goodbyes. Just horrific terror staring at blood, bodies and the barrel of a 
gun.

If handled properly, she notes, a convicted murderer drifts away after a 
peaceful overdose.

Eliminate the death penalty, Webb suggests. Put death row inmates in general 
population. "Let them spend 30 years wondering if they'll die a violent death."

As Webb talks, we are only miles from the Salon Meritage in Seal Beach where 
the killings took place 4 years ago. But we could be anywhere in California, 
the state with the largest population of death row inmates -- more than 700.

Of those, more than 50 are Orange County killers.

Webb offers there are layers of problems with the death penalty. "It's like 
peeling an onion, and each one stinks."

MISTAKES ON DEATH ROW

Robert Dunham is executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in 
Washington, D.C. The nonprofit takes no stance on the death penalty. But it 
does raise serious issues about government-sanctioned killing.

Dunham tells me, "There's an extreme risk that you are executing people who are 
innocent."

A review of case law bears out his statement. Cameron Willingham, for example, 
was executed February 2004 for murdering his children in an arson fire in 
Texas. A nationally known fire investigator, Gerald Hurst, later determined, 
"There's nothing to suggest to any reasonable arson investigator that this was 
an arson fire. It was just a fire."

Juror Dorinda Brokofsky responded, "Now I will have to live with this for the 
rest of my life. Maybe this man was innocent."

Webb is typically blunt about the Willingham case. "They murdered a man who was 
innocent."

Dunham points out there is evidence that executions tend to be biased against 
minorities and the poor. He also points out there is no evidence the death 
penalty deters crime, and that the system is extraordinarily expensive.

3 years ago, Judge Arthur Alarcon and professor Paula Mitchell updated their 
landmark study about the cost of California's death penalty. The authors found 
that since 1978, when the state restored the death penalty, more than $4 
billion has been spent.

Here's the breakdown of your tax dollars at work: $1.94 billion on pretrial and 
trial costs; $925 million on automatic appeals and habeas corpus petitions; 
$775 million on federal habeas corpus appeals; $1 billion on incarceration.

Of the single-person death row cells, Webb says, "We're taking the worst of the 
worst and giving them the best housing."

If death sentences were commuted to life without parole, the authors reported, 
California would save $170 million a year. Instead, death row has become so 
crowded that Gov. Jerry Brown recently proposed spending $3.2 million for 100 
new prison cells.

Here's one more cold statistic: It's been nearly a decade since California 
executed anyone.

Ironically, that in itself may be a crime.

VICTIMS' FAMILIES PAY PRICE

Last July, U.S. District Court Judge Cormac Carney vacated the death sentence 
of Ernest Jones, who was on death row for 2 decades. The judge ruled that 
California's death penalty is so dysfunctional it amounts to cruel and unusual 
punishment.

"Inordinate and unpredictable delay has resulted in a death penalty system," 
Carney wrote, "in which very few of the hundreds of individuals sentenced to 
death have been, or even will be, executed by the state."

The federal judge called California's death penalty "a system that serves no 
penological purpose." In March, Webb joined families of other murder victims in 
filing briefs on behalf of Jones.

Yes, our death penalty system is so screwed up that the families of murder 
victims are in court arguing for the murderers.

Constitutional law on cruel and unusual punishment is important. But after 
spending time with Webb -- and I???ve also spent time with other relatives of 
those killed at Salon Meritage -- my heart doesn't break over the judge's 
points on stressing out convicts on death row.

But the convicts aren't the only ones stuck in this unusually cruel system. The 
relatives suffer emotionally as well -- people like Webb and her mother, Hattie 
Stretz, now 77 and the sole survivor of the Salon Meritage tragedy.

Dunham of the death penalty center notes a recent law review report comparing 
victim families who lived in states without capital crimes to families that 
lived in states with death penalties. By the time the appellate process was 
over, families who didn't have to face the rigors of death penalty cases had 
better mental health.

After 4 years of court hearings -- and understand that the Salon Meritage 
killer confessed to his guilt -- Webb and her mother, who was at the salon 
having her hair done, are worn out. Yet because this is a capital case, they 
still face a very complicated and lengthy penalty phase.

The process is especially difficult for Webb because she's always been wary of 
the death penalty. For those who back the death penalty, she warns, "Your train 
of thought becomes (the killer's) train of thought.

"I'm no hippie-dippy," she is quick to say, "but as a mom, I've always believed 
that 2 wrongs don???t make a right. The idea that we're ever going to make (the 
Salon Meritage murders) right is ridiculous."

KILLERS WANT FAME

Webb has another sister and a brother. But Webb and Elody, a stylist, were 
especially tight.

"She was the soft one. I was the hard one. She was a gentle soul and that fear 
she faced at her end haunts me."

Webb allows that her mother survived only because her left arm happened to be 
over her chest and the bullet shattered arm bone, stopping it from destroying 
her heart. Today, Stretz has a cadaver bone in her arm and only has partial 
movement of her left hand.

As we talk, Webb reveals her biggest fear. She is convinced that her sister's 
killer, Scott Dekraai, strapped on a bulletproof vest and picked up 3 guns not 
simply to kill his wife during a custody battle. Webb says, "I believe this in 
my core, that he walked in there for the infamy, for the fame."

Wiping away tears, Webb maintains that every article with his name, every court 
hearing only helps the killer to get the attention he craves. "I hope he gets 
put in general population and he's there until the day he dies and we never 
hear from him again."

She asks that every person he killed be named in this column to honor their 
memory: Elody, 46; Michelle Fournier, 48; David Caouette, 64; Randy Lee Fannin, 
62; Michele Daschbach Fast, 47; Lucia Bernice Kondas, 65; Christy Lynn Wilson, 
47; Victoria Buzzo, 54.

"Victoria, Laura and Gordon (Gallego, a stylist who survived) were the 3 
amigos," Webb recalls. As she remembers, she points to her shirt. It's 
emblazoned with "Team Laura" and the images of Laura and Buzzo, both tilting 
their heads back with glee.

The one thing that will help, Webb believes, is time. She hopes to wake up one 
day not thinking of the awful way her sister died, but of the great times they 
had together. And Webb has one more wish, one about what was once a joyous 
place where people joked, shared, celebrated life.

"My goal is the think of the Salon Meritage with a smile, as opposed to the 
bloodbath it became."

That healing will come more quickly if we abolish the death penalty.

(source: Oranage County Register)








USA:

NY Times Suggests Death Penalty for Boston Terrorist a 'Blot' on City's Shining 
Reputation



The front of Sunday's New York Times will evidently be blessed with "Death 
Penalty Leaves Boston Unsure of Itself." The paper found the death sentence 
handed down to convicted Boston Marathon terrorist bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev a 
"blot" on Boston's compassionate liberal reputation, which has rendered the 
finish line "a place of ambivalence," with no end of self-righteous Bostonian 
handwringing on the matter.

Seelye had pushed in previous stories the activism of leftist nun Sister Helen 
Prejean, who lent what Seelye termed "moral authority" toward the defense's 
plea for leniency for Tsarnaev, who killed four people and wounded hundreds 
more with pressure cooker bombs set by he and brother Tamerlan at the Boston 
Marathon finish line. On Sunday Seelye (with reporters Abby Goodnough and Jess 
Bidgood) did not hide her distaste for Tsarnaev's death sentence.

The Times quoted hordes of previously undiscovered law-and-order liberals who 
perversely claim to embrace punitive Supermax prisons (which provide long 
sentences, solitary confinement and other punitive measures reserved for the 
very worst inmates) as an alternative to the death penalty.

But since a federal jury on Friday sentenced the convicted bomber to death, the 
finish line suddenly seems to be a place of ambivalence. Fresh flowers are 
accumulating. A sense of sorrow lingers in the air. Sightseers who come to snap 
a photo feel a little self-conscious. Residents train their gaze on the line, 
and the conversations turn to death -- and disappointment.

"I was shocked," said Scott Larson, 47, a records manager who works near the 
finish line. "The death penalty -- for Boston."

U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz said that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev would pay for his crimes 
with his life. Mr. Tsarnaev was sentenced to death for his role in the 2013 
Boston Marathon bombings.

The Times gave death penalty opponents ample room to opine, with reactions 
rather less about justice for the victims of terror than self-righteousness:

To many, the death sentence almost feels like a blot on the city's collective 
consciousness. To the amazement of people elsewhere, Bostonians overwhelmingly 
opposed condemning the bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, to death. The most recent 
poll, conducted last month for The Boston Globe, found that just 15 % of city 
residents wanted him executed. Statewide, 19 % did. By contrast, 60 % of 
Americans wanted Mr. Tsarnaev to get the death penalty, according to a CBS News 
poll last month.

No one here felt sympathy for him. Rather, many thought life in prison would be 
a fate worse than death, especially for someone as young as Mr. Tsarnaev, who 
is 21. Others feared that putting him to death would make him a martyr. Still 
others, interviewed around the city Friday night and Saturday, reflected the 
region's historical aversion to the death penalty.

Like many others, he could not square the death sentence with the sense of 
Massachusetts exceptionalism that has pervaded Boston since 1630, when the 
Puritan John Winthrop said this spot in the New World would be "as a city upon 
a hill -- the eyes of all people are upon us."

Mr. Maher, walking in South Boston on the waterfront, lamented that 
Massachusetts seemed to be losing its lofty goals and a piece of its unique 
identity. "The Chinese put a lot of people to death, and we put a lot of people 
to death, and almost nobody else in the world does," he said. "It's kind of a 
brutal thing. And for this to happen in Massachusetts ..." His voice trailed 
off.

The jury was "death qualified" -- each juror had to be open to the death 
penalty; anyone who opposed it could not serve. In that sense, the federal jury 
did not reflect the general population of the region. Massachusetts abolished 
the death penalty for state crimes in 1984 and has not carried out an execution 
since 1947.

Still, some people outside the courtroom did favor death for Mr. Tsarnaev.

Peggy Fahey, a lifelong Bostonian who was sipping coffee on a park bench in 
South Boston early Saturday, said she believed that Mr. Tsarnaev had been 
treated too gently since his arrest and that death was what he irrefutably 
deserved.

But many more seemed to share the view of Priscilla Winter, 56, an elementary 
school teacher from Dorchester who was strolling along the South Boston 
waterfront. To her, the verdict felt morally wrong.

Ms. Winter's walking companion, Liam Larkin, 57, said he lived around the 
corner from the Richards. Like them, he said, he wanted the closure that a life 
sentence would have brought.

"I think the best way of punishing him would be to send him to the Supermax," 
said Mr. Larkin, who works removing lead from old buildings.

The Times uncovered more allegedly tough on crime liberals:

"I think that was too simple, to put him to death," said Ms. Pouncy, 39, who 
works in accounts receivable at a hospital. "I think he needs to suffer some. 
Death is too easy. Once it's over, it's over."

Mr. Pouncy, 47, agreed, adding that he wondered how much solace the death 
penalty could provide for survivors. "The families who lost people are still 
going to be numb. Maybe they'll feel like a little bit of justice has been 
done, but all in all, it's not going to bring their loved ones back."

Do liberals truly think "it's not going to bring their loved ones back" is an 
idea that's never occurred to the family members of murder victims?

(source: New York Times)

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

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev: At Least a Decade of Appeals to Follow Death Sentence



Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has become the 62nd inmate on federal death row after he was 
sentenced to death on Friday for his part in the Boston Marathon bombings.

He will now join the rarified group of men and women (2 are female) awaiting 
execution on federal death row; at 21 he will be the youngest.

But despite the dramatic news from the Boston courtroom on Friday, Tsarnaev's 
fate will take years to reach its conclusion. Many of his new federal death row 
peers have been sitting waiting for the appeals process to work its way out for 
more than 20 years.

Though the Justice Department could attempt to fast-track executions in the 
name of public interest, death penalty experts expect the very quickest 
timeframe from Friday's sentence to Tsarnaev actually being put on a gurney and 
injected with lethal chemicals would be at least 10 years.

(source: allmediany.com)

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Stop the Death Penalty Banner ---- Each Death Sentence Further Discredits US - 
Russian Rights Activist



According to prominent Russian human rights activist Lev Ponomaryov, each death 
sentence deals a blow to the image of the US; his remarks came as a US jury 
sentenced Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death for his role in the April 2013 Boston 
Marathon terrorist attack.

Commenting on a US jury's decision to sentence Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death for 
his role in the April 2013 Boston Marathon terrorist attack, prominent Russian 
human rights activist Lev Ponomaryov described each death sentence by the US as 
a blow to its image, Russia's news agency RIA Novosti reported.

"Undoubtedly, I'm shocked over Dzhokhar Tsarnaev getting the death penalty. I 
believe that the United States discredits itself and that every death sentence 
is a blow to the image of the United States, which considers itself a country 
moving toward democracy," Ponomaryov said.

In his view, the US could be quick to abolish the death penalty in all its 
states in order to be in line with the image the US is touting. Ponomaryov 
pointed to certain historical circumstances, claiming that the US emerged as a 
union of armed men.

"Unfortunately, these traditions have been preserved and they currently 
persist. I think that in this sense, the United States could learn from 
Europe," he said.

Ponomaryov, who is an executive director of the all-Russian movement For Human 
Rights, expressed hope that all the states in the US will finally abolish 
capital punishment.

Some of the police officers who helped track down the Boston Marathon bombing 
suspects failed to demonstrate weapons discipline during the manhunt, creating 
a dangerous firefight at one point, according to a report released Friday.

As for Tsarnaev, he was convicted last month on all 30 counts for his role in 
the most deadly terrorist attack in the United States since September 11, 2001.

The same jury sentenced Tsarnaev to death on 6 counts for the bombing that 
killed 3 people and injured more than 260 on April 15, 2013. The verdict 
included use of a weapon of mass destruction and bombing a public place.

sputniknews.com)

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Boston Bomber's Execution To Be Delayed 18 Years?



Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's legal representatives have released a statement saying that 
the Boston Bomber's execution will be delayed 18 years.

Earlier this week, a fresh-faced 21-year-old entered a court of justice in 
Massachusets and left a few hours later with a death sentence. Dzhokhar 
Tsarnaev was sentenced to death by lethal injection for his involvement in the 
2013 Boston Marathon Bombings, which led to the death of 5 people (including 
Tsarnaev's brother) and injured over 250 others.

Earlier today, news broke that Tsarnaev's representatives were negotiating an 
appeal against the death sentence given to Tsarnaev. Often appeals against the 
death penalty are very complicated and take extremely long lengths of time. Of 
course, if the delay is 18 years (as predicted), Tsarnaev will be nearing 40 by 
the time he is executed.

Defence attorney Judy Clarke believes that she has 2 strong cases to make in 
the appeal. First, by holding the trial in Boston, the jury would be prejudiced 
against Tsarnaev. Second, Clarke says the defense didn't have enough time to 
prepare a case against the death penalty.

Tsarnaev is currently the youngest inmate on death row, but legal experts 
believe that by the time he faces execution, he will be much older. Jim Fedalin 
released this statement.

"This guy may be the youngest inmate on death row at 21 but he could be pushing 
40 by the time they march him to the death chamber. We are looking at 18 years, 
possibly longer, before his appeals process is exhausted. By then, who even 
knows what the legal landscape on federal executions will look like?"

Interestingly, a poll conducted by the Boston Globe indicated that only 15 % of 
people in Massachusetts agree with Tsarnaev's sentence. The death penalty 
hasn't been used in Massachusetts since 1947 when gangsters Phillip Belino and 
Edward Gertson were executed for murder.

There are people who are strong advocates for his sentence, including as 
Michael Ward, a fireman who helped pull over 12 people out of rubble.

"Ultimately justice has prevailed. He wanted to go to hell and he's going to 
get there early," Ward said.

Only 340 prisoners have been executed by the U.S. Government since reforms in 
1790, which equates to an average of 1.5 per year. Tsarnaev has been sentenced 
to be put to death at the Terre Haute penitentiary in Indiana (known as 
Guantanamo North due to it's high density of foreign inmates), where only 3 
people have been executed since it's opening in 1940. Out of 74 inmates who 
received a death sentence for federal crimes, only three have been executed 
thus far. All 3 at Terre Haute.

(source: inquisitr.com)