[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.J., NEB., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

May 18



NEW JERSEY:

Death penalty still supported by majority of NJ residents



It's been over 7 years since New Jersey abolished the death penalty, and a new 
poll released Monday shows the majority of residents still support it.



In December 2007, New Jersey abolished its death penalty after legislation was 
passed and signed by former Gov. Jon Corzine to replace the death penalty with 
life without the possibility of parole.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 32 states have the death 
penalty and 18 have abolished it. In 2013, Maryland became the last state to 
abolish the death penalty.

A poll that was taken in 2006 by Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind 
asked Garden State residents their opinions on the death penalty. 8 years 
later, the same question was asked and it received almost the same responses.

"Right now, 57 % of Garden Staters say they favor the death penalty for certain 
crimes with 36 % who are opposed. Back in 2006, support came in at 54 %," said 
Krista Jenkins, director of PublicMind and professor of political science.

Partisanship, gender and racial divides are evident in the survey.

"Support is the strongest among Republicans, whites, men and Gen Xers with 
clear majorities of all these groups saying 'yes' to the ultimate penalty," 
Jenkins explained. "Support is considerably less among Democrats, people of 
color and millennials."

65 % of the white poll respondents are in support of the death penalty while 35 
% of black New Jerseyans say the same. More than 3/4 of Republicans favor 
capital punishment, but less than 1/2 of Democrats agree.

Other breakdown percentages included:

52 % of Independents favor the death penalty;

64 % of men support it;

51 % of women are unopposed;

48 % of those ages 18 to 34 favor the death penalty;

61 % of those ages 35 to 59 support it;

60 % of New Jersey residents 60 and older are unopposed.

After a spate of botched executions across the country, the U.S. Supreme Court 
is now considering the constitutionality of the death penalty.

The poll was conducted by telephone from April 13 to 19, 2015 using a randomly 
selected sample of 1314 adults in New Jersey, including an oversampling of 403 
African-Americans.

(source: nj1015.com)

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

FDU Poll: Majority support remains for death penalty



With the Boston bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev being sentenced to death, and a 
number of botched executions attracting the attention of the U.S. Supreme 
Court, the death penalty has been in the headlines recently. The most recent 
survey from Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind finds support for the 
death penalty virtually unchanged from when the same question was asked in 
2006. 57 % of respondents say they favor the death penalty for certain crimes 
with 36 % opposed. In 2006, support measured 54 % with 31 % opposed.

"With the Supreme Court decision on lethal injections looming, and another 
federal defendant sentenced to death, sentiment in New Jersey is squarely on 
the side of allowing the practice to continue. A majority would undoubtedly 
agree with the decision to sentence the Boston bomber to the ultimate penalty," 
said Krista Jenkins, director of PublicMind and professor of political science. 
She went on tos say "It's not really a state issue, as New Jersey is among 
those states who abolished the death penalty in 2007. It's more of a federal 
issue, given the difficulty that many states are having in getting the drugs 
needed for the legal injection cocktail. Right now Garden Staters are about 
where the nation is in regard to the question. Other polls have national 
support at 56 %, another sign that New Jersey is really a microcosm of the rest 
of the nation."

Not everyone embraces this form of punishment: Support is the strongest among 
Republicans, whites, men, and Gen Xers - with clear majorities of all of these 
groups saying yes to the ultimate penalty. There is considerably less support 
among Democrats, people of color, women, and Millennials - all of whom oppose 
the death penalty in numbers almost reaching or exceeding a majority.

Partisanship and race are the 2 biggest dividers in attitudes toward the death 
penalty. Among whites, approval approaches 2/3, but among blacks support 
plummets thirty points to 35 %. 3/4 of Republicans favor this form of 
punishment with fewer than half of all Democrats.

The Fairleigh Dickinson University poll of 1314 adults, including an oversample 
of 403African-Americans, in New Jersey was conducted by telephone with both 
landline and cell phones from April 13 through April 19. The margin of error is 
+/- 3 % points.

(source: politickernj.com)








NEBRASKA:

Conservative Support Aids Bid in Nebraska to Ban Death Penalty



The Nebraska Legislature will decide in the next several weeks whether to do 
what no other conservative state has done in more than 40 years: Abolish the 
death penalty.

In the latest sign that vigorous support for capital punishment can no longer 
be taken for granted among Republicans, a coalition of Republican, Democratic 
and independent lawmakers has backed a bill that would replace capital 
punishment with life imprisonment. Its members cite reasons that range from 
fiscal and practical to ideological.

On Friday, the unicameral Legislature voted in favor of the bill, 30 to 16, 
after four hours of debate. A final vote is likely this week, and if the 
lawmakers approve the measure again, as is expected, it will go to Gov. Pete 
Ricketts, a Tea Party Republican and strong supporter of capital punishment. 
The governor has said he would veto the bill, setting up a potentially fierce 
campaign to override him.

In a statement after the vote, Mr. Ricketts said the repeal vote "puts the 
safety of the public and Nebraska families at risk."

"The death penalty in Nebraska remains an appropriate tool in sentencing the 
most heinous criminals," he added.

But the Republicans who support repeal say they are part of an emerging group 
that has changed positions on the death penalty, forming what they hope is a 
compelling conservative argument against it.

Those Republicans have argued that the appeals process for inmates sentenced to 
death has left the state with unnecessary costs, money that should be spent 
elsewhere. They have spoken of the botched execution in Oklahoma last year and 
the difficulty in procuring the drugs for lethal injections. (The electric 
chair was outlawed in Nebraska in 2008 when the State Supreme Court declared 
the method unconstitutional.) Some lawmakers have also pointed to the fact that 
Nebraska has not executed an inmate since 1997, leaving family members of crime 
victims waiting interminably for resolution. 11 inmates are on death row.

Senator Colby Coash, a conservative who is a sponsor of the bill, said he had 
come to believe that opposing capital punishment aligned with his values as a 
Republican and a Christian conservative.

"I'm a conservative guy - I've been a Republican my whole life," he said in an 
interview. "A lot of my conservative colleagues have come to the conclusion 
that we're there to root out inefficient government programs. Some people see 
this as a pro-life issue. Other people see it as a good-government issue. But 
the support that this bill is getting from conservative members is evidence 
that you can get justice through eliminating the death penalty, and you can get 
efficient government through eliminating the death penalty."

But other Republicans, dismayed over what they see as a deviation from the 
party's core beliefs, have vowed to fight the measure. Senator Bill Kintner, 
who opposes repeal, said a filibuster had been discussed to try to stop it.

Those lawmakers in his party who favor the bill, Mr. Kintner said, have lost 
their way. "Conservatives have always been the bedrock of law and order," he 
said in an interview in his office in the Capitol. "We want to make sure our 
streets are safe."

Yet even some lawmakers who ultimately voted against the bill on Friday said 
they had lost sleep trying to decide. "I have struggled with this issue," 
Senator Dave Bloomfield said. "At the end of the day, I will be voting to keep 
the death penalty on our books as an alternative to the most heinous crimes."

Mr. Ricketts, in a last-minute attempt to shore up Republican opposition to the 
bill, announced on Thursday that the state had acquired "all 3 drugs" necessary 
to carry out lethal injections. But Senator Ernie Chambers, an independent from 
Omaha, who introduced the bill, questioned whether the state had procured those 
drugs.

"The governor is going to have to show and establish where these drugs come 
from," Mr. Chambers said during debate. "They don't have them in their 
possession. The timing of this announcement is very problematic."

Lawmakers in other conservative states have made their own efforts this year to 
abolish capital punishment. In Montana, a bill to ban the death penalty passed 
the Senate but encountered opposition in the House. A vote there ended in a 
tie, 50 to 50, effectively killing the bill.

A bill introduced in the Kansas Legislature this year is in committee, and it 
is unclear whether it will advance to a vote.

The Midwest has historically been a stronghold of opposition to the death 
penalty, which has been outlawed in Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota and 
Wisconsin.

18 other states have banned the death penalty, and Nebraska has tried before. 
In 1979, a bill to do so passed the Legislature but was vetoed by the governor, 
and lawmakers failed to override his veto. In 1999, the Legislature passed a 
moratorium on the death penalty, citing concerns that it had been applied 
unfairly. That bill was also vetoed by the governor.

The measure was approved on Friday in a preliminary vote. The governor has 
promised a veto. Credit Andrew Dickinson for The New York Times "This year, 
there apparently are conservatives on the national level who have finally 
acknowledged the truth of what those of us who are against the death penalty 
have been saying," said Mr. Chambers, the longest-serving member of the 
Nebraska Legislature, which is officially nonpartisan. "But it has more impact 
coming from them. The arguments are being presented by people whose 
presentation carries far more weight than mine. If I say it, it's, 'Ho-hum, 
he's been saying that for 40 years.'"

Supporters of the bill in Nebraska say they are encouraged by the erosion of 
support for the death penalty on a national level. Last year, a Washington 
Post-ABC News poll found that support for it in the United States had slipped, 
with 52 % of Americans favoring life without parole over the death penalty.

"It's a broken government program that produces no tangible benefits," said 
Marc Hyden, the director of the national group Conservatives Concerned About 
the Death Penalty. "More and more conservatives are increasingly seeing this as 
just another program that is antithetical to our conservative ideas."

Some conservatives, like Senator Coash, say they now see the death penalty as 
anti-Christian. 22 % of Nebraskans are Catholic, according to the 2008 American 
Religious Identification Survey, and studies have revealed that Catholic 
support for the death penalty is decreasing as Pope Francis denounces it 
strongly. A Pew poll released in April showed that 42 % of Catholics in the 
United States opposed the death penalty, compared with 36 % 4 years ago.

Stacy Anderson, the executive director of Nebraskans for Alternatives to the 
Death Penalty, said this was the closest Nebraska had ever been to having a 
veto-proof majority on a bill to eliminate capital punishment, leaving her 
"cautiously optimistic" that it would succeed.

"We're hearing across the board from Republicans and Democrats that the system 
is broken, there's no way to fix it, and it's time to move on," Ms. Anderson 
said. "Republicans have been saying that this is a pro-life issue for them. 
They believe in the sacredness of life across the board. And for fiscal 
conservatives, the math just doesn't make sense, especially when we aren't 
getting any benefit from it."

In Nebraska, bills must be approved 3 times before they reach the governor's 
desk, and the intense lobbying in advance of Friday's vote, the 2nd, signaled 
that much more fighting is in store as the bill heads toward its final vote. 
Opponents and supporters of repeal have been bombarding lawmakers with phone 
calls and emails, and the governor has been pushing Republicans who support 
repeal to change their minds, arguing that the measure would provide "no cost 
savings" to taxpayers.

Repealing the death penalty, the governor said on Friday, "is out of touch with 
Nebraska citizens that I talk to on this issue."

(source: New York Times)








CALIFORNIA:

Son who swore vengeance against his mother's killer at 6 years old when 
testifying against him meets him after 20 years on death row - and now vows to 
save his life

Clifford O'Sullivan was just six when he appeared in a California court at the 
trial of his mother's killer, Mark Scott Thornton

He gave a stirring sentencing testimony during which he asked for the 'bad man' 
to be killed

Thornton has spent the past 20 years sitting on death row as California hasn't 
executed a single prisoner since 2006

O'Sullivan says he has now changed his mind and he doesn't want Thornton to die



A son, whose mother was murdered in 1993, has come face to face with the killer 
who has spent the past 20 years on death row and has vowed to fight to save the 
man's life.

Clifford O'Sullivan was just 6 years old when he appeared in court at the trial 
of his mother's killer and gave a stirring sentencing testimony asking for him 
to be killed.

'All I think is that what the bad man did to my mom should happen to him,' he 
told the court.

Kellie O'Sullivan, Clifford's mom, was kidnapped in Malibu and murdered on 
September 14, 1993 as she drove to collect her son from daycare.

Mark Scott Thornton, who was wanted at the time on a juvenile-probation arrest 
warrant, abducted Kellie - a nurse - and drove her to a remote area off 
Mulholland Highway, where he shot her once in the chest and twice in the back.

At his trial, a jury convicted Thornton of 1st-degree murder. During 
sentencing, Clifford was given the chance to take the stand and give us 
thoughts.

'It's really sad for my family 'cause she was one of the greatest mothers I've 
met,' he said.

Now 26, O'Sullivan - who works in a Nashville emergency room - has changed his 
mind and no longer believes that the death penalty is the right punishment for 
Thornton.

O'Sullivan's change of heart comes partly from his own experience of just how 
damaging the death penalty system is to victims' families.

'You don't heal,' said O'Sullivan, who as a 15-year-old was caught with cocaine 
and arrested for assault.

At 20, Scott Thornton become the youngest inmate on death row when he was 
sentenced to die in 1995.

He was admitted to San Quentin State Prison, where California houses its male 
death row inmates, but since 2006 the state hasn't executed a single prisoner.

With California unlikely to ever execute Thornton, O'Sullivan has said that he 
- and many other victims - are not given closure.

'The process goes on,' O'Sullivan said, 'delayed for years in a way that is 
torturous.'

With his strong belief that the capital punishment system doesn't do what it is 
supposed to, O'Sullivan decided to write to his mother's killer asking if he 
could visit him.

Last September - some 22 years after his mother's death - O'Sullivan flew to 
California to meet with Thornton and the 2 men spoke for 5 hours.

'It was the greatest gift he could have given me,' O'Sullivan said.

When O'Sullivan told Thornton that he no longer thought he should be killed he 
was surprised at the killer's response

Rather than talk about his own future, Thornton wanted instead to make peace 
over what he had done all those years ago.

'Let us focus on making sure that the next 20 years are not a reflection of the 
past 20 years,' he said. 'Let's find meaning in this, for your sake, for mine 
and for your mother's.'

It was not the response O'Sullivan expected, but he maintains that he longs 
wants Thornton to die.

'If they put him up for a date I would stop it, just like I started it,' said 
O'Sullivan.

(source: Daily Mail)








USA:

GOP Consultant: Death Penalty Supporters Will Be Like Gay Marriage Opponents



Republican strategist Matthew Dowd says opponents of the death penalty will be 
as outmoded as gay marriage opponents in 20 years.

Dowd told a This Week panel he didn't understand the conservative support for 
the capital punishment, which is back in the news thanks to the jury that 
handed Dzhokhar Tsarnaev a death sentence last week.

"20 years from now, people that are for the death penalty are going to be in 
the same place as people that are against gay marriage," Dowd said. "The death 
penalty is going to go the way of opposition to gay marriage."

"I find it amazing that conservatives are all for the death penalty and 
government involvement in the taking of a life, but they're not for government 
involvement in health care, and the saving of a life?" he asked. "I don't get 
the disposition on this."

(source: Fox News)

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

Chechen Leader Says Tsarnaev Death Sentence Is Part Of US Intelligence 
Plot----In an Instagram post, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov says Dzhokhar 
Tsarnaev got the death sentence because "US intelligence agencies had to find a 
victim"



The leader of the Chechen Republic lashed out at the U.S. Sunday over the 
jury's decision to give Dzhokhar Tsarnaev the death penalty for his role in the 
Boston Marathon bombing. In a post on his Instagram acccount, Ramzan Kadyrov 
accused U.S. intelligence agencies of using Dzhokhar and his older brother to 
hide their own involvement in the grisly 2013 attack.

Kadyrov is one of the most powerful figures in Russia, and a close ally of 
President Vladimir Putin. Under their unwritten pact, Kadyrov keeps order in a 
region that has been notoriously unstable, and in return, he gets free rein to 
be heavyhanded with any local opposition to his own rule. Some worry that the 
Chechen leader is transforming the republic into a place where dissenters are 
punished and Islamic law is used for oppression rather than religion.

At one point in his Instagram post on Sunday, Kadyrov says: "US intelligence 
agencies, who were accused of involvement in the Boston tragedy, had to find a 
victim. Tsarnaev was handed to them as a victim." Later, speaking about 
Dzhokhar and his older brother Tamerlan, who died in the police chase following 
the bombing, Kadyrov writes: "If they actually did that attack, I don't believe 
the US special intelligence services didn't know about it." Kadyrov is close 
ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Dzhokar is from a family of ethnic Chechens who were forcibly removed from the 
Russian province in the years after WWII and resettled in the then-Soviet 
republic of Kyrgyzstan. In 2002, his immediate family gained political asylum 
in U.S. They had sought to return to Chechnya, but Russian authorities 
prevented them from returning to the Russian republic, which was ravaged by war 
and had become a hotbed of radicalism. Tamerlan Tsarnaev had made two visits to 
Chechnya in the years leading up to Boston bombing, and some believe those 
trips fed his growing radicalization.

After 3 months of testimony, a jury on Friday sentenced Dzhokar, 21, to death 
for the 2013 bombings, which killed 3 people, injured hundreds more and deeply 
scarred the city of Boston. His appeals are expected to take years.

(source: vocativ.com)