[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----NEB., UTAH, CALIF., ORE., HAW.

[Rick Halperin]

May 26


NEBRASKA:

Nebraska Governor Vetoes Bill to Abolish Death Penalty



Gov. Pete Ricketts of Nebraska vetoed a bill on Tuesday to abolish the death 
penalty in the state, testing the strength of a bipartisan group of lawmakers 
who said they would try to override his decision.

"This is a matter of public safety," he said. "It's also a matter of making 
sure the public prosecutors have the tools they need to put these dangerous 
hardened criminals behind bars." "We have 10 inmates on death row - we don't 
have hundreds," he said. "We use it judiciously and prudently, and therefore we 
need to retain it. I urge all the senators who are making this vote, please 
sustain my veto."

Nebraska is poised to become the 1st conservative state in more than 40 years 
to strike down the death penalty. Republican legislators who have voted in 
favor of abolition said they believed the death penalty was inefficient, 
expensive and out of place with their party's values. Other lawmakers cited 
religious or moral reasons for their support of the death penalty ban.

Nebraska officials have had difficulty procuring lethal injection drugs in 
recent years. The state last executed a prisoner in 1997.

In Nebraska's unicameral Legislature, 3 rounds of voting are required to 
approve a bill before it can reach the governor's desk. Last week, in the 3rd 
round, the Legislature voted 32 to 15 in favor of abolition. Governor Ricketts, 
who said the death penalty is necessary as a deterrent to dangerous criminals, 
had vowed for weeks to issue a veto.

Lawmakers said the override vote, which could happen as early as Wednesday, 
would be extremely close: 30 votes are needed to override.

State Senator Ernie Chambers, an independent from Omaha who sponsored the 
legislation, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday that he planned to make a 
motion to override the governor's veto.

He declined to say whether he was fully confident the override would be 
successful. "I expect those people who voted for the bill 3 times, during the 3 
stages of debate, I would expect them to do the same thing," he said. "But you 
never know. We'll just see how it turns out."

(source: New York Times)

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

'This stops the trauma,' says sister of Michael Ryan's victim ---- Man 
convicted in 1985 cult killings dies in Nebraska prison



Michael Ryan, who had spent 3 decades on Nebraska's death row for the 1985 cult 
killings of 2 people, including a 5-year-old boy, has died in prison, officials 
said Monday.

Miriam Thimm Kelle never wanted the state to execute the man responsible for 
the torture and murder of her brother, James Thimm. But that doesn't mean she 
wanted Michael Ryan to escape justice.

So she took solace from the news that the former doomsday cult leader had died 
Sunday evening, apparently from a condition related to a brain tumor, after 
spending the last 3 decades on Nebraska's death row.

The 57-year-old Beatrice woman said Ryan's death means no more appeals, no more 
execution dates and no more opening of old wounds.

"This stops the trauma," she said Monday.

Ryan, 66, died at 7:45 p.m. Sunday while being treated for a "medical 
condition," according to Jessica Houseman, spokeswoman for the Tecumseh State 
Prison. The Tecumseh prison houses death row, which is where Ryan had spent 
nearly 30 years fighting first the electric chair and later lethal injection.

Richardson County Attorney Doug Merz said Monday as far as he knows, Ryan never 
publicly expressed remorse for orchestrating one of the most sadistic murders 
ever described in a Nebraska court. Merz and another attorney prosecuted Ryan 
in a trial that had to be moved to Omaha to find an impartial jury.

"The case has now been concluded," Merz said.

The prosecutor disagreed with those who might argue Ryan cheated justice, 
pointing out that the man never saw a free day again after his 1985 arrest and 
subsequent conviction.

"He was never able to be released from prison," Merz said. "He was prevented 
from doing any more harm to any individuals, so that is my position."

Ryan's death comes just days after the Nebraska Legislature voted to repeal the 
death penalty and replace it with a maximum sentence of life in prison. Gov. 
Pete Ricketts is expected to officially veto Legislative Bill 268 today.

Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers, who sponsored the repeal bill, said Monday he 
expects to have the minimum 30 votes necessary to override the veto. Earlier 
this year, Chambers predicted Ryan would die of brain cancer before he could be 
executed.

Chambers said Monday the Ryan case illustrates that legal battles mean "in 
effect, the death penalty can't be carried out."

Sen. Beau McCoy of Omaha, who has led the fight against the repeal measure, 
said he disagreed with those who argued Ryan never would have been executed.

"Had he survived, the sentence certainly would have been carried out," McCoy 
said, predicting a close vote on the veto override.

Attorney General Doug Peterson recently identified Ryan as 1 of 3 death row 
inmates - along with Carey Dean Moore and John Lotter - who had exhausted their 
appeals. Lawyers who represent condemned inmates, however, argued that the 
state???s recent purchase of new drugs to use for a lethal injection would open 
new avenues for appeal.

The state has not carried out an execution since 1997.

Ryan came within 3 weeks of being put to death, in 1995 and again in 2012, 
before winning stays of execution. In 2008, he saw the Nebraska Supreme Court 
declare the electric chair cruel and unusual, which led the state to adopt 
lethal injection as its execution method a year later.

During recent weeks, Ryan's name has come up during legislative debates, mostly 
by lawmakers who argued his actions cry out for the ultimate punishment.

Ryan was a 37-year-old, small-town Kansas truck driver and self-declared 
prophet who gathered about two dozen followers by exploiting racial and ethnic 
prejudice during the farm crisis of the early 1980s. He set up a commune on a 
former hog farm outside Rulo, a tiny Missouri River community in far 
southeastern Nebraska.

Ryan claimed he communicated directly with God, which helped him convinced his 
followers to steal farm equipment and sell drugs to finance a stockpile of 
weapons. Ryan promised his flock it was all part of a grand plan leading to the 
Battle of Armageddon.

But cult member James Thimm, 25, of Beatrice, questioned Ryan's teachings. In 
response, the cult leader ordered a series of punishments for Thimm, which 
culminated with 4 days of torture in late April 1985.

Thimm was chained in a hog shed, where his torturers took turns lashing him 
with a cord and sodomizing him with a shovel handle. His legs and one arm were 
broken, the fingertips on 1 hand were shot off and Ryan used a razor blade and 
pliers to remove a graft of skin from 1 of Thimm's legs.

Ryan eventually killed Thimm by stomping on his chest. After dumping the body 
in a grave, the cult leader ordered one of his followers to shoot Thimm in the 
head.

Witnesses also testified that Ryan repeatedly abused 5-year-old Luke Stice, the 
son of another cult member. Ryan shoved the boy into a wall, which cause a 
fatal injury. Ryan eventually pleaded no contest to a reduced charge of 
2nd-degree murder for the boy's death.

Ryan and 4 cult members - including Ryan's 15-year-old son, Dennis - were 
convicted of crimes related to the Thimm murder. The other 4 have been released 
after serving varying prison terms.

Lincoln attorney Jerry Soucie is one of several attorneys who represented Ryan 
over the years on death penalty appeals. While they never discussed details 
about the crimes, Soucie said Ryan was intelligent and knew his way around a 
prison law library.

"Mike Ryan was just an old school outlaw," Soucie said. "He had a different 
view of where he fit into society, which is that he didn't fit into society."

James Thimm was struggling to make sense of the farm crisis when he became 
involved with Ryan's cult so many years ago, his sister said Monday. She 
described her younger brother as a kind, considerate man who loved to make 
others laugh.

Thimm Kelle said she was angry and distraught after learning what Ryan had done 
to her brother. But she survived the grief and,with the passage of time and a 
reliance on her Mennonite faith, she gradually forgave a killer.

"I felt the evilness of Michael Ryan's actions would win if I didn't let it 
go," she said.

Twice she wrote him letters in prison, asking to meet. He never responded.

In recent years, Thimm Kelle has become an outspoken opponent of the death 
penalty. It's not a view all of her siblings share, she said, but she argues 
had Ryan been sentenced to life in prison, at least it would not have been a 
source of dispute in her family.

Now, she hopes any lingering disputes just go away, along with the man who 
caused them.

"We need to work toward as much peace as we can," he said.

(source: Omaha World-Herald)

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

Red, red Nebraska moves to abolish the death penalty



By standard measures, Nebraska is a deeper shade of red politically than Texas. 
It's a place where Texas favorite son George W. Bush twice got a greater share 
of the presidential vote than he did in his home state.

Still, the conservative bona fides of Nebraska's Legislature were questioned 
last week by its Republican governor, Pete Ricketts, after lawmakers there gave 
final passage to a bill that would abolish the death penalty. Vowing to veto 
the bill, Ricketts insisted his Legislature was out of step with the public's 
views on the matter.

Nebraska's emotional debate and historic vote highlighted a question that's 
particularly relevant to Texas: Can opposition to the death penalty be 
consistent with political conservatism?

More and more conservatives, in Nebraska and elsewhere, are saying yes, that 
capital punishment is a crude, unreliable stab at justice that society should 
discard as a relic of the past. They cite the enormous expense, questionable 
deterrent value and uneven application.

Conservatives are more likely today to look at the justice system as a 
government program with a level of flaws inherent in any bureaucracy. In Texas 
and elsewhere, they are saying this: When the inertia of the justice system 
unfairly or wantonly threatens an individual's life or liberty, the state has 
crossed a line and needs to be restrained.

This newspaper agrees with the fundamental criticisms of capital punishment and 
has opposed it since 2007. We take that stand with eyes wide open about Texas' 
strong support of the death penalty. A majority of self-described Democrats and 
Republicans and every ethnic group in Texas support capital punishment in 
opinion surveys.

At a different level, no one can reasonably assert that Texas justice is 
airtight, or even close to it. Texas leads the nation in DNA-proven 
exonerations. Innocent men have walked free from Texas' death row. Wrongly 
convicted men who spent years in Texas penitentiaries testified in the state 
Capitol last week for different proposals to modernize the state's justice 
system.

Republicans are increasingly working with Democrats on these issues. Many have 
come to regard the prison system as a vast, wasteful gulag that exacts too high 
a toll on humanity and the state treasury. They have come to see the war on 
drugs for the failure that it is. They see instances of prosecutorial 
misconduct that offend the American ideal that individuals must be protected 
from malicious power unleashed by the state.

Conservative leaders in Texas talk increasingly about smart justice, as opposed 
to hard-nosed Texas law and order the way their daddies might have preferred 
it.

We look forward to the day when it's not political suicide in Texas to ask 
whether smart justice might lead down the same path Nebraska has found. It's 
the right path to take.

Death no more

The 18 states without the death penalty and when they abolished it:

Alaska (1957)

Minnesota (1911)

Connecticut* (2012)

New Jersey (2007)

Hawaii (1957)

New Mexico* (2009)

Illinois (2011)

New York (2007)

Iowa (1965)

North Dakota (1973)

Maine (1887)

Rhode Island (1984)

Maryland (2013)

Vermont (1964)

Massachusetts (1984)

West Virginia (1965)

Michigan (1846)

Wisconsin (1853)

Also: District of Columbia (1981)

* New Mexico and Connecticut did not make their repeals retroactive, so they 
left people on death row.

[source: : Death Penalty Information Center]

(source: Editorial, Dallas Morning News)

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

Zeal for death penalty has been withering on judicial branch, too



In his 4 decades as a public defender, Tom Riley has watched the mobs outside 
the state penitentiary in Lincoln cheer as his former client, Harold Lamont 
Otey, was strapped in the electric chair.

He's watched another on-again, off-again client sit on death row for 35 years, 
sometimes asking to die.

He's watched authorities march toward their hope of executing his current 
client, Nikko Jenkins, for shooting and killing 4 Omahans.

So Riley has a grasp of the sobering power of the state.

But in the past 15 years, Riley has seen something else: a slow withering of 
zeal for the death penalty in a key battleground, the courtroom.

Riley and other longtime legal observers said they are only mildly surprised 
that the Legislature has come remarkably close to repealing the death penalty.

The death penalty has been dying a slow death in Nebraska courts for years, 
said Riley, who was one of Otey's trial attorneys, and James Mowbray, who was 
Otey's appellate attorney and heads the Nebraska Public Advocacy Commission.

Some of its decline has been procedural, the product of precedent, Riley and 
Mowbray said. In a landmark 2002 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court said 
prosecutors had to declare at the outset whether they would seek the death 
penalty. No more tacking on the death penalty just before or after trial. The 
high court also added a layer to the process, ruling that juries had to decide 
whether aggravating factors existed to merit the death penalty.

Then in 2008, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled the electric chair 
unconstitutional - and Nebraska switched to the slightly less controversial 
3-drug lethal injection cocktail.

The change didn't pump any momentum into the capital punishment cause. In 
honest moments before hearings, Riley said, prosecutors, even judges, privately 
decried the death penalty as an exercise in futility, a dinosaur without any 
roar.

Prosecutors began to grumble about the extensive exercise of going through 
death penalty hearings - often as the state had no means to carry out an 
execution. Even judges griped as the state combed Europe and India, looking for 
a supplier to provide a key death drug that U.S. pharmacies would not.

Soon, those private grumbles bubbled to the surface. Retired Sarpy County 
District Judge Ronald Reagan, who presided over the case of child killer John 
Joubert, testified against the death penalty at a legislative hearing in March, 
saying most current judges would speak out against the death penalty if they 
were at liberty to do so.

Even as Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine testified in support of capital 
punishment, he said: "The (death penalty) process as set out (in court) is a 
good process. (But) I do have reservations. ... I am in the trenches. ... I go 
before juries right now and I go before 3-judge panels. And, de facto, we don't 
have a death penalty here because the state can't ... get its act together as 
far as the penalty."

So Riley, Mowbray and others got the sense that the death penalty was on its 
last legs.

Still prosecutors such as Kleine pressed on with cases, securing the death 
penalty in what courthouse types called no-brainers:

-- The 2001 conviction of Arthur Lee Gales for strangling and raping 
13-year-old Latara Chandler and strangling 7-year-old Tramar Chandler, who 
witnessed Gale's attacks on their mother.

-- The 2007 conviction of Roy Ellis for sexually assaulting and killing 
12-year-old Amber Harris after kidnapping her when she got off a school bus.

Then came another expected no-brainer. It would make courthouse attorneys 
rethink everything about the death penalty.

Jose Oliveira-Coutinho killed his Brazilian boss, Vanderlei Szepanik, in Omaha 
in December 2009. He then ordered the hanging deaths of those who witnessed the 
crime - the boss's wife, Jaqueline, and 7-year-old son, Christopher, who were 
then dumped in the Missouri River.

Oliveira was sentenced not to death but to life in prison.

Riley said that ruling, known in Douglas County as "the Brazilians' case," sent 
shockwaves, crumbling the concept of proportionality: that similar crimes 
receive similar penalties.

The question of justice, or proportionality, leads attorneys to engage in a 
sort of grisly grading system, comparing one killing to another.

"It's a ghoulish exercise," Riley said.

With the Brazilians' case, it becomes an exercise in futility, Riley said.

Consider: Gales and Ellis both killed children to cover up crimes. Oliveira 
killed a child and his mother to cover up a crime. Yet Oliveira didn't get the 
death penalty.

"What it showed more than anything is, the way we separate life-and-death cases 
is far too arbitrary," Riley said.

The reason Oliveira didn't get the death penalty? One member of the 3-judge 
sentencing panel didn't believe the state's evidence, and a jury's conclusion, 
that Oliveira was the ringleader of the trio who committed the crimes.

That judge's dissenting view spared Oliveira.

That case, argued by defense attorneys Horacio Wheelock and Todd Lancaster, 
changed the landscape of all future death penalty arguments, Riley said.

Put simply, Riley said, any competent attorney would argue: If Oliveira didn't 
get the death penalty, how in the world can you sentence my client to death?

Madison County Attorney Joe Smith, a death penalty proponent, said 1 ruling 
isn't a death knell for the death penalty. At most, he said, it proved how 
thorough the process is and how much it weighs in favor of the defendant.

Smith, who prosecuted 3 death row inmates who killed 5 people at a Norfolk 
bank, said he can hardly believe that the Legislature might be on the verge of 
eradicating executions.

"It's tremendously hard for prosecutors to secure the death penalty," Smith 
said. "We use it sparingly in Nebraska - and the system is set up to protect 
the defendant.

"A lot of people on both sides of the issue are frustrated that we haven't had 
an execution in a long time. But it's the Legislature where the holdup is. Not 
with the people. Not with the courts."

Mowbray and Riley, who have represented dozens of killers, have witnessed 2 
other death penalty pitfalls:

-- It has created celebrities out of killers, disgusting victims' families. 
"You can name most, if not all, of the guys on death row," Riley said. "But 
name 1 person who is doing a life sentence from a crime 35 years ago? You can't 
do it. After their appeals are over, they sink into oblivion."

-- It has created inefficiency. The death penalty phase for Nikko Jenkins 
originally was scheduled to begin last summer. Instead, it has been stuck in 
neutral for nearly a year after a judge declared Jenkins incompetent, then 
competent, to understand the proceedings.

Nowhere is the churn more evident than in the case of Carey Dean Moore. Moore 
was sentenced to death in 1980 for the 1979 killings of Omaha cabdrivers Reuel 
Van Ness and Maynard Helgeland.

Since then, the procedural history of Moore's court case reads like a manual on 
inefficiency. Sentenced to death. Sentence stayed. Then reinstated. Then 
stayed. Then reinstated. Then stayed. Then reinstated. Then stayed. Then 
reinstated. Then stayed. (6 times, in all.)

At least twice, Moore wrote to the court saying that he wanted to be killed. 
Then he changed his mind.

35 years later, he's still awaiting execution.

Few will celebrate if and when the death penalty dies, Riley and Mowbray said. 
But even fewer in the court system will mourn its passing, they say.

"I think people are running out of energy - it just seems like we have better 
things to be doing," Mowbray said. "It's not something to celebrate or to 
curse. It's just time."

(source: Omaha.com)

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

Living without the death penalty



"We got the state out of the killing business today," Nebraska state Sen. Ernie 
Chambers said Wednesday, according to the Omaha World-Herald. His state would 
not be the first to live without the death penalty; it would be the 19th. It 
also would not be the first to eliminate it recently; Maryland, among others, 
marked earlier points in the trend. But Nebraska is remarkable in 2 ways: It is 
deep-red, and the legislature's vote against executions was overwhelming. It is 
therefore the latest manifestation of a growing and positive movement, bridging 
left and right, toward smart justice reform.

The vote in the 1-house legislature was 32 to 15, a resounding margin. Gov. 
Pete Ricketts (R) promised to veto the measure, but lawmakers are poised to 
override him. They should - and leaders in other states, including Virginia, 
should take their example.

Mr. Ricketts went to great lengths to neutralize the arguments of death-penalty 
opponents. He dug up a case in which a murderer sentenced to life in prison 
eventually got out and committed sexual assault. The death penalty, he 
insisted, plays an "important role in prosecuting criminals, protecting our 
families, and ensuring that criminals remain locked behind bars." But, since 
1973, there have been more than 140 examples nationwide of people sentenced to 
death who were later exonerated, pardoned or saw their charges dropped. Judges 
can adequately protect public safety without risking the heinous possibility of 
executing innocent people by locking up convicted murderers for the rest of 
their lives and blocking parole.

Mr. Ricketts also procured drugs for use in lethal-injection procedures - which 
are increasingly difficult for state officials, because suppliers don't want to 
take part in executions - to make the point that the state still has a 
"functional death penalty." Yet the death penalty is wrong even if prison 
officials have the right drugs and condemned prisoners die peacefully.

The possibility of killing the innocent is only 1 reason Nebraska's lawmakers 
voted the way they did. Some were motivated by religion, finding the death 
penalty incompatible with the imperative to cherish human life. Others objected 
to the cost of administering a system that demands exceptional care and still 
makes mistakes. "If capital punishment were any other program that was so 
inefficient and so costly to the taxpayer, we would have gotten rid of it a 
long time ago," state Sen. Colby Coash said. We would add that, regardless of 
your creed or your concern about public budgets, the death penalty is hostile 
to the essential dignity that civilized societies afford all human beings.

Conservatives everywhere should consider what's happening in Nebraska. One 
place that could use some change is Virginia, the last jurisdiction in the 
Washington area that still executes people. The General Assembly killed a bill 
this year that would have limited the application of the death penalty to cases 
where there is conclusive evidence of guilt - DNA or a voluntary confession, 
for example. This would have a step in the right direction - if not the leap 
that Nebraska is taking.

(source: Editorial, Washington Post)








UTAH:

Utah lawmaker seeks death penalty for sex traffickers



Even as other states move away from capital punishment, a lawmaker has prepared 
legislation to expand the death penalty in Utah.

Rep. Paul Ray's proposal would allow the state to execute child-sex 
traffickers.

The Clearfield Republican floated the idea last session. Now, he has drafted a 
bill that he hopes to bring before a legislative committee this summer.

"It's a huge problem right now, and the criminals want to take a risk 
[thinking], 'Hey, I'll take a few years in jail for this,' " Ray said. 
"Understand, these are the baddest of the bad. These people are monsters. I 
think it sends a message: Don't do this in Utah. Don't take our kids. ... Don't 
operate here."

The proposal could spark a wider debate about whether Utah should execute 
criminals and whether, logistically, it can continue the practice.

Ray successfully sponsored a measure this past session that drew global 
attention, bringing back the firing squad as a backup for executions if Utah is 
unable to obtain the chemical cocktail for lethal injections, a problem that 
has arisen in other states.

When that bill passed, Utah's Senate Judiciary Committee voted to study the 
death penalty more broadly.

Meanwhile, opponents of capital punishment cited a growing chorus from groups 
in Utah seeking to abolish the practice - although they still are seeking a 
sponsor for such a measure.

Nebraska's Legislature passed a bill last week repealing the death penalty, 
although the governor may veto it.

Ray's latest bill comes, he said, partly as a result of vice squad ride-alongs 
he has taken.

The experiences prompted him to push several bills cracking down on 
prostitution and sex trafficking.

He said he was inspired by the anti-sex-trafficking work of Utah Attorney 
General Sean Reyes, who traveled to South America last year as part of an 
undercover sting to break up such a ring.

Ray is prepared for pushback from civil-liberties groups and others - and they 
are ready to deliver it.

Marina Lowe, legislative and policy counsel with the American Civil Liberties 
Union of Utah, said expanding the death penalty is the wrong way to go, arguing 
it would not deter child-sex traffickers.

In addition, the group generally objects to capital punishment because it is 
costly to carry out, does not provide closure to victims and has resulted in 
the execution of people wrongly convicted.

"It's increasingly becoming more and more difficult to figure out ways to 
humanely, if that's even possible, put people to death at the hands of the 
state," Lowe said. "So expanding the death penalty seems odd."

The Libertas Institute, a libertarian think tank, published an opinion piece in 
The Salt Lake Tribune last week calling for an end to the death penalty in Utah 
on similar grounds.

There also may be constitutional problems with Ray's proposal. In the 2008 case 
of Kennedy v. Louisiana, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a statute that 
imposed a death sentence for rape of a child and said that execution would be 
disproportionate punishment, violating the Eighth Amendment, in cases that 
don't involve the death of the victim.

(source: Salt Lake Tribune)








CALIFORNIA----new death sentence

Convicted murderer sentenced to death----Miguel Enrique Felix commited multiple 
crimes in month-long spree throughout Coachella Valley in 2004



A man convicted of murder and other crimes in a months-long spree of home 
invasion robberies a decade ago has been sentenced to death.

Miguel Enrique Felix was convicted in March of 2 dozen counts stemming from 
crimes that occurred from the summer of 2004 until the spring of 2005 in Desert 
Hot Springs, Thousand Palms, North Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Beaumont and 
unincorporated county areas.

In the most serious crime, Felix was convicted of 1st-degree murder for gunning 
down Armando Gonzalez at the victim's Desert Hot Springs home on Aug. 11, 2004. 
Jurors found true a special circumstance allegation of murder in the course of 
a robbery, making him eligible for the death penalty.

The same jury recommended capital punishment over the only other sentencing 
option -- life in prison without the possibility of parole. The judge had the 
option of imposing the lesser sentence.

Felix was among several people who grabbed victim after victim at or near their 
homes, forced them inside at gunpoint, then tied them up with zip-ties, 
pistol-whipped and beat them, and ransacked their homes in search of money or 
valuables.

In some cases, victims were kidnapped and taken to automatic teller machines or 
other locations to obtain money, while their children or other relatives were 
held at gunpoint by accomplices.

It was during this spree that Felix and alleged accomplice Javier Rodriguez 
Hernandez, who has been at large for more than a decade, went to Gonzalez's 
home to rob him and shot him repeatedly when he resisted, prosecutors said.

(source: KESQ news)








OREGON:

Death-penalty politics shift----It's time for Oregon to have statewide 
discussion



Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts says he plans to veto a bill passed last week that 
would abolish his state's death penalty, declaring "the Legislature is out of 
touch with Nebraskans."

It may be the governor, not state lawmakers, who is out of touch.

In the state's unicameral legislature, which has 49 state senators, it takes 30 
votes to override a veto by the governor. 32 senators voted in favor of ending 
the death penalty. That means Ricketts will have to persuade some lawmakers to 
change their minds if he wants to prevent Nebraska from becoming the 19th state 
- and the 1st red state in recent years - to formally abolish the death 
penalty.

Nebraska has been steadily moving away from the death penalty for years. The 
Legislature voted to ban executions in 1979, but the move fell prey to 
gubernatorial veto. A temporary moratorium in 1999 met a similar fate, and a 
proposed ban in 2007 failed by a single vote in the Legislature. Nearly a 
quarter century has passed since the state's last execution.

Nebraska's Legislature is nonpartisan, but it is dominated by conservatives. 
Its support for ending the death penalty reflects a growing shift within the 
nation's political right. While Republicans once defended capital punishment as 
a necessary deterrent, a growing number have begun supporting repeal for 
religious reasons, while others point to wrongful convictions and botched 
executions. Others cite it as a prime example of a wasteful government program.

Executions have dropped to a 2-decade low in the United States. 35 people were 
executed in 2014, compared with a peak of 98 just 15 years ago. In 43 states, 
no executions were carried out last year. So far, 18 states have abolished the 
death penalty.

In Oregon, voters abolished the death penalty in 1914, reinstated it in 1920, 
repealed it in 1964 and reinstated it again in 1978. After the Oregon Supreme 
Court declared it unconstitutional in 1981, voters approved a constitutionally 
proper version in 1984.

Oregon carried out its last 2 executions in 1996 and 1997, during Gov. John 
Kitzhaber's 1st term - the state's 1st executions since 1962. Since then there 
have been none, and 3 years ago Kitzhaber, saying he believed the death penalty 
has been unjustly administered and is morally wrong, declared a moratorium on 
executions as long as he remained governor. Gov. Kate Brown, who succeeded 
Kitzhaber following his resignation, says she intends keep the moratorium in 
place.

It's time for Oregon to have a long-overdue debate about the death penalty, a 
discussion that ideally leads to a statewide vote that clarifies where citizens 
stand on the issue.

(source: Editorial, The Register-Guard)








HAWAII:

Settlement reached in mother's lawsuit over daughter's death



A settlement has been reached in a mother's lawsuit against the federal 
government over the death of her 5-year-old daughter at the hands of a former 
Hawaii-based soldier.

Tarshia Williams filed the lawsuit against the government over the 2005 death 
of her daughter, Talia. The lawsuit claims the military didn't report to the 
proper authorities that Talia's father and stepmother "abused and tortured" her 
throughout the 7 months she lived in Hawaii.

In what was the 1st death penalty case to go to trial in the history of 
Hawaii's statehood, Naeem Williams was convicted of murder last year in his 
daughter's death and sentenced to life in prison without possibility for 
parole. Talia's stepmother, Delilah Williams, testified against her husband as 
part of a deal with prosecutors for a 20-year sentence. She provided disturbing 
details of abuse that included withholding food for days at a time and beating 
the child while she was duct-taped to a bed.

Talia died July 16, 2005, after prosecutors say her father dealt a blow so hard 
it left knuckle imprints on her chest.

A non-jury trial was scheduled for June in Tarshia Williams' lawsuit. According 
to court records online, a settlement was reached last week. Details are 
expected to be announced in court Tuesday. One of her Honolulu attorneys, Mark 
Davis, declined to provide details Friday.

She testified at Naeem Williams' trial, saying the last time she saw Talia was 
when the child left South Carolina to live with her father in Hawaii. She said 
the last time she spoke to Talia was by telephone on July 2, 2005. Talia died 2 
weeks later.

After Naeem Williams was convicted, she told The Associated Press she believes 
the government could have done more to help her daughter, since military police 
had shown up at the house for various domestic incidents. Her lawsuit was put 
on hold pending the criminal trial. The government has denied that officials 
failed to protect Talia from the abuse that caused her death.

Tarshia Williams and Talia's father weren't married but share the same last 
name because they are distant relatives.

(source: Associated Press)