[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., KAN., CALIF., WASH., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 16



ALABAMA:

2013 capital murder to begin today


The capital murder case of a man accused of killing a former Deshler High 
School volunteer coach during Thanksgiving 2013 is scheduled to begin today.

Court officials said jury selection in the capital murder case of Jeremy 
Williams will begin at 8:30 a.m. in Circuit Judge Mike Jones's courtroom.

Williams, 31, of Florence, is charged in connection with the 2013 death of 
Brioni "Bree" Rutland.

"We're ready to start the selection and move forward with the case," Lauderdale 
County District Attorney Chris Connolly said.

Williams's defense team of Florence attorneys Chris Childers and Charlie 
Bottoms have a pending change of venue motion Jones said would be taken into 
consideration if an impartial jury could not be selected.

More than 350 potential jurors have been called for the case.

Williams is accused of stabbing and shooting Rutland before dumping his body 
off Old Railroad Bridge. Rutland was last seen alive Nov. 26, 2013.

Authorities said according to a preliminary autopsy, Rutland was stabbed more 
than 30 times and shot once in the head at close range. Police said he had 
concrete blocks chained to his feet before he was dumped into the Tennessee 
River.

Williams pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of mental defect.

He claimed Rutland's death was self-defense after Rutland confronted him at his 
Florence apartment about a gambling debt and threatened to cut off his little 
finger if he didn't pay. He told police Rutland tried to choke him, and tried 
to cut off his finger.

During a preliminary hearing detectives said Williams told police he stabbed 
Rutland while they were fighting, then got a gun and shot him and dumped the 
body into the river.

Divers discovered Rutland's body after a jogger saw a large amount of blood on 
Old Railroad Bridge on Thanksgiving 2013 and called police.

Tuscumbia police initiated a missing person investigation Nov. 27, 2013, after 
Rutland's girlfriend reported him missing.

Florence police arrested Williams on Nov. 30, 2013. He was indicted in December 
2014.

During a January arraignment hearing, the district attorney said he was 
planning on seeking the death penalty if Williams is found guilty.

Court officials expect the trial to continue for at least a week.

(source: Times Daily)

**********

Taking Action Investigation: Life or Death to air tonight on WHNT News 19 at 
10:00


Is Alabama holding an innocent man on death row? A growing number of people say 
yes, and his name is Billy Kuenzel. WHNT News 19 has spent weeks delving into 
the case, and the result of our special Taking Action investigation is very 
disturbing.

Billy Kuenzel was convicted of capital murder for the November, 1987 robbery 
and murder of a clerk at a convenience store on the outskirts of Sylacauga. He 
has been on death row since 1988.

Watch Life or Death, a special Taking Action investigation, on WHNT News 19 
Monday night at 10:00.

The prosecution's star witness was Kuenzel's roommate, Harvey Venn, who 
accepted a plea deal in exchange for his testimony against Kuenzel. Venn told 
the court it was Kuenzel who went in to rob the store and killed Linda Jean 
Offord, a mother of 3. Venn testified he simply drove the get-away car.

Our Taking Action investigation revealed there was no direct evidence linking 
Kuenzel with the crime. No fingerprints, no blood splatters on his clothes, no 
reliable witness who saw him there, other than Harvey Venn.

But the real injustice of this case, there was a wealth of evidence available 
that could have made a world of difference at the trial, had the defense only 
known about it; witnesses who changed their testimony, a huge question about 
the alleged murder weapon, hand written details from the men who investigated 
the crime. That information remained a secret for more than 2 decades after 
Kuenzel's conviction.

And now, the state refuses to hear it.

"This is not about the death penalty," says David Kochman, Kuenzel's attorney. 
He adds, "This is about making sure, as a society, we value life enough to not 
lock people up and take their lives without knowing in fact they did the crime. 
This goes to the very fundamental essence of what it means to have a justice 
system that we each believe in."

(source: WHNT news)






KANSAS:

Kansas court's approval of death sentence not seen as shift


Even though the state Supreme Court recently upheld a death sentence for the 
1st time under the state's 1994 capital punishment law, Kansas isn't likely to 
see executions anytime soon or a shift in how the justices handle capital 
murder cases.

"Symbolically, there is something different," said Robert Dunham, head of the 
anti-capital punishment, nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center. "But I 
wouldn't read too much into it."

Several prosecutors are encouraged by this month's decision in the case of John 
E. Robinson Sr. - who was sentenced to die for killing 2 women in 1999 and 2000 
and tied by evidence or his own admission to 6 other deaths, including a 
teenage girl, in Kansas and Missouri - saying it showed its possible to 
preserve a death sentence on appeal in Kansas.

2 Kansas law professors said the 415-page decision in John E. Robinson's case 
issued earlier this month suggests the Supreme Court's examination of future 
capital cases will remain as thorough as it has been.

The high court's past decisions overturning death sentences inspired a campaign 
that almost succeeded in ousting 2 justices in last year's elections and handed 
Republican Gov. Sam Brownback a potent issue in the final weeks of his race for 
re-election. And there are more capital cases before the justices.

Only 4 days after the Robinson decision, Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., an avowed 
anti-Semite, was sentenced to death for the fatal shootings of three people at 
Jewish sites in the Kansas City suburbs.

The court also will hear arguments Dec. 14 in the case of Gary Kleypas, 
sentenced to death a 2nd time for the 1996 sexual assault and stabbing of a 
college student after the high court overturned the punishment in 2001. 3 other 
capital cases are before the justices.

Before the Robinson ruling, the justices had struck down 9 death sentences. 4 
are serving lengthy prison sentences instead; 2, including Kleypas, are back 
before the justices, and the state is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to 
reinstate 3 other death sentences.

Dunham said it was inevitable that the Kansas Supreme Court would uphold a 
death sentence. He said Robinson still can file additional legal challenges in 
state and federal courts, forestalling an execution date.

But Attorney General Derek Schmidt, whose office defends death sentences on 
appeal, said, "It shows that there is a path that allows the statute to operate 
as it was intended."

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Jeff King said he was "perplexed" by the 
state high court's previous decisions, arguing that it struck down death 
sentences over mistakes by judges in handling cases that were harmless, given 
"mountains" of evidence against the defendants.

"My concern has always been that the Supreme Court requires near perfection by 
a trial judge in order to uphold a death penalty case," said King, an 
Independence Republican.

Schmidt and Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe, whose office 
prosecuted Robinson and Miller, said 2 decades of rulings in capital cases have 
left guidance for prosecutors and judges on legal issues.

Prosecutors also now know, thanks to the high court, that if a defendant is 
deemed eligible for the death penalty for multiple killings during a "common 
scheme or course of conduct," they file a single capital murder charge, not one 
for each death.

But Kansas still has had relatively few capital cases reviewed compared to 
others, such as Texas, Oklahoma and Florida, according to Elizabeth Cateforis, 
a University of Kansas law professor who teaches a capital punishment course.

"Eventually, you get a system in place that does what it is supposed to," she 
said.

A clue as to why Robinson's death sentence was upheld is the unusual "effusive 
praise" for how Johnson County District Judge John Anderson III handled the 
case, Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said, noting it's a 
message to other judges to follow his example.

The Supreme Court didn't change its legal standards so much as it decided a 
case free of questionable rulings by a trial judge, said Bill Rich, a 
constitutional law professor at Washburn University.

"If the judge had not been so meticulous, it would have been a different 
opinion," Rich said.

Online: The Supreme Court's ruling in Robinson's case: http://bit.ly/1XUFpu5

(source: Associated Press)






CALIFORNIA:

Monday Morning Thoughts: Death Penalty Reinstated in California


Last week, a 3 judge panel overturned a district court's ruling that delays in 
California's death penalty make the procedure arbitrary and therefore 
unconstitutional. While that got the headlines, beneath that is the fine print 
that the court did not weigh in on the merits of the argument.

Instead the court argues, "Because Petitioner asks us to apply a novel 
constitutional rule, we may not assess the substantive validity of his claim."

Last year, Federal Judge Cormac J. Carney wrote in a decision "On April 7, 
1995, Petitioner Ernest Dewayne Jones was condemned to death by the State of 
California. Nearly 2 decades later, Mr. Jones remains on California's death 
row, awaiting his execution, but with complete uncertainty as to when, or even 
whether, it will ever come."

"Mr. Jones is not alone," writes Judge Carney, "Since 1978, when the current 
death penalty system was adopted by California voters, over 900 people have 
been sentenced to death for their crimes. Of them, only 13 have been executed. 
For the rest, the dysfunctional administration of California's death penalty 
system has resulted, and will continue to result, in an inordinate and 
unpredictable period of delay preceding their actual execution."

He adds, "Indeed, for most, systemic delay has made their execution so unlikely 
that the death sentence carefully and deliberately imposed by the jury has been 
quietly transformed into one no rational jury or legislature could ever impose: 
life in prison, with the remote possibility of death. As for the random few for 
whom execution does become a reality, they will have languished for so long on 
death row that their execution will serve no retributive or deterrent purpose 
and will be arbitrary."

Judge Susan P. Graber writing for the court, notes, "Many agree with Petitioner 
that California's capital punishment system is dysfunctional and that the delay 
between sentencing and execution in California is extraordinary."

However, she writes "the purpose of federal habeas corpus is to ensure that 
state convictions comply with the federal law in existence at the time the 
conviction became final, and not to provide a mechanism for the continuing 
reexamination of final judgments based upon later emerging legal doctrine."

Scott Martelle writing for the LA Times notes, "In one sense, the decision is a 
loss for those hoping for an end to the death penalty (me among them). But it's 
also a non-decision because the appellate judges didn't take up the heart of 
Carney's ruling, and his logic is quite compelling."

He continues, "In a nutshell, the very structure of California's death penalty 
means that who among the condemned actually gets put to death is determined by 
an arbitrary process that drags out so long that the execution serves neither 
as a deterrent nor as an act of retribution, important thresholds under 
previous Supreme Court decisions."

"That argument," he writes, "is still out there, even if the appellate court 
decided it couldn't review it under court rules established under the 
Clinton-era Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996."

"The rule is that the federal courts can reverse the state criminal cases for 
constitutional violations only if the law is 'well established,'" says Natasha 
Minsker, director of the ACLU of California's Center for Advocacy & Policy. 
"The idea is that the state courts can only be expected to implement federal 
rules that they know about. The state courts can't be expected to guess how 
federal judges will interpret the constitution in the future. The problem: That 
prevents the federal courts from addressing constitutional violations in many 
criminal cases.

"It's sort of like instant replay in sports before you could review a call. The 
ref makes a call, everyone watching at home sees it was a mistake, but it 
couldn't be fixed."

In short, the 9th Circuit ruled that they lack the authority to "assess and 
rule on the merits of Carney's decision." Mr. Martelle notes that the state 
Supreme Court could do so, "but it will be a challenge."

Mr. Martelle continues arguing that "this is another place where the 
credibility of the legal system crumbles. If the appellate courts can't be led 
to address the basic question of whether the design and implementation of the 
state's capital punishment is unconstitutional because it engenders 
decades-long delays between the crime and the punishment, and the ultimate 
decision of who gets put to death when is arbitrary, then where does that 
argument get aired?"

It seems then that unlike gay marriage, the issues of the death penalty may 
have to be addressed by the voters. In 2016, there may be competing on the 
ballot. One would ban the death penalty. The other would speed up the process 
and narrow the sorts of appeals that can be argued. Neither have even reached 
the circulation process yet.

(source: Davis Vanguard)

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

Use gas for death penalty


Although I have always been strongly in favor of the death penalty and believe 
it should actually be carried out rather than letting the condemned languish on 
death row, I've always wondered why the methods of execution have to be so 
macabre.

Even lethal injection, with its often multiple needle sticks, seems to be 
almost medieval. Concern for the suffering of the criminal is universally given 
for these supposedly humane methods of execution but I sure don't see it that 
way.

I have a simple and humane solution. Why not execute criminals in a gas chamber 
using carbon monoxide gas or even just carbon dioxide? They'd peacefully and 
painlessly fall asleep and ultimately expire. It's foolproof and 100 % 
effective.

The gases could be safely vented to the outside atmosphere. I sure can't see 
anything wrong with this approach.

Jess King, Lindsay

(source: Letter to the Editor, Fresno Bee)

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

Placer County's death row inmates wait as debate swirls


By the numbers

747 people in California on death row

13 executions since 1978

52 % of voters backed death penalty in 2012 California vote

2006 was the year of the last execution in California

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

A recent photo from San Quentin State Prison shows David Rundle no longer the 
young man tried, convicted and sentenced to death in Placer County for the 
murders of 2 women almost 3 decades ago.

Rundle was 21 when he was arrested and 24 when he arrived at San Quentin's 
death row. He's now 50 - one of 747 convicted murderers awaiting execution in 
California. He's spent more than half of his life behind bars for the killings, 
with no end in sight.

Arturo Juarez Suarez was 33 when he arrived at San Quentin. He was convicted of 
killing 4 people in 1998 on a ranch in rural Auburn. Along with his 
brother-in-law and another male adult relative, he was convicted by a Placer 
County jury of burying alive his 5-year-old nephew and 3-year-old niece. Suarez 
is now 48 and, like Rundle, has no date with death in the foreseeable future.

But moves within California corridors of justice and political power are 
sending signals to some that the pace of executions could quicken. Earlier this 
month, California proposed to allow corrections officials to choose 1 of 4 
types of powerful barbiturates to execute prisoners on death row, depending on 
which one is available.

The single drug would replace the series of e drugs that was last used when 
Clarence Ray Allen was executed in 2006 at San Quentin.

And the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court ruling on 
Thursday that had found California's death penalty process was unconstitutional 
because of excessive delays. More than 900 people have been sentenced to death 
in California since 1978, but only 13 have been executed.

The wait for Rundle has been a long one but it's a wait that families of the 
victims as well as the prosecutor in the case have had to also face. Jess 
Bedore, Placer County's prosecutor on the case, now in private practice in 
Roseville, said that nothing has changed to stand in the way of Rundle's 
eventual execution.

"Of course, absolutely," Bedore said. "He raped and strangled 2 women in Placer 
County and admitted a 3rd murder in Sacramento County."

David Humpheys, lead public defender on the Rundle case and now a public 
defender in Nevada County, said that while moves are being made to speed up the 
process, he's unsure whether they will actually have an impact. And there are 
other efforts to move toward abolishing the death penalty. Opponents of the 
death penalty are gathering signatures for a ballot measure that would ban 
capital punishment in California. A similar measure for a death penalty ban was 
defeated by 4 % points in 2012.

At the same time, death penalty supporters are soliciting signatures for a 
measure that would ask for more appellate lawyers and speedier appeals.

"Some day we'll join the rest of the civilized world but it won't be abolished 
in my lifetime," Humphreys said.

The Sacramento-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation considers the latest 
movement within the state as a hopeful one for its cause.

"Resumption of executions in California is at least a foreseeable possibility 
now," said Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the foundation.

But Applegate's Joe Offer, a Placer People of Faith Together board member and 
retired federal investigator, said that while he's unsure of the impact of the 
latest developments, he senses a lack of substantial resolve within the state 
to move on renewing executions.

"The fact we delay so long on executions is an indication we don't feel right 
about it," Offer said.

(source: Auburn Journal)






WASHINGTON:

Franklin County prosecutor favors asking Washington voters about death penalty


Franklin County Prosecutor Shawn Sant wants to see Washington voters get asked 
in 2016 if they support keeping capital punishment as an option for the most 
heinous crimes.

The death penalty has been on hold in Washington since February 2014, when Gov. 
Jay Inslee issued a moratorium for as long as he was in office.

Many of the state's elected prosecutors haven't backed off considering the 
death penalty in aggravated murder cases that merit it.

But the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys - a nonprofit and 
nonpartisan organization that supports county prosecutors and lobbies on their 
behalf - says it is time to have the electorate weigh in on the issue.

A 2-page statement issued last week by King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg, 
the association's president, asked Gov. Jay Inslee and the Legislature "to 
place a referendum on the ballot next year seeking guidance from the voters 
about this significant public policy issue.

Sant, a Republican, said an overwhelming majority of prosecutors at their 
October meeting wanted to put this back to the people.

"The intent behind this was making taxpayers aware we, as prosecutors, kind of 
get a sense that a lot of people are not favoring the death penalty any longer, 
or their minds have changed from 40 years ago, when Washington got the 
initiative to have the death penalty," Sant said. He noted that he was speaking 
for himself, and not the association.

"If that (consensus) has changed, we want to make sure we are in fact carrying 
out the will of the citizens of the state that we serve in prosecuting for 
state crimes," he added.

If voters decide to keep the death penalty, Sant says the state then needs to 
address the funding issue so capital punishment cases aren't a burden on 
counties, especially smaller ones.

Sant made the decision this summer not to pursue the death penalty against 
Prudencio Fragos-Ramirez, a Connell man accused of setting fire to his 
girlfriend's car after shooting the woman and her 3-year-old son inside.

Sant acknowledged that it is concerning when a child is involved in this type 
of crime, but said his office had reservations after evaluating the 
circumstances and the available evidence.

"Obviously, we have a strong case," he said, "but for the type of case and the 
scrutiny that would come with a death penalty case ... we discussed that it 
wouldn't be appropriate in this case."

Fragos-Ramirez is charged in Franklin County Superior Court with 2 counts of 
1st-degree murder, and is facing a minimum sentence of 50 years if convicted. 
Sant says his office can amend to aggravated charges if the case goes to trial.

Benton County Prosecutor Andy Miller is in the middle of a triple-homicide 
trial and wasn't available to comment on the association's announcement.

Jeremy Sagastegui is the only man from Benton and Franklin counties to be put 
to death since Washington reinstated the death penalty 34 years ago. He died by 
lethal injection for the 1995 killing of a child and 2 women.

Former Richland resident Westley Allan Dodd was the 1st to be executed after 
the reinstatement. The serial killer and child molester was convicted in 
Vancouver, Wash., and hanged in 1993 at the Washington State Penitentiary in 
Walla Walla.

The state has executed a total 78 men since 1904.

Washington reportedly has no active capital punishment cases.

In May, a King County jury spared the life of a man convicted of killing 6 
members of his ex-girlfriend's family during a 2007 holiday gathering in 
Carnation. Satterberg then announced in July that he would no longer seek the 
death penalty against the co-defendant.

Also in July, another King County jury declined to send a convicted cop killer 
to death row, and instead sentenced him to life in prison without the 
possibility of release.

Sant said a benefit of having capital punishment is that prosecutors can use 
the potential sentence as a negotiating tool, like in the case of Gary Ridgway. 
The Green River Killer, as part of his plea bargain to a life sentence, agreed 
to disclose the whereabouts of still-missing women.

Sant, who would like to see it remain a law, believes his colleagues have been 
cautious when exercising the option to seek the death penalty.

Since 1981, Washington prosecutors have sought the death penalty in 90 of 268 
cases where it was a possible sentence, Satterberg said. And of those 90, 
jurors came back with unanimous verdicts for death in 32 cases, he wrote.

5 men have been executed in that time, including 3 who told their lawyers not 
to pursue appeals of their convictions.

18 men have had their sentences reversed by appeals courts, and "their cases 
were ultimately resolved without imposition of the death penalty," Satterberg 
said.

9 convicted killers now live on death row.

Miller, a Democrat, has acknowledged in the past of having mixed feelings on 
the topic. He's said that if given the option, he might vote as a private 
citizen to repeal capital punishment because he doesn't know that it "adds 
anything."

But on the job, Miller is obligated to enforce the law. He is the only active 
prosecutor in the state who has argued for the death penalty, prosecuted it, 
defended it all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, and watched the 
execution.

He has told the Herald that he won't take the death penalty off the table from 
consideration if the circumstances warrant it, because Washington may elect a 
new governor in 2016 while a case is still working through the judicial system.

(source: tri-cityherald.com)






USA:

The Odds of Overturning the Death Penalty ---- The man who helped topple it 
(briefly) in 1972 gauges the likelihood of success.


How vulnerable is the death penalty? It's a question that has been asked with 
increasing frequency and intensity this year. Over the summer, Supreme Court 
Justice Stephen Breyer invited defense lawyers to bring a case that would allow 
the court to decide whether the punishment is "cruel and unusual" - meaning 
whether it should be abolished completely.

But since then, these lawyers - many of whom have devoted their entire careers 
to opposing the death penalty - have been divided on whether to actually push a 
case before the court. Some want to bring a case before the court as soon as 
possible, arguing that there has never been a set of justices more amenable 
(Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who signed onto Breyer's opinion, may soon 
retire). Others say there is no guarantee the court would rule their way, and a 
loss - a ruling that the death penalty really is constitutional - could set 
back their cause indefinitely.

Both sides invest much of their energy in psychoanalyzing Justice Anthony 
Kennedy, whom they view as the key swing vote in a challenge to the death 
penalty, and who has written at least one opinion limiting its use in the past.

Another place to turn is history. The situation these defense lawyers face is 
not so different from one their predecessors faced half a century ago. In 1972, 
a group of lawyers with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, led by Anthony Amsterdam, 
succeeded in convincing the court to strike down the death penalty, in a case 
called Furman v. Georgia1.

So what might those NAACP lawyers who won and lost 40 years ago have to say to 
their counterparts in the anti-death penalty movement today? Would they 
recommend bringing a case?

We went to Michael Meltsner, a law professor at Northeastern University in 
Boston and one of the last professionally active members of the cohort of NAACP 
lawyers who won the Furman case (he wrote a book about that effort called Cruel 
and Unusual: The Supreme Court and Capital Punishment). At age 24, when he was 
hired by Thurgood Marshall, he became the second white attorney at the NAACP 
Legal Defense Fund.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

To set this up: In 1963, Justice Arthur Goldberg suggested in a dissent that a 
challenge to the death penalty could prevail. This ultimately led to your 
success in Furman v. Georgia, which struck down the punishment in 1972. This 
summer Justice Stephen Breyer - who once clerked for Goldberg - published an 
invitation to defense lawyers to challenge the punishment again. How similar is 
the situation you confronted to the one facing death-penalty opponents today?

We had a strategy from the 1960s on to stop as many death cases as we could, to 
collect proof of racial discrimination, and to raise procedural arguments of 
various sorts. By the early 1970s, we had either gotten what we could out of 
procedural arguments or lost them. All that was left was the general Eighth 
Amendment argument, that the death penalty was cruel and unusual. Furman was 
really the last chance.

The difference between now and then is we had no other choice2. There was 
nothing left we could do with the death penalty. I would say that there was no 
way we could have predicted winning in Furman. It's not that we thought we'd 
lose necessarily. But there was really no confidence in winning.

But we won. And the way we won affected the future of capital punishment.

After your victory, many states scrambled to write new laws to bring back the 
punishment. Now there's a divide between those who want to bring a challenge to 
the court and others who are more cautious, saying a loss could set the 
movement back by strengthening capital punishment.

It is similar to the original situation in that respect. But there are some 
wrinkles: we didn't have complete control over the movement to end the death 
penalty, but we had an enormous influence. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund was 
known by the justices at the time as the organization that owned the issue. 
They trusted us. This is all happening in the late 1960's. The Legal Defense 
Fund, when I was first assistant in the 1960's, had successfully argued more 
cases before the court than any law firm. So you had a fount of great trust, 
and I think that was important to the justices.

Today, you have a fragmented bar, and nothing can stop somebody from bringing 
an Eighth Amendment case to the court.

The debate out there is in a way beside the point: it's up to whether the 
justices take such a case. This is all like Kremlinology - "Oh, Malenkov is 
closer to Brezhnev this time." This is all total speculation. All the people 
quoted in the you've read have no idea, no evidence for what Kennedy would do. 
And I don't either.

In addition to the New York Times report that first delved into the strategic 
debate among defense lawyers, BuzzFeed has spoken at length to the most active 
lawyers looking to bring a case before the court.

But some say if you don't bring a case now, it may be the last chance before 
the court changes its makeup and becomes less open to a death penalty 
challenge.

I'm much more cautious. Maybe I'm living in the past; I don't know. On the one 
hand, Kennedy has been the critical voice in certain cases lately, which have 
significantly restricted the death penalty.

And in those cases, he is able to differentiate between the single case and the 
social policy. And that's critical here. Because ultimately what supports the 
death penalty in this country is the horrible crime: Take the Tsarnaev trial. 
In a place, Boston, that largely opposes the death penalty, he gets sentenced 
to death because of the facts of his crime. For us, the death penalty is a 
system that produces certain outcomes, and that is constantly stimulated by the 
journalism, the sensationalism, the horror of particular events. Every time you 
read or think 'Oh the death penalty is awful, it convicts innocent people, it's 
unreliable, it's racially biased.' Then there's, "this guy took this woman..." 
Etc. and so forth.

And I think Kennedy has shown a capacity to understand the difference between 
these ways of looking at a subject in his opinions.

But then he has had plenty of opportunities to come out against the death 
penalty per se and has let executions proceed. So you can see it would take a 
mind reader to know where 5 votes to abolish come from.

What do you make of the strategizing among defense attorneys about the best 
possible case to bring before the court?

We were always clear that we weren't going to sacrifice anyone for the sake of 
strategy. But the tension is always there in the world of impact litigation, 
between individual cases and social policy interests.

I would be much happier if the story was told as, 'I represent X. He has no 
more claims. There is no reason why he should be executed given all these 
arguments, and I'm debating bringing this to the Supreme Court.' That's a 
different structure than what has come out in these stories. There is something 
that bothers me about the narrative you see emerging - it's too manipulative. 
I'm not criticizing these lawyers, who certainly seem to know their business. I 
would feel a lot more confident if they said, 'We don't know how the court will 
rule, but our client Mr. Jones has no other claims.' That's the situation we 
were in.

The Justices don't like to feel they're being manipulated. It's not unknown to 
them that people strategize on how to get to the court. It's just that this is 
so public and maybe that would affect somebody on the court's attitude. Look at 
how Justice Samuel Alito criticized lawyers trying to keep states from getting 
lethal injection drugs, saying they were using "guerrilla" tactics to stop 
executions. On the one hand that's lawyers representing their clients. But on 
the other that's an opening for critics like Alito to throw mud at them, to say 
'You're just trying to trick us. This isn't a real issue. It's one you lawyers 
have created.' That's the dynamic that worries me.

Are you cautious because there was such a backlash after you won in Furman, and 
state legislatures scrambled to strengthen capital punishment?

It's not so much that. I don't think there would be the same kind of backlash. 
There would be a public backlash, but I don't think it would be as strong as it 
was in the 1970's. I'm cautious because I don't like to lose, and there may be 
negative consequences you haven't considered: The court could get stricter in 
terms of what future death penalty cases they would be willing to consider. A 
2nd possibility is it could be politicized in a particular presidential 
election.

If the court were to strike down the death penalty, what would people who 
wanted it to continue do next? What would the backlash look like?

Just like with flag-burning, immediately you'll have a lot of talk about a 
constitutional amendment. Who knows what Congress would look like. I don't 
think it would be easy to get that done, for a number of reasons, from the 
number of states that have abolished it. It's a hard one. But you'd certainly 
get the talk. There's no cost for a congressperson to say, 'I'm going to amend 
the Constitution.'

The court would come in for criticism. There would be vicious dissents. But if 
they write an opinion saying 'Never,' that's it. I think they'd get away with 
it. But there would certainly be resistance. Even though the death penalty is 
withering away, it's doing so with deliberate speed.

(source: themarshallproject.org)

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

Justice Department wastes money by sticking nose in local cases


The Justice Department is increasingly jumping into smaller criminal matters so 
it can look good while "playing daddy" to local authorities - but its efforts 
are a waste of manpower and tax money, several current and former 
law-enforcement sources told The Post.

Under the Obama administration, the agency's Civil Rights Division has been 
readily opening more federal investigations shortly after violent encounters in 
municipalities across the country instead of allowing local cops and 
prosecutors to do their jobs first, the souces said.

The latest example came 3 weeks ago, when the department announced within 24 
hours that the FBI would investigate a South Carolina school-resource officer 
caught on video dragging a female student across the floor of a classroom.

"The notion that [the] DOJ would jump in so quickly where the offense was so 
slight on a federal scale is ridiculous," said retired FBI Deputy Assistant 
Director Ronald Hosko. "They're just playing daddy when no daddy is needed."

A federal source agreed, saying Sunday, "In light of what just happened in 
Paris, I think more than ever we need to allocate our resources to fighting 
terrorism instead of worrying about crimes that take place on the local level."

The Justice Department responded that it gets involved in community-based 
offenses to lend "support" in gathering evidence and to "regularly" assist 
local prosecutors.

But Hosko said another glaring example of the department's overreach was the 
Dylan Roof church-massacre case.

With overwhelming evidence against him, Roof readily confessed to fatally 
shooting 9 people in a historic black church in Charleston, SC, in June, and 
state prosecutors promptly charged him with nine counts of murder and announced 
that they would seek the death penalty.

The feds then charged Roof with 33 hate crimes - charges that also carry the 
death penalty.

(source: new York Post)

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

Asking Tough Questions About the Death Penalty----Journalists and prisoners 
stage a First Amendment challenge to state secrecy regarding executions.


Last week's observance of Veteran's Day brought another opportunity to examine 
the politics and ramifications of the death penalty, after a new report 
produced by the Death Penalty Information Center put the number of military 
veterans on death row at 10% of the entire comdemned prison population.

Scrutiny of capital punishment is increasingly in the national spotlight and 
last March, Reason TV profiled the ongoing efforts to demand transparency in 
government pertaining to executions.

A portion of the original writeup is below, you can read the full article here:

Americans may shudder at the barbarity depicted in videos showing public 
executions by the governments of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and China, but the fact 
remains that alone among all Western countries, the United States is a death 
penalty country.

Though the death penalty is legal in the majority of American states, only a 
handful of them actually carry out executions, numbering in the few dozens 
annually. Part of the reason the American public maintains a steadfast support 
of its government killing convicted murderers is due to the cloak of secrecy 
covering executions and that the most common form of execution, lethal 
injection, is sold to the public as a medical procedure, akin to putting a sick 
animal to sleep.

But a series of botched executions in 2014 have exposed a problem largely 
unknown to the American public: The drugs used for lethal injections are 
experimental, untested, and proving to be ineffective at killing prisoners 
without excruciating pain.

(source: Anthony L. Fisher is a Writer/Producer for Reason.com and Reason 
TV----reason.com)