[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----IND., NEV., CALIF., WASH., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 18



INDIANA:

Suspected serial killer no longer wants to represent himself


A man charged in the strangling deaths of 2 women has decided not to represent 
himself in his upcoming capital trial, according to court records.

Darren Vann, 44, of Gary, was scheduled to appear Wednesday before Lake 
Criminal Court Judge Diane Boswell after he wrote to the court indicating he 
wanted to represent himself.

One of Vann's defense attorneys, Gojko Kasich, filed a motion to cancel the 
hearing along with an affidavit that Vann no longer wants to represent himself, 
according to online court records. Boswell then canceled the hearing.

Vann is scheduled to appear in court again Dec. 18, and his trial is slated to 
start Jan. 25.

He faces murder charges in the homicides of Afrika Hardy, 19, and Anith Jones, 
35, of Merrillville. The Lake County prosecutor's office is seeking the death 
penalty against him.

Hardy was found dead Oct. 17, 2014, in a bathtub at a Motel 6 in Hammond. 
According to court records, Hardy met Vann through an online escort service.

Vann allegedly admitted to killing Hardy along with 6 other women whose bodies 
were left in abandoned buildings in Gary, police said.

Jones was found Oct. 18, 2014, in an abandoned building in the 400 block of 
East 43rd Street in Gary. Vann told detectives a mutual friend offered him 
money and drugs to make Jones disappear, according to the affidavit.

Vann has not been charged in the homicides of the other women. The women are 
Teaira Batey, Tanya Gatlin, Sonya Billingsley, Tracy L. Martin and Kristine 
Williams.

(source: nwitimes.com)






NEVADA----new death sentence

Man sentenced to death in 2013 Lyon County killing-arson spree


A 27-year-old ex-convict was sentenced to death Tuesday for killing 5 people in 
northern Nevada during a Mother's Day weekend murder spree in 2013. Jeremiah 
Diaz Bean's fate had been decided in August by a state court in Yerington.

It was made official by Lyon County District Court Judge John Paul 
Schlegelmilch, who also imposed maximum consecutive penalties totaling 78 to 
195 years for Bean's other convictions including arson, robbery, burglary, auto 
theft and theft using a firearm.

Bean was found guilty in July of fatally shooting Robert Pape and Dorothy Pape, 
both 84, in May 2013 in one Fernley home, and Angie Duff, 67, and Lester 
Leiber, 69, at a house around the corner.

The jury found him guilty of fatally shooting newspaper deliveryman Eliazar 
Graham, 52, of Sparks, at an I-80 exit near the Mustang Ranch brothel east of 
Reno.

Bean had been convicted of an unrelated burglary in January 2011 in Lyon 
County. His probation was revoked 6 months later. He was jailed for about a 
year and his parole expired in December 2012.

Bean initially agreed to plead guilty in the 2013 slayings in a plea deal that 
would have spared him the death penalty. He changed his mind in November 2013 
and stood trial this year.

A prosecutor told the jury that Bean robbed and killed his victims to get cash 
to party on a Friday night, and he set the Pape home afire to try to destroy 
the evidence.

Bean's defense attorney argued that Bean wasn't the only person to blame for 
the killings.

Bean becomes the 81st inmate on death row at Ely State Prison.

The last execution in Nevada was Daryl Linnie Mack in 2006.

(source: Associated Press)






CALIFORNIA:

Suspect in siblings' deaths could face death penalty----Defendant "destroyed a 
family within minutes," prosecutor said.


A man charged in the shooting deaths of 2 siblings in Southcrest earlier this 
month was treated "as a family member" by the people he is accused of killing, 
a prosecutor said Tuesday.

Felipe DeJesus Vega Meza, 38, was arrested last week after he was wounded 
during a SWAT standoff in City Heights. He is accused of killing Arline Iribe, 
20, and her brother Alexis Velarde, 22.

The pair were killed outside a home at Newton Avenue and South 43rd Street on 
Nov. 8. Police said Velarde had tried to shield his sister from the gunfire.

On Tuesday, Vega pleaded not guilty in San Diego Superior Court to 2 counts of 
murder and gun-use allegations. Because he also faces a special-circumstance 
allegation of multiple murders, prosecutors have the option of seeking the 
death penalty.

The District Attorney's Office had not yet announced whether it would seek 
Vega's execution or life in prison without the possibility of parole. Such 
decisions are usually made after a preliminary hearing has been held, and a 
judge has determined whether prosecutors have enough evidence for the case to 
go to trial.

At Vega's arraignment, Judge David Szumowski ordered the defendant to remain 
held in county jail on a no-bail status and appointed the Public Defender's 
Office to represent him in court. Vega is a Mexican citizen.

Deputy District Attorney Amy Maund told the judge that a sequence of events 
before the shooting made the defendant angry and he "wouldn't let it go." At 
some point, Iribe had enough and tried to leave the home where the shooting 
took place, but the defendant would not let her go.

She called her brother, who tried to protect her, when Vega opened fire, the 
prosecutor said.

"He destroyed the family within minutes," Maund said. She told the judge that 
the victims were particularly vulnerable because they knew the defendant and 
had treated him like family for years.

A warrant was issued for Vega's arrest. Police spotted his car, a green 1998 
Oldsmobile Cutlass, Thursday night in Southcrest, not far from where the 
killings occurred. A 20-minute pursuit ensued, during which the driver tossed a 
handgun out of the car and onto Interstate 805.

The gun was recovered.

The pursuit ended in City Heights, where police blocked him in at an apartment 
complex carport on Van Dyke Avenue at Myrtle Street. Police said he got out of 
the car about 12:20 a.m. and reached for his waistband while turning toward 
officers and crisis negotiators.

An officer fired a round at Vega, hitting him in his chest.

(source: San Digo Union-Tribune)






WASHINGTON:

Washington Legislature should move to end the death penalty ---- The Washington 
Association of Prosecuting Attorneys has the right idea to push for direction 
on the death penalty. The final decision should rest with Olympia lawmakers, 
who need to exhibit moral leadership, take a vote and say no to capital 
punishment.


Washington's death penalty is an albatross - a massively expensive punishment, 
applied unevenly, that needs to be abolished.

The Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys has the right idea. Sensing 
a shift in public opinion, the group, whose membership is split, sent a 
letterto the Legislature asking that a referendum on the death penalty be sent 
to voters in 2016.

A better idea is for lawmakers to take up this issue, explore the waste of 
public resources and inequity in its application, and pass a law repealing the 
death penalty. Gov. Jay Inslee, who announced a moratorium on executions during 
his tenure, has said that he would sign it.

Bills with bipartisan support have been introduced in Olympia. But so far, none 
have even squeaked out of committee. A ballot measure that fails could set this 
abolition movement back.

40 years ago, Washingtonians voted for Initiative 316 to support capital 
punishment. As the prosecutors note in their statement, most residents today 
didn't participate in that election. This is a tough issue for public servants 
who've seen the worst of the worst and work to comfort the families of murder 
victims. The prosecutors are not taking a formal position, pro or con. Instead, 
as they write, we "want to know that when we embark on the long and difficult 
process of capital punishment for the worst crimes inflicted upon our community 
that we are doing so with the support and approval of the people we represent."

In 2 recent, horrific cases, King County juries have opted against the death 
penalty. Joseph McEnroe, who murdered 6 members of his girlfriend's family in 
2007, including a 3-year-old and a 6-year-old, was spared. So, too, was 
Christopher Monfort, who murdered Seattle police officer Timothy Brenton on 
Halloween night 2009.

King County, like Pierce and Snohomish counties, still has the resources to 
seek the death penalty. According to a Seattle University study, capital cases 
in Washington cost an extra $1 million on average. In practice that means 
defendants are much more likely to face the death penalty if the crime is 
committed in a wealthier county. It's an arbitrary version of justice by 
geography.

Inslee's 2014 moratorium did not settle the question. State Attorney General 
Bob Ferguson still defends the state against cases brought by death-row inmates 
challenging their sentences. And a prosecutor anywhere in the state could seek 
a death-penalty case tomorrow.

Washington thankfully isn't burdened with some of the systemic death-penalty 
outrages that characterize other states, from racial disparity to prosecutorial 
misconduct. And most of those executed in the state over the last three decades 
have told their attorneys not to bother with appeals. 18 men in Washington have 
had their death-penalty sentences reversed by appellate courts.

State lawmakers should take a stand.

(source: Editorial board members are editorial page editor Kate Riley, Frank A. 
Blethen, Ryan Blethen, Brier Dudley, Mark Higgins, Jonathan Martin, Thanh Tan, 
Blanca Torres, William K. Blethen (emeritus) and Robert C. Blethen 
(emeritus)----Seattle Times)






USA:

Donald Fell fights death penalty law


A Vermont man facing the federal death penalty for the 2000 killing of a woman 
abducted from outside a Rutland supermarket is asking a judge to declare the 
death penalty law unconstitutional, court documents say.

In documents filed in federal court Monday, attorneys for Donald Fell argue the 
federal death penalty is unreliable, arbitrary and adds "unconscionably long" 
delays in cases. "Most places within the United States have abandoned its use 
under evolving standards of decency," the attorneys say.

They contend that U.S. Supreme Court justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader 
Ginsburg earlier this year "issued a clarion call for reconsideration of the 
constitutionality of the death penalty."

It also noted that the Connecticut Supreme Court, relying largely on Breyer and 
Ginsburg's arguments, found that state's death penalty unconstitutional.

"Mr. Fell asks this Court to (rule)... that the federal death penalty, in and 
of itself, constitutes a legally prohibited cruel and unusual punishment 
prohibited by both the Fifth and Eighth Amendments," his filing said.

Fell, 35, was convicted and sentenced to death in 2005 for the 2000 killing of 
Terry King, a 53-year-old North Clarendon grandmother who was abducted in 
Rutland and later killed. A judge last year ordered a new trial for Fell 
because of juror misconduct during the original trial.

The trial is scheduled for next fall.

U.S. Attorney Eric Miller said his office would respond to the defense filings 
at the appropriate time.

Vermont has no state death penalty; Fell was sentenced to death under federal 
law.

In 2002, the judge then hearing the case declared the federal death penalty 
unconstitutional. But 2 years later, an appeals court overturned that ruling, 
allowing the trial to go forward.

Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said 
a decade's worth of data has accumulated showing the legal problems with the 
federal death penalty since the ruling allowing Fell's case to go forward.

There's more evidence the federal death penalty is overwhelmingly applied in 
Southern states that have state death penalties, and there are significant 
racial disparities in the application of the federal death penalty as well, 
Dunham said.

"You can expect going forward that there will be constitutional challenges of 
this type filed in most, if not all, federal capital prosecutions," Dunham 
said.

(source: Burlington Free Press)