[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, ARK., ILL., NEV., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 16



OHIO:

State Considers Exempting Killers With Severe Mental Illness From Death 
Penalty---Laws already prohibit the execution of those deemed insane or 
mentally incompetent.


Convicted murderers who had a severe mental illness when they committed their 
crime would face a maximum punishment of life without parole instead of the 
death penalty under a proposed Ohio law.

The legislation, considered Wednesday by a state Senate committee, would apply 
to defendants who don't meet legal standards for insanity or mental 
incompetency, but nonetheless had diminished capacity to understand their crime 
because of a condition like schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar 
disorder, delusional disorder or major depression. The bill would apply to the 
141 inmates currently on Ohio's death row, allowing the possibility of 
re-sentencing.

Several of the 31 states that have the death penalty have considered 
legislation to exempt people with severe mental illness from execution, but 
only Connecticut -- which has since abolished its death penalty -- enacted it. 
The modern criteria for who may executed has narrowed slightly in recent years, 
with the U.S. Supreme Court in 2002 declaring it was unconstitutional to 
execute an inmate deemed mentally incompetent. The court barred the execution 
of juveniles in 2005.

"Individuals with serious mental illness have diminished criminal culpability, 
but Ohio law fails to protect them from imposition of the ultimate penalty of 
death," Evelyn Lundberg Stratton, a former state Supreme Court justice, told 
the state Senate Criminal Justice Committee Wednesday. "The 'evolving standards 
of decency' which prohibit the execution of juveniles and those with 
intellectual disabilities should prohibit execution of those with serious 
mental illness," Stratton said. Stratton said that "for nearly 20 years," she 
and other state Supreme Court justices questioned the appropriateness of 
executing capital defendants with demonstrated serious mental illness.

"Though it is legally a mitigating factor in sentencing, serious mental illness 
frequently functions as an aggravating factor in jurors' thinking," David 
Niven, a University of Cincinnati professor who researches the death penalty, 
told the committee.

Prosecutors who oppose the bill said current laws adequately deal with capital 
defendants who have mental illness. They argued that changing the law may make 
Ohio's death penalty subject to challenges based nebulous conditions like 
anxiety.

"This bill expands mental illness considerations far beyond what is necessary 
and will bar consideration of the death penalty in inappropriate 
circumstances," John Murphy, a lobbyist for the Ohio Association of Prosecuting 
Attorneys, wrote to lawmakers in an email earlier this year, according to The 
Associated Press.

A spokesman for Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine (R) said via email that the 
office has not taken a position on the legislation.

The bill would allow a defendant to raise the issue of severe mental illness 
before trial and give a judge the chance to remove the death penalty as a 
possible punishment. It would rule out leniency for crimes committed largely as 
the result of drug or alcohol abuse.

(source: Kim Bellward, Huffington Post)

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

103 to life for Newport Inn killer Willie Herring


Willie Herring, a defendant in the April 30, 1996, robbery and triple murder at 
the Newport Inn, has been sentenced to 103 years to life in prison.

Judge John M. Durkin, of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, re-sentenced 
Herring this morning for the crimes he committed at the South Side bar.

Calling Herring's crimes "heinous," Ralph Rivera, an assistant county 
prosecutor, had said in May that the prosecution would seek the death penalty 
this year.

A new penalty determination phase had been set for next month after a 4-3 Ohio 
Supreme Court decision last December vacated Herring's death sentence, but left 
his conviction intact.

The top court vacated the death sentence because it said Herring's trial 
lawyers failed to thoroughly and adequately investigate Herring's background to 
determine which mitigating factors to present to the jury during the penalty 
phase.

That jury recommended the death sentence, which Judge Durkin imposed.

That jury had convicted Herring in 1998 of 3 counts of complicity to commit 
aggravated murder, 2 counts of attempted aggravated murder and 2 counts of 
aggravated robbery, all with firearm specifications.

Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul J. Gains said today that he was dropping his 
request for the death penalty, at the request of the 2 surviving shooting 
victims, Ron Marinelli and Debbie Aziz.

(source: vindy.com)

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

Death penalty sentence consideration to start Tuesday for jury that found Kenan 
Ivery guilty in shooting death of Akron police officer Justin Winebrenner


A Summit County jury has found Kenan Ivery guilty of aggravated murder in last 
year's shooting death of an off-duty Akron police officer at Papa Don's Pub.

Justin Winebrenner, 32, died in the early hours of Nov. 16, about 30 minutes 
after being shot twice in the torso while trying to defuse a tense situation at 
the East Market Street nightspot.

Ivery, 36, was convicted of 14 of 15 charges in his capital murder indictment. 
He was found not guilty of tampering with evidence.

With the convictions, Ivery could now face the death penalty in the sentencing 
phase of his trial. Common Pleas Judge Alison McCarty instructed the same panel 
that returned the guilty verdicts to report to the courthouse at 9 a.m. Tuesday 
to begin those proceedings.

In a somber courtroom - filled beyond capacity by more than 70 family members 
and friends from both sides, along with numerous uniformed Akron cops - many 
quietly wept when the verdict in Count 1, aggravated murder, was read by the 
jury foreman.

Kelly Campbell, Winebrenner's sister, was seated in the front row of the 
gallery next to her husband. As soon as he heard the word "guilty" in Count 
One, he softly whispered "Yes."

Afterward, the slain officer's father, Rob Winebrenner, a retired Barberton 
policeman, stood among family members and friends in the courtroom lobby, 
dabbing at tears in his eyes as a team of deputies prepared to take Ivery back 
to the county jail.

"He won the fight. We won the battle. We won the war," Rob Winebrenner said, 
declining to say anything more with the sentencing phase of the trial coming up 
next week.

Ivery, dressed in a sweater vest, buttoned-down dress shirt and slacks, stood 
between his 2 lawyers at the defense table as his fate was being announced. He 
showed no visible sign of emotion, mostly staring straight ahead, as the string 
of guilty verdicts were read.

With 4 hours after the verdicts, hundreds had gone to the Facebook page, 
Justice for Justin, with his police badge number 1301 starkly alone in the 
middle of a field of vibrant blue.

"I have been praying for justice for Justin. I now pray for healing for the 
family. The prosecutor did a wonderful job. God bless all of Justin's loved 
ones," Mary Kaufman Gulledge wrote.

Bob Leslie posted; "Amen, now the family can try and rebuild."

Heather Wolfie Schueller wrote: "Prayers for all, may they all find some sort 
of peace with this verdict."

And there was this post from Pam Smith: "Justice for Charlee too!!!"

Charlee is Justin Winebrenner's daughter. She was 4 when he father was killed 
nearly a year ago.

During the trial, the prosecution showed evidence that Ivery returned to the 
bar, angry and seeking revenge, after he was kicked out for unwanted advances 
toward several women.

Prosecutors insisted that Ivery purposely killed Winebrenner and acted with 
prior calculation and design - 2 essential elements that must be met in order 
to convict on aggravated murder.

The defense, however, maintained Ivery returned to the pub to pick up a 
forgotten box of chicken wings and ended up firing his gun in self defense. 4 
shots were fired during a confrontation with Winebrenner and 2 other pub 
patrons who pushed Ivery backward through the doorway after he had pulled his 
gun from his waistband.

As he tumbled over a table near the door, losing his glasses and shouting, the 
1st shot was heard on the pub security videos.

"That's when I really feared for my life," Ivery told the jury when he took the 
stand last week.

He was armed with a .40-caliber handgun and didn't deny using it, even though 
he was prohibited under Ohio law from even being in close proximity to a gun at 
any time since being convicted of 2 drug felonies in February 2008.

Akron Police Chief James Nice and former Chief Craig Gilbride sat next to each 
other in the front row of the gallery as the courtroom quickly filled up before 
the 10;30 a.m. scheduled start of the jury's decision.

So many came, McCarty's court assistants had to set up chairs to accommodate 
everyone. Many more uniformed Akron officers stood outside, unable to get in. 
They all had black bands, in honor of Winebrenner, across their police badges.

(source: cleveland.com)






ARKANSAS:

Victim's daughter asks for life without parole for Arkansas death row inmate 
seeking clemency


The daughter of a slain southwest Arkansas woman said Thursday that the state 
Parole Board should grant clemency for the man convicted of the 1993 killing.

Ashley Heath was 6 years old when she saw her mother killed in their De Queen 
home. Twenty-five-year-old Carol Health was beaten and strangled and her throat 
was slit.

Heath told the board that she doesn't want Stacey Eugene Johnson, who was 
convicted of capital murder in the slaying, to be executed.

"I feel that there is no justice in the death penalty," she said, adding that 
she is forced to "relive the crime I witnessed in 1993" every time a new 
hearing or execution date is set.

Johnson and his defense attorney, Jeff Rosenzweig, appeared before the Parole 
Board earlier Thursday at a hearing at the Varner maximum security prison unit 
in Grady. Rosenzweig told the board that Johnson may be innocent, and said 
there was enough concern about Heath's testimony when she was a child that his 
sentence should be commuted to life without parole.

Johnson is 1 of 8 Arkansas death row inmates whose executions were scheduled to 
start next week. The executions, which would be the 1st in Arkansas in a decade 
because of lethal injection drug shortages and court challenges, were stayed by 
a circuit court last week because of a challenge to the state's execution drug 
secrecy law.

Johnson's execution was scheduled for Nov. 3. The state, represented by the 
Arkansas attorney general's office, has appealed that stay to the state Supreme 
Court.

Heath addressed the Parole Board Thursday afternoon in Little Rock. She entered 
the board room wearing sunglasses and carrying a photo of her mother that had 
been photocopied.

She asked that the media not film or record her testimony. At the end of her 
remarks, she told the board it should commute Johnson's sentence to life 
without parole, calling herself "pro-life" and saying the continued appeals are 
tough on her emotionally.

Heath asked for the new sentence "so I have closure to move on with my life and 
so does the rest of my family."

Johnson said during his morning hearing that if DNA retests had been allowed by 
the court, he would have been cleared of guilt. He also claimed to have not 
known Carol Heath, which the state and the victim's family argued wasn't true 
in the afternoon hearing.

"I want the opportunity to go back to court to have a fair trial, that's all," 
Johnson said.

Rosenzweig said Ashley Heath was determined incompetent to testify at the 1st 
trial, but was allowed to speak to the jury when a 2nd trial was held on 
appeal. The defense sought her psychiatric records that determined she was 
competent to testify at the 2nd trial but was denied access.

The state was "using privilege as both a sword and a shield," Rosenzweig said.

Pamela Rumpz, assistant state attorney general, said during the afternoon 
hearing that the incompetency argument was misleading because Heath was ruled 
incompetent only because she was scared to enter the courtroom to even have a 
competency hearing during the 1st trial. Rumpz also said the Supreme Court 
ruled that a retesting of DNA evidence had happened for Johnson's 2nd trial.

Carol Heath's sister, Melissa Cassidy, told Parole Board members she disagreed 
with her niece. She pleaded for them to uphold the death sentence and end the 
family's "wait for justice."

Johnathan Palmer, Carol Heath's son who was 2 and also in the house when his 
mother was killed, told the board that he has no memories of his mother and 
wasn't given a chance to know her.

"I have to completely disagree with my sister on this," he said. "I cannot find 
that I will ever truly be at peace with this if he continues to live."

But he said he could accept Johnson's sentence being commuted to life without 
parole if it would end the constant worry about new hearings or arguments.

The board will offer a non-binding recommendation to the governor's office 
before Tuesday. Gov. Asa Hutchinson will have the final say on whether the 
clemency request is granted. There is no set timeline in the law for when he 
has to make that decision..

(source: Associated Press)






ILLINOIS:

A mighty voice for justice

Marlene Martin of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty remembers a warrior for 
justice, who helped save the life of her son and end capital punishment in 
Illinois.


I was sad to hear the news that Louva Bell passed away on October 9. For those 
who never knew of Louva, she was a woman determined to see her son, Ronnie 
Kitchen, freed from a wrongful death sentence.

Ronnie was 22 when he was arrested and brought in for questioning at Area 3 
headquarters in Chicago. He was beaten by Chicago cops who worked under the 
command of Jon Burge, who tortured more than 200 African American suspects.

Ronnie's arms were chained to a ring in the wall, and he was beaten with fists, 
a blackjack and a telephone book. He was told by the officers, "We have ways of 
making niggers talk." He was beaten so badly in his groin that he had to be 
treated by a doctor for several months due to "swelling and abrasions." That's 
how the state obtained a "confession" that was used to convict him and sentence 
him to death.

Ronnie spent 21 years in prison, 13 of them on Illinois' death row. Along with 
another torture victim, Stanley Howard, Ronnie helped found and lead the "Death 
Row 10," a group of death row prisoners who were tortured by Burge and his men 
until they confessed. They wanted to bring attention to their wrongful 
incarceration. The Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) agreed to be their 
voice on the outside.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I came to know Louva through my work with her in the CEDP, where she was active 
with the Chicago chapter. She couldn't have stood 5-foot tall, but at 
demonstrations and press conferences, Louva would stand tall, holding a poster 
with a picture of Ronnie on it that was just about as big as she was.

She spoke at many of our protests and conventions. She was emotional when she 
spoke of Ronnie, about how he had been beaten so badly and it was hard for him 
to walk after that beating. She talked about how she knew he was innocent, and 
she cried out for the system to do something--to fix this injustice so her son 
could come home.

Her sobs moved people to tears and also into action.

Louva would often tell audiences the story of how hard it was to struggle 
alone, before she had met the CEDP--how she would cry every night and pray for 
help, but she felt so alone and didn't know what to do. Then she would say, "I 
met Joan Parkin, and it was like I met an angel."

Joan was organizing with the CEDP, and encouraged and embraced Louva's 
involvement with us. Louva would say that after meeting Joan and working with 
the CEDP, it changed her life, because she no longer felt she was struggling 
alone. She was struggling alongside people who cared and people who also wanted 
to win justice for her son and for many others.

In one of the CEDP's reports written in the New Abolitionist newsletter is a 
description of a "Live from Death Row" event where Ronnie called in via 
speakerphone to an audience of 150 people. He talked about his beating as his 
mother stood on the podium. Afterward, Louva spoke and, as the New Abolitionist 
reported, "gave a moving testimonial about her experience with an unjust 
system. Recently recovering from her third stroke, Louva said, 'It's been real 
hard for me, but we've come a long way, and we need all of you to help.'"

Louva was so proud to travel to Washington, D.C., in May of 2000, along with 
other moms whose sons were tortured and CEDP activists, to stand with Rep. 
Jesse Jackson, Jr., at a press conference as he put forward a bill calling for 
a national moratorium on the death penalty.

When Ronnie finally won his freedom in 2009, one of the first things he did was 
travel to Atlanta to see his mom, who was already very sick and suffering from 
dementia. I asked Ronnie if she recognized him, and he said he felt she did. I 
hope she did. She deserved to see what she was able to accomplish.

It was her determination, her persistence in speaking out, being brave enough 
to show people the pain of what it meant to have something like this happen to 
your son--and ask for help in ending all of it.

Yes, the lawyers were important. Yes, the journalists were important. But so 
was what Louva Bell did. Louva helped to bring her son home, and she helped to 
end the death penalty in Illinois, only a few years later.

She may have been small in stature, but Louva Bell was truly mighty.

(source: SocialistWorker.org)






NEVADA:

Video opens death penalty trial in Las Vegas Strip shooting, crash that killed 
3 in 2013


Jurors saw casino surveillance and taxi dashboard video on Thursday that a 
prosecutor said depicts a self-described pimp shooting into a moving car, 
triggering a fiery crash that left three people dead on the Las Vegas Strip.

Prosecutor David Stanton called defendant Ammar Harris the one person 
responsible for "premediated intentional and deliberate murder," in a scene 
that witnesses compared with a scene from a Hollywood action film.

Harris' defense attorney, Thomas Ericsson, told the jury there's more to the 
story than what the video shows - and Harris didn't intend to kill anyone.

Ericsson says Harris was defending himself and three women in a black Range 
Rover SUV seen speeding away from the scene of the February 2013 fireball.

The 29-year-old Harris could face the death penalty if he's convicted.

(source: Associated Press)






USA:

Solid Majority Continue to Support Death Penalty


About 6 in 10 Americans favor the use of the death penalty for a person 
convicted of murder, similar to 2014. This continues a gradual decline in 
support for the procedure since reaching its all-time high point of 80% in 
1994.

37 % oppose the death penalty, slightly higher than in recent years, in part 
because this year, only 2% of Americans say they have no opinion on the topic.

These results come from Gallup's annual Crime poll, conducted Oct. 7-11, 2015. 
While the public has, with one exception, favored the death penalty over the 78 
years Gallup has asked this question, support for the measure has varied 
considerably. The low point for support, 42%, came in the 1960s, with support 
reaching its peak in the mid-1990s and generally declining since that point. 
Over the past decade, however, there has been minimal fluctuation in the 
percentage of adults who favor the death penalty, with support always at or 
above 60%.

TD revised

This reliably high majority of support belies a powerful current of change in 
recent years that has rendered the death penalty a far rarer judicial outcome 
than before. In May, Nebraska became the 19th state (along with D.C.) to ban 
the death penalty, and the seventh state since 2007. Meanwhile, the number of 
death sentences issued in 2014 was the lowest since the reinstatement of the 
punishment in 1976, and the number of executions carried out in 2014 was one of 
the lowest on record.

Blacks Far Less Likely to Support Death Penalty

A large gulf exists between whites and blacks in their support for the death 
penalty. In a combined 2014-2015 sample, 68% of whites said they were in favor 
of the death penalty, while 29% were opposed. Blacks tilt almost as heavily in 
the opposite direction -- 55% oppose the death penalty, compared with 39% in 
favor. This pattern is in alignment with previous Gallup findings, including in 
2007. The opposition among blacks may be related to the disparity between 
blacks making up 42% of the current death row population but just 13% of the 
overall U.S. population.

The death penalty remains a divisive issue among political partisans, with 
Democrats (49%) far less likely to be in favor of the punishment than 
Republicans (82%).

Majority Believe Death Penalty Applied Fairly

53 % of Americans say that, generally speaking, the death penalty is applied 
fairly today in the U.S. While still a majority, this year's rate is below the 
high of 61% in 2005. 41 %, meanwhile, say they believe the death penalty is 
applied unfairly.

Plurality of Americans Say Death Penalty Not Imposed Enough

When asked about the frequency with which the death penalty is imposed, 40% of 
Americans say it is not imposed enough, with the remainder equally divided 
between saying it is imposed "too often" (27%) or "about the right amount" 
(27%). The proportion of Americans saying the death penalty is not imposed 
enough has fallen from a high of 53% in 2005, just as the number of executions 
has generally gone down over that time period.

Bottom Line

By many metrics -- the number of states that have banned the death penalty, the 
number of executions carried out or the actual population of inmates currently 
on death row -- the death penalty appears to be losing popularity in 
statehouses and courthouses across the country. But the public at large 
continues to support the use of the death penalty. A majority continue to 
assess the punishment as applied fairly, and a plurality wish it were applied 
more often.

But there is no denying that the death penalty is controversial -- reflected, 
at least somewhat, by the deep racial divide it causes. The cascade of 
exonerations for once-condemned inmates and the plethora of academic literature 
exploring the alleged disparities in the application of the punishment appear 
to have made juries less likely to issue a death penalty sentence and 
legislatures more likely to ban it.

Historical data are available in Gallup Analytics.

Survey Methods

Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted Oct. 
7-11, 2015, on the Gallup U.S. Daily survey, with a random sample of 1,015 
adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of 
Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin 
of sampling error is ???4 % points at the 95% confidence level. All reported 
margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting.

Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 60% cellphone 
respondents and 40% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by 
time zone within region. Landline and cellular telephone numbers are selected 
using random-digit-dial methods.

(source: gallup.com)

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

Judge keeps Chow's racketeering trial date


A federal judge in San Francisco today declined to delay the Nov. 2 
racketeering trial of Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow and said that if prosecutors 
add a new murder charge with a potential death penalty, he will require a 
separate, later trial on that charge.

Federal prosecutors told U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer on Tuesday that 
they expect a revised grand jury indictment as soon as today accusing Chow of 
soliciting the 2006 murder of Allen Leung, Chow's predecessor as the leader of 
the Chee Kung Tong fraternal association in Chinatown.

The prosecutors had asked Breyer to delay next month's trial while senior U.S. 
Justice Department officials decide whether to seek the death penalty for the 
expected new charge.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ralph Frentzen said that decision could take two to 
three months and that the outcome would affect jury selection, since a charge 
carrying a potential death penalty would require the selection of jurors 
willing to vote for capital punishment.

Breyer made his ruling after defense attorney Curtis Briggs reiterated that 
Chow is "absolutely not" willing to delay his trial.

"This is like a chess match. My client's getting further and further away from 
trial," Briggs said.

Chow, 55, an admitted former gang member who has previous racketeering and 
firearms convictions, has been in custody since his arrest in March 2014.

The defense team also told Breyer in a filing that lead defense attorney Tony 
Serra, now completing a murder trial in Yolo County, has delayed 25 other cases 
to accommodate the November trial date.

Breyer said, "The defendant's right to a speedy trial and counsel of his 
choosing would be severely impacted by a continuance of this case."

(source: KTVU news)