[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., MO., OK., KAN., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 1



PENNSYLVANIA:

DA seeks death penalty in Wrightsville stabbing of young mother


A Wrightsville man is now facing the death penalty, accused of luring his 
baby's mother to his home and stabbing her at least 49 times.

Marcus James Bordelon appeared before Common Pleas Court Judge Harry M. Ness on 
Monday morning for his formal court arraignment in the murder case.

He pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, including 1st-degree murder, 
kidnapping, tampering with evidence, obstructing the administration of law, 
abuse of a corpse and conspiracy.

Bordelon, 22, of Chestnut Street, remains in York County Prison without bail. 
His next scheduled court proceeding is a Dec. 14 pretrial conference set by 
Ness.

York County District Attorney Tom Kearney noted during the arraignment that he 
is seeking the death penalty based on 2 aggravating factors - that victim 
Samantha Young was kidnapped and that she was tortured.

Joint trial: Kearney also noted at the hearing that his office is consolidating 
Bordelon's case with that of his co-defendant and recent girlfriend, Natasha 
Stover. That means they will stand trial together.

Defense attorney Kevin Hoffman told the judge that Bordelon was waiving his 
formal arraignment and pleading not guilty to the charges against him.

Kearney, Hoffman and Ness discussed the fact that Hoffman, who is 
court-appointed, is not death-penalty certified, meaning the court will have to 
appoint a 2nd attorney to handle the penalty phase of Bordelon's trial.

In York County, it's standard practice to assign two attorneys to each 
death-penalty case, even if both are death-penalty certified.

"My intention is to stay on the case," Hoffman told The York Dispatch, but said 
it will be up to the court to make that decision.

The attorney said Bordelon had an idea he might be facing the death penalty.

"We anticipated it, but we didn't know for sure until today," Hoffman said on 
Monday.

The allegations: Bordelon lured the 21-year-old mother - called Sami by friends 
and family - to his home by telling her something was wrong with their 
daughter, who was a year old at the time and visiting her father that night, 
according to Young's family.

Police said Bordelon wouldn't let Young leave after she arrived, which is the 
basis of the kidnapping charge.

Young suffered stab wounds and cuts all over her body, including clusters of 
stab wounds to her back and wounds to her neck, head chest, arms and legs. Some 
wounds penetrated into her heart, both lungs, liver and diaphragm, according to 
Dr. Michael Johnson, a forensic pathologist who testified at Bordelon's 
preliminary hearing.

Johnson said she suffered at least 49 stab wounds, probably more. He explained 
that "clusters" of wounds with "co-mingled" pathways made it difficult to count 
the wounds with certainty.

Charging documents filed by Wrightsville Police allege Bordelon used a stun gun 
to keep Young from leaving his home prior to killing her.

Found in shed: Officers responding to his home on April 19 found Young's body 
in a locked shed in Bordelon's backyard, documents state. It appeared she had 
been dragged there, preliminary hearing testimony indicated.

Stover, 19, also remains in prison without bail, charged with homicide, 
conspiracy and related offenses.

Police allege she and Bordelon exchanged emails about him killing Young. They 
also say Stover helped Bordelon move Young's car away from his home, then drove 
him to Home Depot to buy bleach and lime.

(source: York Dispatch)






MISSOURI----impending execution

Missouri death row inmate appeals to supreme court to halt execution ---- 
Roderick Nunley faces death penalty for raping and killing a 15-year-old girl 
in 1989 but detective blames delay in execution on 'legal mumbo jumbo nonsense'


An inmate scheduled to be executed on Tuesday for killing a 15-year-old 
Missouri girl has asked the US supreme court to halt his punishment, saying the 
death penalty is unconstitutional.

But a detective who helped break the case scoffed at the appeal on Monday, 
saying Roderick Nunley should have been put to death long ago.

Nunley and a co-defendant were accused of kidnapping Ann Harrison as she waited 
for a school bus in Kansas City, then raping and killing the girl in 1989. If 
the courts do not step in, Nunley, 50, will be lethally injected at 6pm on 
Tuesday and become the 6th inmate executed this year in Missouri.

Defense attorney Jennifer Herndon argued in an appeal that capital punishment, 
"under prevailing standards of decency", violates the US constitution's 8th 
amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment.

But retired Kansas City detective Pete Edlund said the only thing cruel and 
unusual is how long Nunley and his co-defendant Michael Taylor, who was 
executed last year, remained on death row.

"They just take forever to do the deed," Edlund told the Associated Press in an 
interview this week. "The delay in executing these 2 is just nuts because it 
didn't have anything to do with their guilt. It was legal mumbo jumbo 
nonsense."

In a new appeal filed on Monday, Herndon challenged the state's refusal to 
disclose who makes its execution drug or how it is tested. The argument has 
been rejected by the supreme court in other death penalty cases.

Governor Jay Nixon is reviewing a clemency petition from an anti-death penalty 
group that alleges racial bias played a role in the case because a prosecutor 
refused a plea deal that would have given Nunley life in prison without parole. 
Nunley is black, as was Taylor, while the victim was white.

Prosecutors said Nunley and Taylor binged on cocaine and stole a car in the 
pre-dawn hours of 22 March 1989. At one point, a police officer from 
neighbouring Lee's Summit chased the car but was called off by a supervisor 
when the stolen car crossed into Kansas City.

Later that morning, the men were driving around Kansas City when they saw Ann 
standing on her driveway, waiting for a school bus. Taylor and Nunley quickly 
grabbed the 15-year-old girl and took her to Nunley's mother's home. She was 
raped and sodomised, then stabbed repeatedly in the stomach and the neck.

Taylor and Nunley put her body in the trunk of the stolen car, then abandoned 
it in a residential area. The body was found 3 days later.

Edlund, the detective, said the case was cracked months later when a man in 
jail for robbery - and seeking a $10,000 reward in the case - snitched on 
Taylor and Nunley. Both men confessed.

Meanwhile, some of Ann's hair was found in carpeting at the home where the 
crime occurred.

Edlund said the killing was haunting for several reasons, chiefly because she 
was a child and a random target. Her father was a former reserve officer with 
the police department, and her uncle was a Kansas City officer.

"To all of us, she was part of our police family," Edlund said. "That made it 
even more important that we solve the case."

(source: The Guardian)

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

Retired detective says Missouri has taken too long in executing Nunley


A man who investigated the murder of a 15-year-old girl in Kansas City in 1989 
says the 2nd execution of one of her killers has taken too long in coming.

It's been more than 26 years since Ann Harrison was abducted while waiting for 
her school bus, raped, fatally stabbed, and left in the trunk of a stolen car 
to die. 6 months later a tip led authorities to Michael Taylor, and he led them 
to his accomplice, Roderick Nunley.

Nunley's execution is scheduled to happen Tuesday night at the state prison in 
Bonne Terre. Retired Kansas City Police detective Pete Edlund's squad 
investigated the case.

"They're finally getting around to executing Roderick Nunley after they 
executed Michael Taylor last year," said Edlund.

He thinks it's taken too long for that sentence to be carried out.

"They admit they did it. The fact that we have to draw this out at ad infinitum 
for years and years and years is a real travesty of real justice," said Edlund.

He said Harrison's one of the cases he'll never forget, in part because he knew 
her family. Her father and uncle were in law enforcement.

"He parents and her sister are the nicest, sweetest people you could ever hope 
to meet," said Edlund. "They are so kind, so giving."

Edlund said when Taylor and Nunley confessed to killing Harrison, they bragged 
about the crimes. Nunley, he said, was angry with Taylor, accusing him of 
taking too much credit.

"He resented the fact that Michael Taylor was taking credit for leading the 2 
of them to commit this crime, versus, in reality, Roderick was the one," said 
Edlund.

Nunley's attorneys are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to halt his execution 
arguing that it would violate his constitutional rights and that he is entitled 
to sentencing by a jury. His conviction and sentencing were handed down by a 
judge.

If those and any other appeals are unsuccessful, and if Governor Jay Nixon (D) 
declines to grant clemency, Nunley will be executed by lethal injection between 
6 p.m. Tuesday and 5:59 p.m. Wednesday.

(source: Missourinet.com)






OKLAHOMA----impending execution

Attorneys For Oklahoma Death Row Inmate Say They Have New Information In His 
Case


Lawyers for Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip will release new 
information in the case that they say jurors never saw.

This on the same day supporters go on Dr. Phil to make an emotional plea to 
save his life.

In an hour-long episode of Dr. Phil Monday, actress Susan Sarandon and 
anti-death penalty advocate Sister Helen Prejean laid out the case of why they 
believe Richard Glossip should not be executed on September 16.

At the center of their concerns is the testimony of Justin Sneed. Sneed is the 
one who actually killed Barry Van Treese, but testified Glossip was the 
mastermind behind the murder in a deal to avoid the death penalty for himself.

"It was solely on the word of this man, Justin Sneed, who was 19-years-old, 
under pressure and he finally gives them what they want to hear," said Prejean 
on the Dr. Phil show.

"They've got about 8 distinct and separate stories that he has told," said Don 
Knight, 1 of Glossip's attorneys.

Monday, Knight and Glossip's other attorney's released a 43-page document of 
the statements Sneed made to the police, at trial, and to relatives.

"When you see all these other stories you realize even if one of them is 
somehow true, this man has told lies at least 7 other times," Knight said.

Yet, Glossip's supporters and attorneys say Glossip was convicted and sentenced 
to death solely on Sneed's testimony.

"To hear all the conflicting things and then say you going to believe on the 
word of this man? That he hired him? The 1 aggravating circumstance in getting 
the death penalty," Prejean said.

Gov. Mary Fallin says she would reconsider her decision not to grant a 60 day 
stay to Glossip if new evidence came forward, but at this point, Glossip's 
attorney's haven't filed anything new with the courts.

(source: 9news.com)






KANSAS:

Supremacist convicted of killing 3 at Kansas Jewish sites


The man who admitted killing 3 people at 2 suburban Kansas City Jewish sites 
gave jurors a Nazi salute Monday after they convicted him of murder and other 
charges for the shootings, which he said would allow him to "die a martyr."

It took the jury of 7 men and 5 women just over 2 hours to find Frazier Glenn 
Miller Jr. guilty of 1 count of capital murder, 3 counts of attempted murder 
and assault and weapons charges.

After the verdict was announced, Miller, 74, of Aurora, Missouri, said: "The 
fat lady just sang" and he raised his right arm in the Nazi salute. As jurors 
were filing out of the courtroom later, he told them: "You probably won't sleep 
tonight."

The judge reminded Miller that the same jury will decide his sentence. He could 
get the death penalty. The sentencing proceedings were expected to begin 
Tuesday.

During the prosecution's closing, District Attorney Steve Howe cited a 
"mountain of evidence" against Miller, who is charged with capital murder in 
the April 2014 shootings at 2 Jewish sites in Overland Park, Kansas. Although 
he has admitted to killing the three people, he has pleaded not guilty, saying 
it was his duty to stop genocide against the white race. None of the victims 
was Jewish.

"He wants to be the one who decides who lives and dies," Howe said of Miller.

The Passover eve shootings killed William Corporon, 69, and Corporon's 
14-year-old grandson, Reat Griffin Underwood, at the Jewish Community Center in 
Overland Park, and Terri LaManno, 53, at the nearby Village Shalom retirement 
center.

During his closing, Miller said he had been "floating on a cloud" since the 
killings. Earlier, he objected when Howe alleged he wanted to kill as many 
people as possible. Miller interjected: "I wanted to kill Jews, not people."

Miller, who also was known as Frazier Glenn Cross Jr., urged jurors to "show 
great courage" and find him not guilty.

"You have the power in your hands to inspire the world," he said. "You can 
become a man or woman your forefathers will be proud of for your bravery."

The proceedings were marked with frequent outbursts from Miller, who objected 
repeatedly while jurors were out of the courtroom during discussions about what 
instructions should guide deliberations. At one point, he said, "I object to 
everything on the grounds of George Washington, our founding father."

The objections became so heated that Judge Thomas Kelly Ryan temporarily 
ejected Miller from the courtroom when Miller said he didn't respect the 
process and used an anti-Semitic comment to criticize the court system. Ryan 
told Miller that if there were further outbursts, he would permanently eject 
him or declare a mistrial.

Miller groused before finally agreeing, "I will take it under advisement and 
try to improve."

Miller is a Vietnam War veteran who founded the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux 
Klan in his native North Carolina and later the White Patriot Party. He also 
ran for the U.S. House in 2006 and the U.S. Senate in 2010 in Missouri, each 
time espousing a white-power platform.

(source: Associated Press)






CALIFORNIA:

California Defends Its Review Process in Appeal to Preserve Death Penalty


California on Monday asked a federal appeals panel to overturn a 2014 court 
ruling that - unless it is reversed - could bring a reprieve to the more than 
740 inmates on death row in the state.

The ruling, by a federal district judge, held that judicial reviews of death 
sentences were so prolonged - and executions so rare and seemingly random - 
that prisoners were subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. If that ruling 
is allowed to stand, it could have repercussions for capital punishment across 
the country.

At Monday's hearing, a lawyer from the state attorney general's office argued 
that the 2014 decision violated legal procedures and mislabeled as a sign of 
dysfunction what were actually the state's careful efforts to protect the 
rights of those sentenced to death, such as appointing well-qualified defense 
lawyers.

"We do not believe that there is any evidence that the system is arbitrary or 
random," said Michael J. Mongan, a deputy solicitor general.

But a lawyer for a condemned inmate responded that the contested ruling had 
rested on sound legal ground and that California's postconviction review 
process, which commonly lasts 2 decades or more, had become agonizingly slow 
and arbitrary because the state did not provide enough funds for defense 
lawyers.

The plaintiff in the 2014 case, Ernest Dewayne Jones, was sentenced to death in 
1995 for a murder and rape. But if the District Court's ruling prevails - 
withstanding a ruling by the appeals court and, possibly, by the United States 
Supreme Court - all the people now condemned to death in California might have 
their sentences altered.

The case, Jones v. Davis, was argued Monday in Pasadena before a 3-judge panel 
of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Most of the 
45-minute hearing, before Judges Susan P. Graber, Johnnie B. Rawlinson and Paul 
J. Watford, was devoted to complex issues of procedure and precedent. At least 
1 of the jurists, Judge Watford, appeared to accept the state's contention that 
Mr. Jones's claim was a novel one that must first be litigated in a state 
court.

The disputed ruling was considered startling when it was issued in July 2014. 
In it, Judge Cormac J. Carney of Federal District Court in Santa Ana said the 
way death sentences were reviewed and carried out was arbitrary. Of more than 
900 people sentenced to death in the state since 1978, Judge Carney noted, only 
13 had been executed.

The "random few" who are put to death, he said, "will have languished for so 
long on death row that their execution will serve no retributive or deterrent 
purpose and will be arbitrary."

Defending Judge Carney's decision, a lawyer for Mr. Jones on Monday cited a 
major Supreme Court decision in 1972, Furman v. Georgia, which brought death 
sentences to a temporary halt across the country because the justices were 
concerned that such sentences were being given out arbitrarily.

That case involved the sentencing stage. Mr. Mongan, the California state 
lawyer, maintained Monday that it did not apply to the later process of 
judicial review.

Mr. Jones's lawyer asserted that the concerns expressed in the Furman case 
applied to the entire system of capital punishment.

Michael Laurence, a lawyer from the state-financed Habeas Corpus Resource 
Center who was representing Mr. Jones, quoted from Justice Potter Stewart's 
concurring opinion in 1972: "These death sentences are cruel and unusual in the 
same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual."

But the most vulnerable aspect of Judge Carney's ruling, it appeared during 
Monday's hearing, may be whether the Federal District Court had overstepped its 
authority. The argument that the California judicial process resulted in 
arbitrary outcomes had not been previously considered by California courts, as 
is normally required.

Mr. Laurence argued that Mr. Jones's case met the legal criteria for an 
exemption from the rule because returning to the state courts would be futile.

(source: New York Times)

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


In oral arguments Monday, three federal judges did not signal whether they are 
willing to wade into the death penalty fight in California, instead focusing on 
procedural barriers that could hold up the case. The state has the largest 
population of inmates on death row in the country.

The judges, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, must 
decide whether to uphold a lower court ruling asserting that California's death 
penalty violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. In 
California, more than 900 inmates have been sentenced to death since 1978, but 
fewer than 2 dozen have actually been executed. The appeals process is so 
lengthy, an inmate can expect to wait at least 25 years before execution 
becomes a realistic possibility.

U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney, an appointee of former President George W. 
Bush, ruled last year that "the dysfunctional administration of California's 
death penalty system has resulted, and will continue to result, in an 
inordinate and unpredictable period of delay." Such a system, he reasoned, 
fails to work as a deterrent to crime and is unconstitutional.

Carney's 2014 ruling overturned the death sentence of Ernest Jones, a man 
convicted in 1995 of raping and murdering his girlfriend's mother.

Douglas Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University who specializes in 
sentencing law and policy, said that the court may choose to avoid the merits 
of the case and instead focus on a technicality. The judges could decide, for 
example, that the case needs to be sent back to state court, as federal courts 
tend to abstain from ruling on issues that remain undecided at the state level.

Jones' petition will sit in the California Supreme Court for up to four years 
if the federal appeals court judges send the case back, Michael Laurence, 
Jones' lawyer, warned.

"In that time, countless people will die of old age or sickness on death row, 
no executions will take place and the system is only going to become more 
backlogged," Laurence told The Huffington Post. "I don't know whether or not 
they have the stomach, but certainly the Eighth Amendment compels them to act."

The panel seemed "very interested in fleshing out the procedural issues," Ellen 
Kreitzberg, a professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law, told 
HuffPost. "They certainly weren't dismissive of Jones' arguments."

The office of California's attorney general maintains that the process is 
lengthy because the state seeks to provide careful, individualized reviews of 
death sentences. In its appeal, the state argued that "no Eighth Amendment 
precedent requires the State to force every case to conform to some schedule 
designed to ensure greater speed."

The Supreme Court last addressed the constitutionality of the death penalty 
almost 40 years ago, but has since considered various aspects of how states 
carry out the punishment. Most recently, the high court in June upheld 
Oklahoma's use of a controversial lethal injection drug that had previously 
been used in several botched executions.

If the 9th Circuit judges decide to uphold the lower court ruling, their 
decision could end up echoing Justice Stephen Breyer's dissent from the June 
Supreme Court case. In his dissent, Breyer wrote that it was "highly likely 
that the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment," due in part to the 
penalty's arbitrary application. It's possible that the case in California 
could also have ramifications for other states with lengthy death penalty 
delays.

A growing number of states have recently rejected the death penalty. Nebraska, 
which carried out its last execution in 1997, repealed its death penalty in 
May, with lawmakers citing the cost of maintaining a seldom-used punishment 
system. Connecticut's high court ruled the state's entire death penalty system 
unconstitutional earlier this month, on the basis that the punishment "no 
longer comports with contemporary standards of decency and no longer serves any 
legitimate penological purpose."

California has had a de facto moratorium on executions since 2006, when 
convicted murderer Michael Morales raised concerns about the state's lethal 
injection method.

It's hard to predict what will happen, Laurence said. But "the system that 
we've had in California for the past 20 years is not going to fix itself."

(source: Dana Liebelson & Kim Bellware, Huffington Post)

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

Kern killers waiting on death row


Here's a list of Kern County's current death penalty cases.

Richard Galvan Montiel, slashed throat of 78-year-old man during robbery on 
Jan. 13, 1979. Convicted in 1979 and resentenced in 1986.

Ronald Lee Sanders, bludgeoned woman to death in narcotics robbery on Jan. 23, 
1981. Convicted in 1982. Resentenced in 2006.

Ward Francis Weaver Jr., bludgeoned to death an 18-year-old Air Force cadet; 
kidnapped, raped and strangled the cadet's 23-year-old girlfriend. Crimes 
committed on Feb. 5 and 6, 1981. Convicted in 1985.

David Keith Rogers, as a Kern County sheriff's deputy shot 2 prostitutes, ages 
21 and 15, in separate slayings by the same canal near Arvin on Feb. 21, 1986, 
and Feb. 8, 1987. Convicted in 1988.

Teddy Brian Sanchez, robbed, beat and stabbed to death three people in 2 
separate robberies on Feb. 3, 1987. Convicted in 1988.

Rodney Berryman, raped, strangled and stabbed a 17-year-old girl near Delano on 
Sept. 6, 1987. Convicted in 1988.

Clarence Ray Jr., shot a woman to death in robbery attempted outside 
Bakersfield bar on April 17, 1984. Convicted in 1989.

John Lee Holt, raped, robbed and strangled to death a 66-year-old Bakersfield 
woman on July 6, 1989. Convicted in 1990.

Steven David Catlin, poisoned by paraquat his adoptive mother and 2 of his 6 
wives in May 1976, March 1984 and December 1984. Convicted in 1990.

Paul Clarence Bolin, shot to death 2 men at a marijuana farm 25 miles east of 
Bakersfield on Sept. 2, 1989. He was also convicted of attempting to murder a 
3rd man who escaped with a shoulder wound. Convicted in 1991.

Joseph Danks, while serving a term of 156 years to life for stabbing 6 
transients to death in what became known as the Koreatown Slasher case in Los 
Angeles, Danks strangled to death a 67-year-old cellmate at Tehachapi prison on 
Sept. 20, 1990. Convicted in 1993.

Vincente Figueroa Benavides, sexually abused a 21-month-old girl on Nov. 17, 
1991, so severely she died. The victim was shaken and squeezed with 
rib-breaking pressure. Convicted in 1993.

Charles F. Rountree Jr., kidnapped, robbed and shot to death a 19-year-old 
woman on Dec. 7, 1993. Stole her car and bank ATM card. Convicted in 1995.

Christopher Charles Lightsey, stabbed a 76-year-old cancer patient 43 times to 
steal his gun collection and 2 video cameras on July 7, 1993. Convicted in 
1995.

Robert Wesley Cowan, shot to death a 75-year-old man and strangled the man's 
wife on Sept. 1, 1984. Convicted in 1996.

Bob Russell Williams Jr., sexually assaulted and strangled to death a 
40-year-old southwest Bakersfield woman on Oct. 27, 1994. Convicted in 1996.

Richard McWhorter, killed a 48-year-old woman and her 10-year-old son on Sept. 
11, 1995, in Oildale. Convicted in 1998.

Willie Leo Harris, robbed and raped a 22-year-old Cal State Bakersfield student 
before slashing her throat and stabbing her 57 times on May 20, 1997. Stole her 
car and burned it. Convicted in 1999.

Frank Jay Alvarez, shook a 5-month-old boy to death in 1994, and beat to death 
a 4-year-old boy in 1996. Convicted in 1998.

Juan Villa Ramirez, kidnapped a 17-year-old Arvin High School student and shot 
him to death execution style on Oct. 14, 1997. Convicted in 2001.

Larry Kusuth Hazlett Jr., strangled a 20-year-old Rosamond beauty queen after 
entering her apartment to sexually assault her in 1978. The case went unsolved 
for 24 years before the new technology of DNA evidence led to a suspect. 
Convicted in 2004.

Vincent Brothers, shot and stabbed to death mother-in-law, estranged wife and 
their 3 small children in July 2003. Convicted in 2007.

Timothy Titus Rodriguez, bludgeoned 90-year-old woman to death with a baseball 
bat, and brutally assaulted the woman's 60-year-old daughter. Convicted in late 
2009 and sentenced to death in January 2010.

Robert Dale Fuller, shot to death his estranged wife and mother-in-law on Aug. 
8, 2009. Convicted Dec. 2, 2014, and sentenced to death in January 2015.

Travis Frazier and Kenneth Nowlin, stabbed an inmate to death in the exercise 
yard of the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi on May 11, 2009. 
Convicted June 4, 2013. Nowlin was sentenced to death in July 2013, and Frazier 
in September 2013.

(source: The Bakersfield Californian)

***********

OC Judge Triggers Potential End to State's Death Penalty----The Court of 
Appeals is reviewing a ruling by a judge in Orange County that the system is so 
"dysfunctional" it's cruel and unusual.


The fate of California's death penalty was argued in a Pasadena courtroom 
today, as an appeals court panel heard arguments over a ruling by a federal 
judge in Orange County who found the system is so "dysfunctional" that it 
constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

It was unclear when the 3-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals 
will issue a decision, but its ruling could have a lasting impact on whether 
the state will ever execute another prisoner.

In July 2014, U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney, who was appointed by President 
George W. Bush, issued a 29-page ruling overturning the death sentence of 
Ernest Dewayne Jones, who was sentenced in Los Angeles in 1995 for the killing 
3 years earlier of his girlfriend's mother.

"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," Carney wrote. "Mr. Jones is not alone. 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," he wrote. "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. 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."

In California, more death row inmates die by suicide than execution.

Attorney General Kamala Harris, who personally opposed the death penalty, 
decided to appeal the decision.

"I am appealing the court's decision because it is not supported by the law, 
and it undermines important protections that our courts provide to defendants," 
Harris said. "This flawed ruling requires appellate review."

Between 1978 and last summer, 94 of the more than 900 inmates sentenced to 
death have died behind bars before execution could be carried out, according to 
Carney's ruling. 39 inmates won appeals and were not re-sentenced to death. 
There are 748 inmates on death row awaiting execution or rulings on appeals.

Carney's ruling applied solely to Jones' case, but a ruling by the 9th Circuit 
would be precedent-setting.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the 3 judges who heard the case in Pasadena 
-- Susan P. Graber, Johnnie B. Rawlinson and Paul J. Watford -- are considered 
to be politically moderate. All 3 were appointed by Democrat presidents, Graber 
and Rawlinson by President Bill Clinton and Watford by President Barack Obama.

(source: patch.com)

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

Cruel and unusual? Federal court to consider California death penalty


A federal appeals court is set to hear arguments to determine if California's 
death penalty system - which opponents say is riddled with unfairness and 
arbitrary delays - constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, a violation of the 
Eighth Amendment.

The Monday hearing before the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, 
California, will come more than a year since US District Judge Cormac Carney 
ruled that the extended length of the state's death penalty process is, in 
fact, a violation of the US Constitution.

Since 1978, California has sentenced to death more than 900 people, though only 
13 have been executed. Around 100 death row inmates have died of natural causes 
in that time period.

The ruling, the 1st time a judge has declared the state's current death penalty 
unconstitutional, is connected to the case of death row inmate Ernest DeWayne 
Jones, a convicted rapist and murderer from Los Angeles.

"The dysfunctional administration of California's death penalty system has 
resulted, and will continue to result, in an inordinate and unpredictable 
period of delay," Carney wrote in his July 2014 opinion.

"Allowing this system to continue to threaten Mr. Jones with the slight 
possibility of death, almost a generation after he was first sentenced, 
violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual 
punishment."

California Attorney General Kamala Harris appealed Carney's ruling, setting up 
the appeals court hearing. No matter how the state appeals court rules, the 
case could very well end up in the US Supreme Court.

More than 700 inmates in California are currenly on death row, with more than 
40 % of those being imprisoned for more than 19 years. It takes at least 25 
years for death row inmates to litigate the merits of their death sentence, 
according to the California Department of Justice. The last execution in the 
state occurred in 2006.

Capital punishment in California, Carney ruled, rested on arbitrary factors 
rather than the nature of a certain crime.

For the nearly 750 Californians on death row, the judge wrote, "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."

Prosecutors in the case said the state's system attempts to protect the 
interests of all involved parties in a given case and that delays don't 
necessarily mean an arbitrary or dysfunctional process.

"The court mistook its policy critique as a proper basis for legal judgment," 
Supervising Deputy Attorney General James Bilderback II wrote in court filings 
cited by the Associated Press.

Jones, 51, raped and murdered his girlfriend's mother in 1992. He has been on 
death row for 20 years. In that time, the state did not provide a fair and 
timely review of his case, he has stated in his appeal. He added that the 
constant delays and random nature of the death penalty process have contributed 
to his suffering, and, if he is eventually executed, his death is unlikely to 
deter criminals or serve as proper retribution.

"As the district court concluded, the dysfunctional nature of California's 
death penalty process has ceased to provide any semblance of a rational and 
constitutional punishment," attorney Michael Laurence wrote.

Legal battles have left California without a court-approved method of 
execution. 9 years ago, another federal judge ordered the state to overhaul its 
lethal injection procedures. In 2012, Gov. Jerry Brown asked an advisory board 
to come up with a single-drug injection method to replace a 3-drug cocktail. In 
June, the state settled a lawsuit, finally agreeing to draft a 1-drug policy.

Meanwhile, in March, Brown asked for $3.2 million to adapt 100 more prison 
cells for the growing number of death row inmates in the state.

In 2008, a bipartisan panel known as the California Commission on the Fair 
Administration of Justice called the state's death penalty system 
"dysfunctional" in its report on delays in the process.

"The system is plagued with excessive delay in the appointments of counsel for 
direct appeals and habeas corpus petitions, and a severe backlog in the review 
of appeals and habeas petitions before the California Supreme Court," the 
report concluded.

19 US states and the District of Columbia have abolished the death penalty. In 
August, the Connecticut Supreme Court validated a 2012 law ending death 
sentences in these state. In May, Nebraska's legislature approved a law to 
abolish the death penalty, overriding the governor's veto of the bill.

(source: rt.com)






USA:

Prosecutors Practice Racism in US Courts


In early June of this year, the State Bar of Texas stripped Charles Sebesta of 
his law license and formally disbarred him. His crime? Prosecutorial misconduct 
that led to the wrongful conviction of exonerated death row prisoner Anthony 
Graves.

Graves was released in 2010 after spending 19 years in prison and on death row. 
A federal appeals court had ordered a new trial for him in 2006, and over the 
intervening years prosecutors in Washington-Burleson county found that they had 
no credible evidence with which to re-try and convict him. The main witness 
against Graves had recanted his testimony and claimed that Sebesta had coerced 
him into making false statements.

Since his release, Graves has fought for Sebesta to be sanctioned. For his 
part, Sebesta continued to make claims about Graves' guilt to the media as 
recently as January. Taking advantage of a new law, Graves was finally able to 
file a grievance against Sebesta, resulting in an investigation and subsequent 
hearings which culminated in the former prosecutor's expulsion from the bar.

Speaking to Texas Monthly's Executive Editor Pamela Colloff after the decision, 
Graves said, "I never thought that a young, African American man from the 
projects could file a grievance against a powerful, white DA in Texas and win."

Prosecutors facing consequences for misconduct is very rare. They hold one of 
the most powerful positions in the criminal justice system and have operated 
with very little scrutiny for decades. But that is starting to change.

Prosecutorial Power and Racism

This year has seen an explosion of outrage at the murders of unarmed people of 
color at the hands of the police. The anger at the cops has been coupled with 
an outcry against the unwillingness of prosecutors to pursue charges against 
police officers in cases like those of Eric Garner in New York City or Mike 
Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

Now, questions are coming to the fore about how prosecutors fit into the racist 
system of criminal justice that many call the New Jim Crow.

A new study released by the Women Donors Network (WDN) reveals that out of 
2,437 elected prosecutors, 95 % are white and 79 % are white men. 60 % of 
states have zero elected Black prosecutors. In 14 states, all elected 
prosecutors are white.

Discussing the reason for the study, WDN President Donna Hall said:

Americans are taking a new look at the relationship between race, gender and 
criminal justice - in the failures to indict police officers from Ferguson to 
Staten Island, the rogue prosecutions of women who terminated their pregnancies 
from Indiana to Idaho, and in the epidemic of mass incarceration. Elected 
prosecutors have an enormous influence on the pursuit of justice in America, 
yet 79 % of them are white men whose life experiences do not reflect those of 
most Americans.

Prosecutors have enormous power in the criminal justice system. After someone 
is arrested, prosecutors' discretion allows them to decide whether to file 
charges, what charges to file and what kinds of sentences to pursue. There is 
no oversight over their offices and little data is collected on how their 
decisions are made.

It has been historically hard to prove racial bias among prosecutors because of 
this lack of data. But the raw numbers regarding incarceration are revealing: 
While Black people make up only 13 % of the population, 37 % of people in 
prison are Black. Meanwhile, Black men are 6 times more likely to be 
incarcerated for the same crime as their white counterparts.

Post-conviction, the same disparities continue in sentencing. According to the 
US Sentencing Commission, sentences for Black defendants are 10 % longer than 
those for white defendants convicted of the same crime. Black defendants are 21 
% more likely to be given mandatory-minimum sentences than whites.

Perhaps nothing is more revealing of the racial bias in sentencing than the way 
that death sentences are imposed. People of color are vastly overrepresented on 
death row as compared to the US population, accounting for 43 % of the 
executions carried out since 1976.

Study after study has shown that the race of the victim is the biggest 
determining factor in a potential death penalty case. White victims make up 1/2 
of all murder victims, yet 80 % of death penalty cases involve a white victim. 
In the 1,412 executions carried out since 1976, just 31 cases have involved a 
Black victim and white defendant. It seems that in the eyes of prosecutors, 
some lives matter more than others.

Prosecutors alone decide whether or not to seek the death penalty. For many 
prosecutors, winning death penalty convictions meant a boost to their political 
careers. This political benefit has often resulted in egregious misconduct by 
prosecutors, such as suppressing evidence, coercing witnesses through plea 
deals and excluding people of color from juries.

The Supreme Court outlawed discrimination in jury selection in the landmark 
Batson vs. Kentucky decision in 1986. Under the decision, defendants are 
allowed to challenge a decision to strike a juror if it seems like it was 
motivated by race. However, all prosecutors have to do is argue that they 
struck a juror for some other "race-neutral" reason, and then it's up to the 
judge to decide whether it was an improper strike. Over the years, a system of 
devising "race-neutral" reasons to target jurors of color has been rampantly 
abused.

This June, the high court agreed to hear the case of Timothy Tyler Foster. 
Foster was convicted in Georgia by an all-white jury - an all-too-common 
scenario in a murder case involving a Black defendant and a white victim. The 
state's claim that race played no role in striking jurors is comical, as 
Foster's lawyers have discussed in their petition to the court which highlights 
the prosecution's notes from jury selection:

(1) marked the name of each Black prospective juror in green highlighter on 4 
different copies of the jury list; (2) circled the word "BLACK" next to the 
"Race" question on the juror questionnaires of 5 Black prospective jurors; (3) 
identified 3 Black prospective jurors as 'B#1,' 'B#2,' and 'B#3'; (4) ranked 
the Black prospective jurors against each other in case "it comes down to 
having to pick 1 of the Black jurors"; and (5) created strike lists that 
contradict the 'race-neutral' explanation provided by the prosecution for its 
strike of one of the Black prospective jurors.

As recently as 2004, prosecutors in Texas were given instructions on how to 
exclude people of color from juries using "race-neutral" pretenses.

Prosecutors' unique place in the justice system has led to other, more 
grotesque abuses of power. For example, a culture of celebrating death 
sentences in district attorneys' offices is common, especially in the South.

One of the most notable examples is in Jefferson Parish in Louisiana. In 2003, 
as a murder trial for Lawrence Jacobs, Jr. began, parish prosecutors walked 
into the court wearing macabre neckties - one featuring the grim reaper and 
another depicting a noose. When the defendant's father objected, the men were 
told by superiors to remove the ties. There were however no further sanctions, 
although prosecutors had apparently worn the ties at a number of previous court 
proceedings.

The New York Times reported in 2003 that the Jefferson Parish office also 
regularly held parties after they obtained a death sentence. The office took up 
a collection to buy a plaque with the name of the condemned person and a 
picture of a needle. One defense attorney reported seeing the plaques in the 
office of a prosecutor-turned-judge.

Other outrages included a prosecutor in nearby Orleans Parish who kept an 
electric chair on his desk, an office in Texas that formed a "Silver Needle 
Society," and an office in Baton Rouge that celebrated death sentences at 
office parties replete with steak and Jim Beam.

Pursuing Injustice

While gruesome, these displays are just the most outward manifestation of an 
outlaw culture among prosecutors, who are rarely sanctioned for their role in 
wrongful convictions.

In 2003, the Center for Public Integrity looked at more than 11,000 cases 
involving misconduct since 1970. They found that in only about 2,000 cases did 
an appeals court find that prosecutorial misconduct warranted the overturning 
of a conviction. Fewer than 50 prosecutors were sanctioned professionally for 
their actions.

In 2010, USA Today published the results of an investigation of 201 federal 
cases concerning misconduct by prosecutors. They found that just 1 prosecutor 
"was barred even temporarily from practicing law for misconduct."

The disbarment of Charles Sebesta is an important case of what could be a 
growing trend of prosecutors facing the music for their misuse of the law.

The sanctioning of Sebesta came only a few years after the criminal conviction 
of another Texas prosecutor, Ken Anderson. Anderson presided for years as the 
district attorney - and later served as judge - in Williamson County, just 
outside of Austin, Texas. But it was his role in the wrongful conviction of 
Michael Morton, who spent 25 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, that 
made Anderson infamous.

Anderson went to trial in 2013, accused of hiding crucial evidence of Morton's 
innocence. He was found guilty, stripped of his law license and, in an 
unprecedented decision, sentenced to 10 days in jail. While he ultimately 
served just 3 of those days, the move sent shock waves through the system. 
Pamela Colloff reported extensively on the outcome of the case. "Regardless of 
whether justice was served, a single, extraordinary fact ... will ensure 
accountability," she wrote in Texas Monthly. "Innocence Project director Barry 
Scheck told reporters that the current Williamson County DA, Jana Duty, had 
agreed to allow an independent review of every single case that Anderson had 
ever prosecuted. The audit will hopefully answer the question that many people 
have wondered since Morton's exoneration in 2011. Was Anderson's misconduct in 
the Morton case the exception or the rule? "

Anthony Graves is hopeful for a similar outcome for Sebesta. As he told Colloff 
in June, "I think this is a great 1st step. But a lot of people in Washington 
and Burleson counties were prosecuted and convicted by Charles Sebesta, and 
some of them are still behind bars. All of those cases need to be examined, 
too."

Fixing a Broken System

The sanctioning of these prosecutors in Texas, combined with the report from 
WDN, raise real questions about how prosecutorial misconduct can be combatted. 
Some commentators have called for more diversity in prosecutors' offices. Bryan 
Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative made this case in an interview with 
NPR in early July. Discussing the fact that most district attorney candidates 
run unopposed, he said, "There's no one running against them. I think that we 
can do some things to turn this around. I think, first of all, district 
attorneys in position today have the opportunity to begin prioritizing 
diversity and identifying people within their offices who are women and people 
of color to succeed them."

Stevenson also addressed some of the reasons people of color don't pursue jobs 
as prosecutors: "I actually have had lots of students and others enter the 
prosecution profession. They say 'I want to change things from the inside.' And 
what they typically report is that the culture of many of these offices is so 
hostile to being more responsive to the needs of poor people and people of 
color that they can't make the change that they seek."

Most would argue that more diversity in the profession is needed. Yet there are 
limits to how effective an electoral strategy can be. Since the civil rights 
movement, the strategy of electing more people of color to political office 
hasn't necessarily led to improved conditions in the communities they serve.

In 1970, there were just 1,469 Black elected officials in the US Today there 
are over 10,000. But by many indices, the condition of Black life in America 
has stagnated or worsened in this time period. Poverty in the Black community 
is still double the national poverty rate, for example, and the homeownership 
rate among Black people has remained stagnant since 1970.

Police departments have also diversified - but the "thin blue line" continues 
to prevail. Police culture is still dominated by a culture of closed ranks, as 
we have seen in virtually every police murder that's made the news.

The advent of the Black Lives Matter movement has posed a real challenge to 
police culture - which also has the potential to push prosecutors to take 
action in cases of police killings. The indictment and conviction of officer 
Johannes Mehserle, who killed Oscar Grant in Oakland in 2009, is one example of 
the difference a movement can make in pushing prosecutors to do the right 
thing.

Meanwhile, there are fights for policy reforms, especially at the state level. 
In Texas, the high-profile shenanigans of Ken Anderson and Charles Sebesta led 
to the Michael Morton Act, enacted in 2013, that takes aim at prosecutors' 
abuse of the Brady Rule, which requires prosecutors to hand over any evidence 
that might be favorable to the defense. But the rule is written in such a way 
that prosecutors have tremendous discretion in deciding what they think 
constitutes Brady evidence. Suppression of evidence is rampant under the 
system, something the Morton Act aims to change.

As Pamela Colloff stated:

The key thing the Act does is force every DA's office to have an open file 
policy - meaning that all prosecutors must hand over every piece of evidence 
they collect, no matter what. Now they can no longer do things like withhold 
witness statements.

Of course there's always going to be prosecutorial discretion. You can't take 
that out of the equation. But if you enact reforms which require prosecutors to 
be more transparent, that could help change the win-at-all-costs culture that 
exists in some DA's offices. These sorts of reforms need to be enacted not just 
in Texas, but nationally.

Colloff also highlighted the change in the public's perception of prosecutors, 
and the need for state bars to take action against unscrupulous officials:

There's been a huge shift in the way people view prosecutors - they do believe 
there are prosecutors that are guilty. Now the Texas State Bar has belatedly 
and begrudgingly shown that it will take decisive action against prosecutors 
that don't play by the rules, including powerful elected district attorneys.

Such campaigns for reforms like the Michael Morton Act in Texas, linked with 
the growing movement against police killings, show the way forward in the 
struggle to combat racism in the criminal justice system - and, ultimately, to 
dismantle the New Jim Crow.

(source: truth-out.org)