[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., IND., ILL. OKLA. COLO.

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 21



NORTH CAROLINA:

DA stands by death penalty decision in Kennedy case


Davidson County District Attorney Garry Frank stands by his decision to seek 
the death penalty against 45-year-old Carl Kennedy in 3 November 2011 deaths in 
Thomasville.

Kennedy reached a plea deal late last month with Frank's office that resulted 
in him spending between 62-78 years in prison. He was initially facing the 
death penalty until Judge Christopher Bragg took it off the table. Instead, 
Kennedy pleaded guilty to 3 counts of 2nd-degree murder and a burglary charge 
in the deaths of Sharon F. Rushing, 61, Angela Dawn Soles, 43, and Gary Lynn 
Seward, 52, all of 101 Rotary Lane, Thomasville.

"I would do the same exact thing today even after all this has happened," Frank 
said during a recent interview. "With Mr. Kennedy's case and the exact same 
thing, I would seek the exact same thing."

Kennedy's attorneys, Robert Campbell and Lisa Dubs, had requested a plea August 
2012 for 3 life sentences. But Frank was adamant that he had the facts to 
support the death penalty for Kennedy's case.

"The evidence in the middle of the night that someone would go over and blow 
open a door with a shotgun and (kill) three people in their home at night," 
Frank said. The district attorney also pointed to testimony that alleged 
Kennedy said he and his co-defendants were to kill anyone over the age of 5 
years old in the Rotary Lane residence.

Frank reiterated the death penalty is the "law of the land." State law gives 
district attorneys the discretion to seek capital punishment.

"I don't think you will find any district attorney in the state who will be 
seeking the death penalty unless they feel like their evidence is very strong," 
Frank said. "I believe in court, (Kennedy's attorneys) were willing to take 3 
consecutive life without paroles. That showed the defense thought the evidence 
was very strong."

The case for Kennedy's co-defendants - David Manning, 45, and Leigh Williams, 
43 -- remain pending. They are also facing the death penalty.

Trial was costly

Shortly after the plea was reached, Campbell said he was sure the Kennedy case 
cost taxpayers well over $1 million. He referenced a 2011 study from the N.C. 
Administrative Office of the Courts that indicates it costs $6,215 a day for 
Superior Criminal Court. The 20 weeks of jury selection and 3 weeks of the 
trial means the attorneys were in court for about 115 days, costing over 
$700,000 alone if factoring the numbers by the AOC study.

According to court records, Kennedy's court-appointed attorneys submitted 
$249,620.67 in fees from when they took the case in 2011 up until opening 
arguments Aug. 10. Final figures for the attorneys, who were each paid $85 an 
hour, have not been submitted to the Davidson County Clerk of Court's Office. 
The hundreds of jurors who were summoned to jury selection for the Kennedy 
trial were paid a total of $27,200. In Davidson County, jurors are compensated 
$12 for the 1st day, $20 for days 2 through 5 and $40 for day 6 and over.

"From the taxpayers' standpoint, you can't make sense of it," Campbell said, 
referring to the cost of death penalty cases. "The cost that AOC put out there 
is $6,000 a day. That doesn't include attorneys, experts, the power bill of 
having the lights on for 6 months. It's very costly."

Attorneys want death penalty removed

Campbell is just 1 of the defense attorneys in the state who want the death 
penalty removed. He told The Dispatch the Kennedy case is an example of why 
capital punishment shouldn't be imposed in North Carolina.

"There's no certainty in it," he said. "From county to county, it's such a 
different treatment of it. Prosecutor to prosecutor, you could have one county 
with one prosecutor who doesn't believe in it. You can commit a murder in the 
next county, and you are facing the death penalty and it could not be as 
severe. There's too much disparity in it. I think there are too many factors 
that are unfair about it.

"There are discovery issues that pop up. You can never know truly what else 
(evidence) is out there. It's frustrating. I think the expense of it just 
doesn't justify anymore. There are so few death penalty murders now."

Charles Harp, a defense attorney in Lexington, said the Kennedy case is a 
perfect example of why the death penalty should be removed in North Carolina. 
He listed a number of reasons of why he thinks capital punishment should be 
abolished in the state, including how the Kennedy case tied up a courtroom for 
over 20 weeks.

"I think there is a mood in this country that people who are going to serve as 
jurors on death penalty cases don't like it," Harp said. "I think it goes 
against every human characteristic and every nature of every human being to 
decide if someone should live or die."

Judgment is unchanged

"My judgment that this was a capital case is unchanged," Frank reiterated, as 
he referred to state v. Kennedy. "That's the reason over the course over the 
entire summer ... I stood steadfast until the judge took it off the table. That 
ruling was not appealable."

Having the death penalty removed in the state could lower the bar for 
negotiations in murder cases. "The minute that the judge took the death penalty 
off the table, they would no longer plead to 3 consecutive life without 
paroles, which is what they asked for from the get-go," Frank said.

Frank believes his constituents believe in the judicious use of the death 
penalty. He said the measure is a "useful tool in the hands of honest 
prosecutors."

"I would be willing to wager that a full 50 % of the jurors that went through, 
passed through and didn't get chosen were dismissed because they were so 
strongly in favor of the death penalty," the district attorney said. "That's 
without even hearing the facts of this particular case. They just felt like a 
murderer needed to face this."

(source: The Dispatch)






INDIANA:

IN Supreme Court denies request for speedy trial for suspect in Officer Perry 
Renn shooting


The man accused of killing IMPD officer Perry Renn in July 2014 will not get a 
speedy trial.

The Indiana Supreme Court denied Major Davis Jr.'s appeal to the court for a 
speedy trial and to get copies of his legal records last week.

Davis filed this appeal on his own, not through his public defender.

Davis could face the death penalty for the shooting of Officer Renn if he is 
convicted.

Renn was killed in a shootout after responding to a call of shots fired.

According to court documents, Davis is accused of firing on Officer Renn and a 
second IMPD officer when the men responded to the report of shots fired. 
Detectives said Davis raised the barrel of an AK-47 after he was asked to show 
his hands.

Renn was hit by 3 rifle rounds -- believed to have been fired by Davis -- and 
the fatal shot hit him just under his right armpit, striking his right lung and 
heart.

His trial is scheduled to start in 2017.

(source: theindychannel.com)






ILLINOIS:

Bringing Executions Back to IL: Expert Predicts it's Unlikely


Will the death penalty be coming back to Illinois? There have been no 
executions since 2000, when a moratorium was put in place by Gov. George Ryan, 
and capital punishment was eventually abolished in 2011.

Democratic state Sen. Bill Haine has said he intends to file legislation when 
the Senate reconvenes next month to restore the death penalty in limited 
instances.

Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, says 
while it isn't an unusual move, he doesn't expect it to get any traction.

"There have been legislators in other states that have abolished the death 
penalty who have introduced bills to reinstate it, and typically those bills 
have gone nowhere," says Dunham. "Generally, they haven't even gotten hearings 
set up in the committees."

There have been past attempts to bring back capital punishment to Illinois, but 
none of the bills made it out of committee.

Haine points out that times have changed since 2011, with terrible acts 
occurring around the country that include the recent shooting death of a police 
officer in Illinois. He suggests the death sentence be used for the most 
heinous crimes, such as the murder of police officers or children.

Meanwhile, Dunham explains the national view on capital punishment is changing. 
"Over time, the debate has shifted," he says, "from, 'Are there some rare 
instances in which it might be imposed?' to 'Is this a policy that can be 
carried out reliably and consistently?'"

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, there have been 155 death 
row inmates exonerated since 1971, the most recent in June of this year. 
Besides the problem of wrongful convictions, Dunham says there are questions 
about racial discrimination in the use of the death penalty and about police 
and prosecutorial misconduct.

"As in Illinois - where there were more innocent people who were tortured into 
giving false confessions than there were guilty people who were executed in the 
state - there is ongoing, very serious concern about the death penalty," Dunham 
states. A poll from the Pew Research Center earlier this year showed 56 % of 
the public supports the death penalty, the lowest level it has reported in the 
last 40 years.

(source: publicnewsservice.org)






OKLAHOMA:

Anti-death penalty group works to defeat ballot question on executions ---- 
Connie Johnson of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty says her 
group will work against a measure to preserve the legality of executions in 
Oklahoma.


An anti-death penalty group plans to work to defeat a state question that seeks 
to preserve the legality of executions in the Oklahoma Constitution. Last 
session, lawmakers passed Senate Joint Resolution 31 to put the measure on the 
ballot. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt found the wording did not comply 
with state law and rewrote it.

The new wording for State Question 776 says the Legislature can designate any 
method of execution not prohibited by the U.S. Constitution. It says death 
sentences shall not be reduced because a method of execution is ruled invalid. 
It says when an execution method is declared invalid, the death penalty shall 
remain in force until it can be carried out using any valid execution method.

"The imposition of a death penalty under Oklahoma law - as distinguished from 
the method of execution - shall not be deemed to be or constitute the 
infliction of cruel or unusual punishment under Oklahoman's Constitution, nor 
to contravene any provision of the Oklahoma Constitution," according to the 
measure.

The state question will be on the Nov. 8, 2016, ballot.

Connie Johnson, Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty chairwoman, 
said recent high-profile executions have eroded public confidence in the 
process.

The organization will be holding events in an effort to defeat the proposal, 
she said.

"I want to make it clear the mission of the coalition is to abolish the death 
penalty, be it a wrongful conviction or a rightful conviction," Johnson said.

Defeating the state question would not abolish the death penalty, which is in 
state statute.

The authors of the measure, Sen. Anthony Sykes, R-Moore, and Rep. Mike 
Christian, R-Oklahoma City, said there is overwhelming support in the state for 
the death penalty.

Christian predicted the state question would pass by more than 70 %.

"People of Oklahoma look for justice, and they will overwhelmingly support it," 
Christian said.

Sykes declined to make a percentage prediction but said he believes the measure 
will pass, citing its overwhelming and bipartisan support in the Legislature.

Keith Gaddie, a University of Oklahoma political science professor, said 
Oklahomans overwhelmingly support the death penalty.

However, they do not believe minors or adults who are mentally ill should be 
executed, he said.

Oklahomans believe it serves as a deterrent, Gaddie said.

However, a campaign against the death penalty could change hearts and minds, he 
said.

And that is what Johnson, a former state senator, is hoping to do.

She wants to educate residents about the problems with the death penalty. It 
costs up to 3 times more to execute a person than to keep them in prison for 
life, she said.

"The death penalty is racially discriminatory with the majority and the 
disproportionate number of people of color being sentenced to death more so 
than any other group," she said.

William Tabbernee is executive director of the Oklahoma Conference of Churches, 
which represents the major churches in the state.

"We believe, affirm and state complete that the death penalty is wrong," he 
said. "Every one of the churches that belongs to the Oklahoma Conference of 
Churches has a statement declaring the death penalty is wrong."

(source: Tulsa World)






COLORADO:

What are the true costs of capital cases?


Re: "Colorado public defender's office is indeed transparent," Sept. 13 My Turn 
column.

Colorado Public Defender Doug Wilson asserts that his office is as transparent 
as the law and attorneys' ethical rules permit it to be. He claims that by 
providing the public with the "salary range" of his staff, and with the 
offices' annual and monthly expenditures, the public has been provided with all 
of the information it could legitimately and lawfully desire.

I respectfully disagree.

As with all other taxpayer-funded positions of public employment, the citizens 
of this state are entitled to know, down to the penny, precisely how much money 
the public employees in his office receive.

Nor do I agree with Wilson's claim that this state's ethical rules for 
attorneys prevent him from disclosing how much taxpayer funds that office 
expended on any individual criminal case. To the contrary, earlier this year, 
in response to a subpoena, Judge Jane Tidball ordered Wilson's office to 
disclose what it spent on the defense of Michael Blagg.

Other state public defenders who are subject to the same ethical rules have 
publicly disclosed the amount of money they have expended in defense of 
specifically identified capital defendants. In 1993, Maryland's highest court 
held that the amount of overtime fees and other expenses incurred by the state 
public defender in a capital case could be disclosed under that state's open 
records law without violating the attorney's ethical duties so long as 
disclosure would not prejudice that client's interests; here, there is no 
danger of prejudicing James Holmes' interests in further proceedings. Other 
courts have similarly found that disclosure simply of the amount of money a 
public defender has spent defending a criminal case does not prejudice a 
defendant's rights.

Wilson owes it to the public to obtain an authoritative independent opinion on 
the scope of his ethical obligations. The Colorado Bar Association provides a 
mechanism for attorneys to obtain an informal letter opinion and also to 
request a formal published ethics opinion. If he has not sought such advice, 
Wilson should do so today.

Lastly, Wilson would have no ethical quandary if Holmes authorized him to 
disclose the sum that this state's taxpayers have borne as a result of 
prosecutor George Brauchler's decision to seek the death penalty in his case. 
If he has not done so, Wilson should immediately seek that consent.

Coloradans are engaged in a much-needed debate about the wisdom of continuing 
to apply the death penalty. To inform that debate, the public is entitled to 
know precisely what is the cost of taking such cases to trial and through all 
appeals.

(source: Steve Zansberg is president of the Colorado Freedom of Information 
Coalition----Guest Column, Denver Post)