[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----IND., MO., ORE., USA

[Rick Halperin]

April 6



INDIANA:

Prosecutor may pursue death penalty for Kyle Parker


2 weeks ago, Kyle Parker, 22, allegedly kidnapped, raped and murdered 
15-month-old Shaylyn Ammerman in Spencer, Indiana. He was arrested after he 
reportedly confessed to his stepfather that he hid the baby girl's body in a 
remote area of Gosport, Indiana.

He is on suicide watch in the Owen County Jail, and a trial is scheduled for 
August.

Death row is reserved for the "worst of the worst," said Jody Madeira, IU 
Maurer School of Law professor and capital punishment scholar.

"If you can't have the death penalty for this, what can you have it for?' she 
said.

But Owen County prosecutor Donald VanDerMoere II has not yet said whether he 
will pursue the death penalty as punishment for Parker.

In a rural county with few financial and institutional resources and a strong 
pro-life culture - that is, pro-life for children - VanDerMoere has a hard 
choice, Madeira said.

"A lot of death-penalty cases are very expensive to try," she said, noting the 
taxpayer fees associated with appeals, defense and prosecution hours, changes 
of venue and the lethal injection itself.

"You have a pattern here where you haven't had a death-penalty case in a long 
time, and it???s hard to get up everyone to speed on how to try them and how to 
defend them," she said.

These logistical concerns clash with the culture of prosecution, Madeira said. 
Indiana, like Texas, California and several southern states, pursues the death 
penalty more often than other states, she said.

"You have resources and infrastructure tensions on one hand, and the culture on 
the other," she said. "And he took the life of a baby."

Shaylyn's death launched a community response in the small town of Spencer. A 
meme of Parker's face with the text "Share if you think Kyle Parker should 
receive death penalty" is circulating on Facebook and Twitter.

Madeira said she has seen it and understands the culture perpetuating the 
reaction. But research actually shows executions have very little effect on 
crime deterrence and community retribution.

However, as a mother, Madeira said she would want Parker dead, too.

"I would say, 'Give me 15 minutes in a room alone with him,'" she said. "I'm 
not proud of that part of myself, but it's a human part."

As a taxpayer and legal expert, though, she would not be surprised if 
VanDerMoere does not pursue the death penalty for Parker.

"It's not an easy choice," she said. "There are good and bad outcomes for each 
side. But I don't think it's because of how we would feel seeing this guy die." 
Any prosecutor feels "damned if you do and damned if you don't" when 
determining this punishment, Madeira said.

"A prosecutor who's elected will try to make decisions to keep the community as 
safe as possible," she said. "Is that protecting fiscal resources? Or is it 
taking a stand and doing something you haven't done?"

A history of death penalty in Indiana

All executions in Indiana prior to 1913 were by hanging. Indiana then began 
using the electric chair, which ended in 1994 with the state's electrocution of 
convicted murderer Gregory Resnover.

Death-row inmate Tommie Smith received the 1st lethal injection in 1996, 
followed by 17 more lethal injections from 1996 to 2009. Indiana conducted 5 
executions in 2005, more than in any year since 1938.

Years can pass before death-row inmates are executed. Matthew Wrinkles was 
convicted at 35 of gunning down his brother-in-law, his brother-in-law???s wife 
and his own wife who wanted to divorce him in Evansville, Indiana. He was 
sentenced to death in 1995 in Vanderburgh County.

He and the families of the victims waited for 14 years until the state slipped 
Wrinkles the lethal injection in 2009. For his final meal, he requested prime 
rib, a loaded baked potato, pork chops, steak fries, 2 salads with ranch 
dressing and rolls. His death is Indiana's most recent capital punishment case.

Much of Madeira's research has focused on the execution of the convicted 
terrorist Timothy McVeigh, who killed 168 people when he detonated a truck bomb 
in Oklahoma City in 1995. McVeigh was executed in Indiana. Madeira studied the 
reactions of the parents of children who died in the bombing. Many of them 
wanted McVeigh killed, no questions asked.

But they wanted that before realizing they would be tied to years of appeals 
and trials that would force them to relive the memory. After the execution the 
survivors and parents said they felt disappointed and angry for not receiving 
the kind of closure they expected, she said.

"Victims' families often feel they have to be spokespeople for the victim," 
Madeira said. "They feel that they need to be there, to testify on behalf of 
that person."

(source: Indiana Daily Student)






MISSOURI:

Missouri High Court Upholds Death Penalty in Torture Killing


The Missouri Supreme Court upheld the death sentence Tuesday for a man who 
killed 2 women in 2006 after videotaped sexual torture, rejecting his claims 
that he received ineffective counsel during his trial for the murder that sent 
him to death row.

The state's high court unanimously rejected Richard Davis' attempt to throw out 
his conviction for the suffocation of Marsha Spicer at Davis' suburban Kansas 
City apartment. Davis, 51, and his then-girlfriend, Dena Riley, 49, later 
pleaded guilty to murder and other charges linked to the killing of 36-year-old 
Michelle Huff-Ricci. Riley, who already had admitted in court her role in 
Spicer's death, is serving multiple life sentences.

Prosecutors have said Riley and Davis videotaped themselves assaulting the two 
women to fulfill the violent sexual fantasies of Davis, whose criminal history 
included a 1987 rape for which he spent nearly 18 years in prison.

The nude body of Spicer, 41, was found by a fisherman in a shallow grave in 
Lafayette County.

Authorities said that after Davis and Riley raped and tortured Huff-Ricci, they 
devised a plan to kill her because she knew where they lived and they feared 
she would contact police.

Davis tried unsuccessfully to strangle Huff-Ricci with a rope in Clay County 
woods, then covered her mouth and nose to suffocate her before leaving her 
nude, according to court records. The next day, Davis and Riley returned to 
that site, doused Huff-Ricci with lighter fluid and covered her with brush and 
ignited it.

In the appeal decided Tuesday, Davis' pushed to have his convictions and death 
sentence in Spicer's case thrown out, claiming his trial attorneys failed to 
press he was not mentally competent for the proceedings, insisting he was 
bipolar.

But the high court found that Davis did not cooperate with his defense team or 
the mental health experts retained to evaluate him, and that he failed to 
demonstrate he would have been found incompetent to stand trial.

Riley also is serving a federal life sentence in Kansas for kidnapping a 
5-year-old southeastern Kansas girl during the eight days she and Davis were on 
the run before their capture in southwestern Missouri. Authorities have said 
the child had injuries consistent with sexual abuse.

(source: Associated Press)






OREGON:

Death row inmate who dumped Tigard teen off bridge to get new trial, appeals 
court rules


The Oregon Court of Appeals agreed last week that a death row inmate -- who 
authorities say raped and murdered a 15-year-old girl in 1998 before throwing 
her body off an Astoria bridge -- should get a new trial.

The appeals court agreed with a lower court decision that Martin Allen 
Johnson's original defense attorneys failed to thoroughly investigate the 
possibility that Heather Fraser died of an accidental morphine overdose -- an 
argument Johnson contends might have persuaded a jury that he wasn't guilty of 
aggravated murder. During a 2001 trial, prosecutors persuaded a jury that 
Johnson had strangled Fraser.

According to an appeals court summary of the case, Fraser left her Tigard-area 
home at 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 23, 1998, to visit a friend -- later determined to be 
Johnson, who lived in Aloha -- to play on a computer. One of Fraser's friends 
told investigators that the man they knew as "Marty" was an "older guy" who 
always was "hitting on" Fraser and had given her drugs and alcohol in the past.

Johnson was 41 at the time -- 26 years older than Fraser.

Fraser's body was found the next day -- Feb. 24, 1998 -- in the surf on a beach 
in Warrenton. Investigators matched DNA from blood found in Johnson's car to 
Fraser. Investigators also learned that Johnson had "habitually preyed on 
underage girls, taking them to nightclubs, providing them with alcohol and 
drugs, engaging them in consensual sexual relations when possible and, most 
significantly, sexually abusing them while they were rendered unconscious by 
drugs that he had provided to them," according to the summary of the case.

Based on that -- as well as the high level of morphine in Fraser's body and DNA 
evidence that Johnson had had sex with her -- the prosecution argued during his 
2001 trial that Johnson had incapacitated Fraser with drugs, took sexual 
advantage of her and then strangled her.

Johnson, however, told his attorneys that Fraser had died of an overdose, 
according to the appeals court summary of the case. Johnson said he found her 
"dead in bed and wrapped her body in a blanket, put her in the trunk of his car 
and drove her body to the coast and threw her in the water from the middle of 
the Astoria Bridge," the summary states.

But no experts were called to the stand during his trial to support Johnson's 
contention that Fraser had died of an overdose. The state's expert opined that 
Fraser died of strangulation in Washington County. The defense expert testified 
she had drowned -- and defense attorneys used that testimony to support the 
theory that Fraser was still alive when Johnson threw her off of the 
Astoria-Megler Bridge in Clatsop County.

Johnson's defense attorneys were hoping to get him acquitted based on a legal 
technicality.

"In other words, the sole defense presented at petitioner's criminal trial was 
that the victim was still alive when petitioner threw her into the Columbia 
River and, therefore, she died in Clatsop County, not Washington County as 
alleged in the indictment," the appeals court ruled.

Prosecutors, however, had acquired a new indictment before trial that allowed 
the proceeding to be held in Washington County even if it couldn't be 
determined where the killing took place.

Jurors convicted Johnson of aggravated murder, and decided he should be 
sentenced to death. During a post-conviction trial in Marion County Circuit 
Court, Johnson argued that the defense strategy -- to argue Fraser died in 
Clatsop County rather than Washington County -- was further evidence that his 
defense attorneys did a bad job.

Johnson also argued that his defense attorneys were inadequate and ineffective 
because they failed to seriously consider a theory that Fraser died of a 
morphine overdose. At the post-conviction trial, 2 new experts for Johnson 
testified that was the likely cause of death. Last week, the Court of Appeals 
ruled that Johnson should get a new trial based on his defense attorneys' 
failure to adequately investigate the overdose defense.

The appeals court noted that if defense attorneys had put on that defense, 
Johnson might not be sitting on death row today. In other words, jurors might 
have convicted him of a lesser crime, such as manslaughter, criminally 
negligent homicide or murder that would have netted a sentence ranging from 
years to life in prison.

Or, based on evidence that Fraser died of an overdose and not strangulation, 
jurors might have dealt him a more lenient penalty: Life in prison without the 
possibility of release, instead of death row, the appeals court wrote.

Prosecutors can appeal last week's Court of Appeals decision to the Oregon 
Supreme Court. If the high court decides to hear the case, it could be another 
two to three years before justices issue their ruling. If the supreme court 
doesn't agree to give him a new trial, he still has years' worth of appeals 
left in the federal court system.

Fraser died 18 years ago. Johnson, now 59, has been on death row for more than 
14 years.

Of the more than 30 people on death row, Randy Lee Guzek has been there the 
longest: 28 years. Currently, executions are on hold given Gov. Kate Brown's 
moratorium.

(source: oregonlive.com)






USA:

States Ranked by the Highest Number of Death Row Inmates


Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders have 
made criminal justice reform a key campaign issue in their party's race for the 
presidential nomination. After an early February Democratic debate dove into 
aspects of the topic, Newsweek pointed out that little separates the two when 
it comes to criminal justice reform.

But a difference arises when looking at the death penalty. During the February 
debate, Clinton said she supports capital punishment "for very limited, 
particularly heinous crimes ... but I deeply disagree with the way that too 
many states are still implementing it." When posed with a similar question, 
Sanders said that for perpetrators of these types of crimes, "you lock them up, 
and you toss away the key. They're never going to get out. But, I just don't 
want to see government be part of killing. That's all."

As the visualization shows, Sanders' position puts him more in line with 
Democrats, while Clinton's perspective aligns with Independents and 
Republicans. Overall, data from a 2015 survey conducted by the Pew Research 
Center indicated that while the majority of Americans are in favor of the death 
penalty for people convicted of murder, support has decreased in recent years.

In 1996, 78 % of Americans supported the death penalty, according to Pew's 
report. By 2011, that number went down to 62 %. The 2015 study found 56 % of 
Americans support capital punishment.

In the U.S., 31 states have the death penalty. In 2015, Nebraska became the 
19th state to end capital punishment when lawmakers voted to abolish the 
practice - and then voted to override the governor's veto of the measure. 
However, supporters of capital punishment in the state gathered enough 
signatures to suspend the new rule and get a statewide referendum put on the 
ballot. Nebraska voters will decide in November 2016 whether their state will 
have the death penalty.

Since 1976, 1,432 executions have been carried out, according to the Death 
Penalty Information Center. In 1999, there were 98 executions, the most in 1 
year. That number has decreased significantly since then, with 28 taking place 
in 2015. This year, 10 executions have been carried out so far. The Marshall 
Project, a nonpartisan news organization covering criminal justice, tracks the 
state-by-state schedule of upcoming executions as part of its Next to Die 
endeavor. According to its assessment, the next executions are slated to take 
place in Georgia, Texas and Missouri.

With a decent amount of controversy and politicking surrounding the issue, 
Graphiq politics site InsideGov wanted to find out more about the data 
surrounding death row inmates. Using data from the Death Penalty Information 
Center, InsideGov examined the 31 states where capital punishment exists and 
ranked them by the number of inmates currently on death row. Although states 
with larger populations are toward the top of the list, it's worth noting that 
smaller states like Alabama and Louisiana are fairly high up.

We've also included the racial breakdown of each state's death row inmates, as 
well as the number of people executed in each state since 1976, when the 
Supreme Court effectively re-instated the death penalty with Gregg v. Georgia 
after a 4-year pause. In 1972, the court found that the death penalty violated 
the Eighth and 14th Amendments in Furman v. Georgia, but reversed itself in the 
1976 case.

In the event that states have the same number of death row inmates, we used the 
number of executions since 1976 to break the tie on this list.

#33. New Hampshire

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 1

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 0

#32. Wyoming

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 1

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 1

#31. New Mexico

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 2

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 1

*Note: In 2009, then-Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M., signed a law repealing the 
death penalty in his state. The legislation, which replaced capital punishment 
with a life sentence without the possibility of parole, did not address how to 
handle those on death row at the time. As a result, 2 men are still on death 
row in New Mexico.

#30. Montana

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 2

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 3

#29. Colorado

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 3

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 1

#28. South Dakota

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 3

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 5

#27. Virginia

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 7

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 116

#26. Idaho

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 9

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 5

#25. Washington

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 9

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 5

#24. Utah

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 9

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 8

#23. Kansas

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 10

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 0

#22. Nebraska

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 10

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 3

*Note: In 2015, Nebraska lawmakers voted to abolish the death penalty. However, 
supporters of capital punishment in the state gathered enough signatures to 
suspend the new rule and get a statewide referendum put on the ballot. Nebraska 
voters will decide in November 2016 whether their state will have the death 
penalty.

#21. Indiana

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 13

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 21

#20. Delaware

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 18

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 17

#19. Missouri

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 28

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 107

#18. Oregon

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 34

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 2

*Note: The race of 1 person on death row in Oregon is not currently identified, 
so the demographic breakdown in the accompanying visualization totals 33.

#17. Kentucky

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 34

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 3

#16. Arkansas

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 36

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 27

#15. South Carolina

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 43

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 44

#14. Mississippi

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 48

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 27

#13. Oklahoma

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 49

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 131

#12. Tennessee

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 71

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 6

#11. Georgia

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 78

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 68

#10. Nevada

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 79

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 13

#9. Louisiana

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 81

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 29

#8. Arizona

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 125

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 46

#7. Ohio

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 143

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 62

#6. North Carolina

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 155

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 50

#5. Pennsylvania

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 180

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 3

#4. Alabama

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 196

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 59

#3. Texas

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 263

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 591

#2. Florida

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 396 Total Number of Death Row Inmates 
Executed Since 1976: 114

#1. California

Total Number of Death Row Inmates: 743

Total Number of Death Row Inmates Executed Since 1976: 14

(source: sfgate.com)