[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----NEB., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 15



NEBRASKA:

New poll suggests more Nebraskans favor death penalty


A new poll suggests more Nebraskans favor the death penalty.

The survey, paid for by Nebraskans for the Death Penalty, polled about 600 
people, and officials said the margin is significant.

"The poll shows that Nebraskans continue to support the death penalty for the 
worst of the worst among us," State Treasurer Don Stenberg said.

Officials said people who are for the death penalty outnumber those who oppose 
it by about a 2-1 ratio, and that 58 % of people polled would repeal LB 268 
passed by lawmakers in 2015.

About 30 % would keep the bill, which would do away with the death penalty, 
officials said.

After state lawmakers passed the bill, Nebraskans for the Death Penalty 
launched a petition campaign, collecting 166,000 signatures from people who 
agreed the issue should be left up to voters.

The survey, conducted by a Florida-based polling company, states it polled 
Republicans, Democrats and independents with bipartisan support for the death 
penalty.

"The people who oppose the death penalty are doing their best to convince 
Nebraskans that if you favor the death penalty, you're in the minority," 
Stenberg said. "That you're not thinking right. I think what this poll shows is 
that Nebraskans continue to understand what the death penalty is about and why 
we need it.

"A group that's against the death penalty has spend quite a bit on advertising, 
over $300,000 on advertising over the last month or so. It does not appear that 
they've changed the mind of any Nebraskans on this issue."

But in a Skype interview, Retain A Just Nebraska official Dan Parsons said 
that's not the exact question voters will see on the ballot.

"The question voters will be asked to answer is, if we should replace the death 
penalty with life in prison," Parsons said.

Parsons believes, when given an option, taxpayers will choose to spend their 
money elsewhere.

"Frankly people are sick and tired of spending millions of dollars on another 
failed government program," he said.

Retain A Just Nebraska also plans to release a study comparing the cost of 
implementing the death penalty with that of imprisoning inmates for life. But 
Nebraskans for the Death Penalty said you can't put a cost on public safety.

(source: KETV news)

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

A New Poll Suggests Nebraskans Support the Death Penalty


A new voting polls suggests Nebraskans Support the Death Penalty that's 
according to the Nebraskans for the Death Penalty. The survey includes 600 
eligible voters and according to the poll Nebraskans support the death penalty 
at a 2 to 1 margin.

"Yes I think if the election was held today Nebraskans would vote 
overwhelmingly to repeal 2.68 in order to keep the death penalty and I think 
that's important point because of the way Nebraska's election laws are written 
in order to detain the death penalty it is necessary to repeal LB268 on 
election day," said Don Stenberg, Former Nebraska Attorney General and Current 
State Treasurer.

"It should not be viewed as an accurate assessment of how Nebraskan's view the 
death penalty. It's a poll that really does mislead Nebraskans into that they 
do not have any other option than getting rid of the death penalty when in 
reality the question that Nebraskans will be asked on the November 8th ballot 
is if they wish to replace the death penalty with life in prison? So that's 
really the question that should be asked and this poll doesn't ask this 
question," said Dan Parsons, Communications Director/Spokesperson, Retain A 
Just Nebraska.

(source: nebraska.tv)






CALIFORNIA:

'Grim Sleeper' handed death penalty


The US serial killer known as the "Grim Sleeper" has been sentenced to death in 
Los Angeles as police admit they are no closer to identifying a further 33 
potential victims.

Lonnie Franklin Jr, 63, was sentenced last week for the murders of 9 women and 
a teenage girl in the Los Angeles Superior Court last week.

The former garbage collector was linked to the deaths of 14 people during the 
trial, including 4 he wasn't charged with killing.

But Los Angeles Police Department investigators are struggling to identify a 
further 33 potential victims that were found in photographs pinned on walls 
inside Franklin Jr's home and released 180 photographs of the potential victims 
earlier this year.

Some of the photographs found inside his home show multiple women sleeping, 
drugged or dead, according to the Associated Press.

Franklin earned his nickname due to an what appears to have been a 14-year gap 
in murders from 1985 to 2007.

Prosecutors allege he targeted vulnerable young women who had turned to 
prostitution to support crack cocaine addictions.

He was arrested in 2010 after a police officer posed as a busboy at a birthday 
party he was attending and managed to get DNA samples from dishes and utensils.

Police then discovered a collection of more than 1000 photographs and several 
hundred hours of video footage containing women and teenagers.

The majority of his known victims were found fatally shot at close range and 2 
were thought to have been strangled.

Their bodies were found covered with mattresses and trash in South Los Angeles 
alleys and garbage bins. Some of them were naked.

Franklin failed to show emotion throughout the 6-year trial and failed to offer 
any words of defence.

Enietra Washington, one of his victims who survived after being shot, 
questioned how he could have been so cruel.

"You are truly a piece of evil," Ms Washington said during the trial.

"You're right up there with [Charles] Manson."

(source:9news.com.au)

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

Who are the 33? Stumped LA police try to identify remaining women from the 
1,000 photos found pinned up in home of serial killer 'Grim Sleeper'


A case spanning more than 3 decades in Los Angeles was finally put to rest last 
week when the notorious 'Grim Sleeper' serial killer was sentenced to the death 
penalty.

However, investigators with the Los Angeles Police Department are still trying 
to identify 33 women whose photos were found pinned up inside the home of 
63-year-old Lonnie Franklin Jr.

The images were part of a chilling discovery of nearly 1,000 photos of women or 
teenage girls - many nude and some who appeared to be unconscious or dead - 
hidden in Franklin's house.

The collection included photographs of several victims, which leads police and 
prosecutors to believe Franklin left behind many more.

Detective Daryn Dupree said Franklin is one of the most prolific killers and 
could have killed as many as 25 women from the late 1970s until his arrest in 
2010.

That includes the period of 1988 to 2002 when police originally thought the 
killer took a break - an apparent hiatus that helped coin his nickname.

'I don't think he stopped because he was getting away with it,' Dupree said. 'I 
think he slowed down, but I don't think that big gap was as much as we thought 
it was.'

Franklin, 63, was sentenced to die Wednesday for murdering 9 women and a 
15-year-old girl in South Los Angeles.

Prosecutors outlined evidence of 3 additional slayings he wasn't charged with 
and 2 other women who went missing and they suspect he killed.

The student identification card of Ayellah Marshall, 18, who disappeared in 
2006, was found in Franklin's garage along with the Nevada driver's license of 
Rolenia Morris, 29, who was last seen in 2005.

2 snapshots of Morris were found in his photo collection.

Defense attorney Seymour Amster wouldn't comment on the possibility that his 
client was involved in other killings.

Franklin denied any role in the killings to investigators, and his attorneys 
had suggested a mystery man was the real killer.

Many of the slayings occurred when U.S. cities were reeling from the crack 
cocaine epidemic.

Franklin targeted young women in the poor area where he lived.

Some were drug users who had turned to prostitution in desperation to support 
their addiction.

'Back then, you'd drive down the street and girls would be trying to jump in 
your car,' said Dupree, who grew up in the area and witnessed the crack's 
effect.

Several other serial killers prowled the area, preying on the same type of 
victims, who were often sexually assaulted and then dumped in alleys, parks or 
trash bins.

The killings were believed to be the work of one man dubbed the 'Southside 
Slayer,' though several culprits were later arrested and charged with 
additional crimes as DNA evidence became more sophisticated.

The killings inspired the formation of a community group, the Black Coalition 
Fighting Back Serial Murders, to raise awareness of the danger to women and 
pressure police to investigate more thoroughly.

One of the group's founders, Margaret Prescod, continues on that mission.

She distributes fliers with the photos of the unidentified women found in 
Franklin's house and said she wants to find out what happened to about 200 
women who have gone missing in that area or whose killings remain unsolved.

'We're glad there's a killer off the street, but that doesn't mean everything 
is resolved,' she said.

'There is a whole set of women and nobody knows what happened to them.'

She is hopeful that the women in those photos turn out to be alive.

Police originally reached out for the public's help identifying 166 women. It's 
been narrowed to 33 faces.

Dupree said officers get inundated with calls every time there's a story about 
the photos.

He thinks another case will eventually connect back to Franklin as more DNA 
from older cases gets added to a databank.

Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman, who put Franklin and 2 other serial 
killers in the area behind bars, is not so sure.

For one thing, she said, the task force that finally caught Franklin screened 
400 cold cases.

Secondly, Franklin, a former garbage collector, disposed of many of his bodies 
in dumpsters.

'Knowing he worked for the city as a sanitation truck driver and had access to 
the landfill, who knows how many bodies were taken away,' she said.

One victim, Janecia Peters, could have ended up on the way to the dump if a 
homeless person looking for cans hadn't noticed her red fingernails poking 
through a trash bag on New Year's Day 2007.

When DNA on Peters' body connected her to previous cases, Police Chief William 
Bratton created the task force that re-examined all the murders and eventually 
arrested Franklin.

(source: Daily Mail)






USA:

Are Evangelicals Ditching the Death Penalty? As demographics change, a move 
toward mercy.


Earlier this month, roughly 50 evangelical leaders signed a letter urging the 
Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and the state's governor, Greg Abbott, to 
stop the Aug. 24 execution of death row inmate Jeff Wood.

Self-described evangelicals - a large, varied group - have opposed executions 
before, often flocking to the side of prisoners who present themselves as 
having been born again. Their interest in Wood's case is notable because he is 
not one of these inmates; they are focused instead on the details of his crime. 
Wood was in a car while his friend shot a gas station clerk during a robbery, 
and his attorneys claim he had no intent to murder. "The death penalty, we are 
told, is reserved for the most egregious crimes," the letter states. "Wood's 
actions - which did not include directly committing a murder or intending to - 
simply do not fall into this category."

The letter is the latest sign that a community once known as a bedrock of death 
penalty support is no longer monolithic. In 1973, after the U.S. Supreme Court 
struck down the punishment, the National Association of Evangelicals urged 
state legislatures to rewrite their laws to revive the punishment. But their 
support was always in tension with the belief that anyone could be redeemed 
through faith in Christ - and should not die before they have a chance to take 
that step. That tension was tested in 1998 by the Texas execution of Karla Faye 
Tucker, who murdered a man and woman with a pickaxe during a robbery, but 
underwent a conversion in prison convincing enough to bring televangelist Pat 
Robertson of The 700 Club to her cause.

That wasn't enough to sway then-Gov. George W. Bush, who carried a base of 
white evangelical voters to the White House 2 years later. (Bush later wrote 
that signing off on Tucker's death was "one of the hardest things I have ever 
done.")

Then came a slow shift. The national association, which claims a constituency 
of 30 million affiliated churchgoers, has become less white over the last 
decade, and black and Hispanic churchgoers are more likely to oppose capital 
punishment.

But even among whites, leaders often speak of a generational shift. "I remember 
debating this issue in college with my friends," says Heather Beaudoin, a 
32-year-old evangelical activist with Equal Justice USA who organized the 
current letter. "I've noticed that the friends who fought me have come around." 
On a variety of political issues, from environmentalism to the 
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, younger white protestants have moved away from 
the positions that defined a previous generation.

Last fall, the national association revised its 1973 position and acknowledged, 
"Evangelical Christians differ in their beliefs about capital punishment." 
Older pastors, who may have leaned left on some issues for a long time, now 
have more cover to take actions like signing a letter in support of a death row 
inmate.

One of the signatories is Joel Hunter, who leads the 20,000-member Northland 
Church in the suburbs of Orlando, Florida. He supported Mike Huckabee in 2008, 
but has prayed with President Barack Obama and says, "Many of us in the 
evangelical Protestant community are coming to where the Catholics have been 
for a while: pro-life in terms of whole life, all vulnerable life, whether in 
the womb or on death row."

Hunter and his peers speak of separating the theological question of whether 
the death penalty is just - since there are clear Biblical statements in both 
directions - to a more grounded focus on inequities in how capital punishment 
is applied. In 2014, R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist 
Theological Seminary, wrote for CNN that the death penalty should continue to 
be used, but "while the law itself is not prejudiced, the application of the 
death penalty often is."

Some white evangelicals are increasingly interested in issues of race; another 
signatory to the Wood letter, pastor Wes Helm of Springcreek Church in Garland, 
Tex., said the book Just Mercy by death penalty lawyer Bryan Stevenson had 
sparked conversations among his staff. His church has fought payday lending in 
the past, and plans to discuss the death penalty as a community later this 
year. Until then, he said, he only signs for himself.

When it comes to individual cases, evangelical activists know they need to 
choose ones that will galvanize their community. They continue to go with 
inmates who, like Karla Faye Tucker, present clear redemption narratives. In 
recent years, they have supported Kelly Gissendaner of Georgia (who studied for 
a theological certificate in prison) and Duane Buck of Texas (who leads a Bible 
study on death row). Fisher Humphreys, an emeritus divinity professor at 
Samford University in Alabama, says, "Those who undergo a great transformation 
must have a special appeal to pastors who are trying so hard to get people to 
undergo that same transformation."

But in the past few years, the ground has shifted enough that they can go 
further. Christian leaders are also particularly troubled by the possibility 
that an innocent person has been executed, so it was a short step to consider 
someone like Wood, who had so little involvement in the murder; "He just seems 
like he went with the wrong crowd one night," Humphreys says.

Mental illness is another area where there is an opening; Christian leaders 
supported Scott Panetti, who was so mentally ill he tried to subpoena John F. 
Kennedy before his trial. Jeff Wood was also intellectually impaired (his IQ 
has been assessed around 80) and he asked his trial attorneys not to present 
any evidence on his behalf.

There are limits, however. Joel Hunter admits that his 20,000 parishioners 
"give me the benefit of the doubt" in cases like that of Wood, but might not be 
so comfortable if he were to support a death row inmate with a heinous crime 
and no sign of remorse. "I'm a pastor first; I'm not primarily a social justice 
advocate," Hunter says. "I won't come out and argue it's too bad that Hitler 
died."

(source: themarshallproject.org)