[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----NEB., N.MEX., COLO., IDAHO, CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 19




NEBRASKA:

Nebraska senators: Death penalty study validates repeal vote


Nebraska senators who voted to abolish the death penalty say a recent analysis 
of the program's costs validates their argument that it's wasteful and 
ineffective.

The death penalty opposition group, Retain a Just Nebraska, released a letter 
Thursday praising the study, which says capital punishment costs the state an 
estimated $14.6 million annually. The letter was signed by 27 senators who 
voted to repeal the death penalty, including Speaker of the Legislature Galen 
Hadley.

Sen. Colby Coash, of Lincoln, a leading Republican opponent of capital 
punishment, says the 2015 vote to end the death penalty eliminated a wasteful 
government program that hasn't worked for decades.

The Nebraska attorney general's office has disputed parts of the study, but 
conservative Creighton University economist Ernie Goss says he stands by his 
work.

(source: KETV news)

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

Economist defends $14.6M estimate on cost of death penalty in Nebraska


Economist Ernie Goss defends his study that estimates the death penalty costs 
Nebraska $14.6 million annually in face of criticism from Attorney General Doug 
Peterson.

Goss released the study Monday during a news conference held by Retain A Just 
Nebraska, a group working to uphold the legislature's repeal of the death 
penalty.

Goss actually calls his cost estimate of more than $14 million conservative.

"I think I've done a good job on this. I am very confident of the results. I 
stand behind those results," Goss tells reporters during a news conference in 
Lincoln Thursday.

Goss says he includes all the data he used to reach his conclusion in the 
report, which is available both on his website and the website operated by 
Retain A Just Nebraska.

Goss dismisses Attorney General Peterson's contention that he "grossly 
overstated" the cost of capital punishment.

"I think if anything I am on the low side, but as I said I am confident of 
these results, statistically speaking and that's what economists do," according 
to Goss. "We don't speak anything else, but statistics."

(source: Nebraska Radio Network)






NEW MEXICO:

Why New Mexico wants to restore the death penalty ---- The governor of New 
Mexico is citing the recent high-profile killings of police officers in her 
state and elsewhere as a reason to bring back the death penalty.


New Mexico's governor is reframing the death penalty debate as the proper 
response to recent police killings, including 1 officer killed Friday in her 
own state.

This response to police killings bucks a national trend as many states and 
courts are backing away from the death penalty, in part due to practical 
constraints on cost and the drugs used in capital punishment. In New Mexico, 
the push for its return faces opposition from Democrats, which have the 
majority in the state legislature.

But Republican Gov. Susanna Martinez said the shooting of a police officer in 
Hatch, N.M., on Friday, as well as several police killings elsewhere in the 
nation, prove the punishment is needed to deter society's grossest crimes, Dan 
Boyd reported for the Albuquerque Journal.

"People need to ask themselves, if the man who ambushed and killed 5 police 
officers in Dallas had lived, would he deserve the ultimate penalty," Governor 
Martinez said Wednesday in a prepared statement. "How about the heartless 
violent criminals who killed Officer Jose Chavez in Hatch and left his children 
without their brave and selfless dad? Do they deserve the ultimate penalty? 
Absolutely. Because a society that fails to adequately protect and defend those 
who protect all of us is a society that will be undone and unsafe."

New Mexico repealed the death penalty in 2009, and Wednesday's announcement 
marked the 1st time the governor had brought up the issue since it failed to 
pass a Democratic legislature in 2011.

Third Judicial District Attorney Mark D'Antonio, whose office filed a murder 
charge against Officer Chavez' killers, said such crimes could be a good reason 
to discuss the death penalty again.

"The death penalty should be the last resort for the worst of the worst and in 
certain situations like for cop-killers," he said in a statement.

The new argument goes up against recent struggles even in generally 
conservative states to carry out executions, as one company after another has 
refused to sell its drugs to states for lethal injection, as the Christian 
Science Monitor's Patrik Jonsson wrote:

Public opinion - as shown in polls as well as the frequency of death penalty 
convictions - has shifted. 56 % of Americans favored capital punishment in 
2015, but that's down from 78 % just 20 years ago, according to the Pew 
Research Center.

Last year, the US saw only 49 death sentences imposed, a 33 percent drop from 
the previous year, and down from a peak of 315 in 1996. 2/3 of last year's 
death sentences came from juries in only 2 % of US counties, according to the 
Death Penalty Information Center.

A death penalty proposal has received similar framing in Illinois, where 
Republican state Rep. Mark Batinick wants the killing of first responders to be 
punishable by death, the Illinois News Network reported. Illinois abolished its 
death penalty in 2011.

"These are the people that put themselves in harm's way to protect us," he has 
said. "They run into wherever the danger is, and right now I feel like they 
don???t necessarily feel like we have their back and we're protecting them."

But Robert Dunham for the Death Penalty Information Center said the measure is 
unlikely to move forward, noting that Louisiana and Texas both have a death 
penalty already.

The representative cited the ambush and killings of police in Baton Rouge, La., 
and Dallas as giving people a new reason to support the death penalty.

"I think if you look at the incidents that have happened recently and then what 
the effects of those incidents are after the fact, maybe people will just start 
changing their mind," he said, according to the Illinois News Network.

(source: Christian Science Monitor)

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

Catholic Bishops Of New Mexico Renounce Governor's Call to Reinstate Death 
Penalty


The Catholic Bishops of New Mexico applauded the State Legislature for the 
progress that was made when we ended the morally untenable practice of the 
death penalty on March 18, 2009. This repeal of the death penalty was a 
milestone, moving New Mexico from a culture of violence to a culture of peace, 
justice, and love.

We, the Catholic Bishops of New Mexico, in one voice, once again echo the 
teaching of the Church that life is sacred. There is one seamless teaching on 
God???s gift of life that must be protected from birth to natural death. It is 
always tragic and sad when a member of the community is murdered. These 
senseless acts must be prevented by calling for systemic change in society 
beginning with our youngest children. Crime can be prevented, and this is done 
by an investment in social capital.

The State created life in prison without the possibility of parole. This 
renders a perpetrator harmless to society.

Catechism of the Catholic Church 2267

"If, instead, bloodless means are sufficient to defend against the aggressor 
and to protect the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to 
such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the 
common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person."

"Today, in fact, given the means at the State's disposal to effectively repress 
crime by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it, without depriving 
him definitively of the possibility of redeeming himself, cases of absolute 
necessity for suppression of the offender today...are very rare, if not 
practically non-existent." [John Paul II, Evangelium vitea 56.]

We join Pope Francis in his continued call to end the practice of the death 
penalty. Pope Benedict and St. Pope John Paul II both worked diligently to end 
the death penalty throughout the world. The trend in the United States has now 
been to abandon the use of the death penalty. In the last five years, five 
states have passed legislation to repeal their death penalty law.

We oppose Governor Susana Martinez' plan to reinstate the death penalty and 
call on the Legislature to reject the legislation.--ENDM

Most Rev. John C. Wester Most Rev. James Wall Most Rev. Oscar Cantu

Archbishop of Santa Fe Bishop of Gallup Bishop of Las Cruces

(source: krwg.org)

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

Lawmakers to weigh costs of reinstating death penalty


The "ultimate penalty," as Gov. Susana Martinez has called it, does not come 
cheap.

The high cost and slow process of prosecuting capital cases likely will be 
central to the debate over reinstating the death penalty after Martinez's 
announcement this week that she will push to restore capital punishment during 
the 2017 legislative session.

New Mexico used the death penalty sparingly during the period when it was last 
legal, handing down about a dozen death sentences and executing one inmate 
between 1979 and 2009, when lawmakers and Gov. Bill Richardson abolished it. 
Analyzing the costs of capital punishment, legislative staffers in 2009 wrote, 
"New Mexico does not receive much return on its death penalty investment."

The report said fewer than 1/4 of all capital prosecutions in the state led to 
a prisoner on death row. Fewer than 1/2 of the cases led to a death sentence, 
and 68 % of those were overturned on appeal.

Death penalty cases require heightened standards for defense attorneys, the 
report said, with at least 2 lawyers at each stage of the proceedings, 
trial-level litigation and mandatory appeals. Jury selection is particularly 
long and arduous in such cases, the report added, costing at least 4 times as 
much as other 1st-degree murder cases.

The only person executed in New Mexico between 1979 and 2009 was Terry D. 
Clark, who was put to death in 2001 for the rape and murder of a 9-year-old 
Roswell girl in 1986. The state brought in 2 "execution experts" from the Texas 
prison system for Clark's execution, the 1st in New Mexico since 1960.

"There is only a 4.5 % chance that any multi-million dollar death penalty 
prosecution will ever end in an execution in New Mexico," the legislative 
report said.

It's also unclear whether the state could navigate the logistical hurdles to 
carrying out an execution.

The state's prison system does not have a supply of the drugs typically used to 
carry out lethal injections, according to Alex Sanchez, deputy secretary for 
administrative support at the Corrections Department.

Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said 
finding the necessary drugs now could be complicated, with major pharmaceutical 
companies and many pharmacies refusing to sell their products for use in 
executions.

"That narrows who you can get the drugs from. The fear has been that executions 
are likely to be even more unsafe and even more prone to being botched if the 
drugs are obtained from compounding pharmacies," Dunham said, referring to the 
drug-manufacturing companies that have become the last resort for states in 
short supply of pharmaceuticals required for executions.

2 men sentenced to death in New Mexico prior to 2009 are still on death row.

Timothy Allen was sentenced to death in 1995 for kidnapping, attempting to rape 
and then killing a 17-year-old Flora Vista girl.

Robert Fry was sentenced to death in 2002 for the murder of Betty Lee, a 
36-year-old Shiprock woman. He also is serving life sentences for the 1996 
killings of Farmington residents Joseph Fleming, 25, and Matthew Trecker, 18, 
as well as the 1998 murder of 41-year-old Donald Tsosie of Ganado, Ariz.

Fry and Allen are incarcerated in the same tightly controlled conditions 
designated for inmates sentenced to life without the possibility of parole - a 
sentence that replaced the death penalty when it was abolished. No one is 
currently serving such a sentence in a New Mexico prison.

Sanchez said the New Mexico Corrections Department would be capable of carrying 
out an execution and that reinstating the death penalty would change little for 
the state's prison system. "There would be no difference in housing, no 
difference in treatment," she said. "It would just be a matter of carrying out 
the execution."

But the cases of Fry and Allen illustrate the long process of carrying out a 
death sentence. Lawyers representing the men went before the New Mexico Supreme 
Court as recently as 2014, asking the state's highest judicial body stop their 
executions in light of the death penalty's abolition.

Their cases are still pending, and the Law Office of the Public Defender 
recently asked the state Supreme Court to authorize additional funding to pay 
the men's lawyers.

"Capital punishment is clearly a very expensive process. It adds costs for law 
enforcement, for prosecution, for the courts, and it adds tremendous costs to 
provide effective assistance of counsel," said Chief Public Defender Bennett 
Baur.

Death penalty cases require specialized skills, he said.

Baur also noted that state agencies are facing budget cuts. Public defenders, 
as well as prosecutors and others in the criminal justice system, would be 
forced to do more with less if capital punishment were reinstated, he said.

"In the time of flat budgets - or worse - there are things you cannot do," he 
said. "There are cases that cannot be prosecuted and cases that cannot be 
defended."

The political prospects of reinstating the death penalty remain unclear and are 
likely to shift with the outcome of the Nov. 8 general election.

The New Mexican contacted several state lawmakers to ask if they would sponsor 
legislation to restore capital punishment. Only 1, Republican Rep. Andy Nunez 
of Hatch, responded.

Nunez, who represents the district in Southern New Mexico where a police 
officer was gunned down last week, said Thursday he will sponsor a bill to 
reinstate the death penalty if Martinez asks him.

"I agree with her," Nunez said. "My wife's not for it, but I am."

Martinez did not specify Wednesday how broadly she believes the death penalty 
should be applied. But her comments signaled she is interested in at least 
allowing capital punishment for the murders of children and law enforcement 
officers. She mentioned slain Hatch Police Department Officer Jose Chavez in 
her remarks.

Nunez said such a scope is appropriate. While he supported repealing the death 
penalty in 2009, Nunez said Thursday he feels he was "misled."

He thought the death penalty would be replaced with a sentence of life without 
parole, he said, but with no one receiving such a sentence, he suggested that 
inmates who might have qualified for the death penalty when it was legal might 
now be receiving sentences allowing their eventual release.

Asked if the state can afford to undertake executions and the accompanying 
lengthy court battles, Nunez said: "They can afford that better than setting 
them in prison."

(source: Santa Fe New Mexican)






COLORADO:

Prosecutors consider seeking death penalty against man accused of fatally 
stabbing son ---- Brandon Johnson is accused of stabbing his 6-year-old son to 
death


The case against an Arapahoe County man accused of stabbing his 6-year-old son 
to death has been delayed as prosecutors decide whether they will seek the 
death penalty.

On Thursday, Brandon Johnson, 27, appeared in Arapahoe County District Court 
where he withdrew a guilty plea in the murder case. The plea withdrawal resets 
a deadline for when the 18th Judicial District Attorney must decide whether to 
try it as a capital punishment case.

District Attorney George Brauchler said a decision has not been made, but 
Colorado law would allow the death penalty because the case involves the death 
of a child younger than 12.

A new arraignment for Johnson has been set for Oct. 25. Prosecutors would have 
60 days from then to decide. The delay also gives defense attorney Stephen 
McCrohan time to prepare a mitigating report in an effort to develop an 
argument against the death penalty.

Prosecutors on Thursday also added an 8th charge to Johnson's case - 1st-degree 
murder after deliberation.

Johnson appeared in court and answered questions by nodding his head for "yes" 
or "no" as Chief Judge Carlos Samour Jr. asked him questions. Johnson has a 
tracheal tube and cannot speak when it is in place, but the judge agreed head 
nods would be an acceptable alternative to asking Johnson to remove the tube in 
court.

Johnson suffered the throat injury after allegedly turning the knife on himself 
in the incident.

The Arapahoe County Sheriff???s Office was called to an apartment on the 7500 
block of East Harvard Avenue at 5 a.m. on Feb. 10 after a woman reported that 
she had been sexually assaulted.

The woman told deputies that her domestic partner had assaulted her at 
knifepoint, according to previous reports from the Arapahoe County Sheriff's 
Office.

When deputies entered the apartment, they found 6-year-old Riley Johnson dead 
from stab wounds, and a 2-year-old boy who was unharmed.

Brandon Johnson also was bleeding from stab wounds, and the sheriff's office 
has said they were self-inflicted. Johnson spent several days in a hospital for 
treatment before he was booked into the Arapahoe County Detention Center.

The woman, who was the mother of the 2-year-old child, was treated and released 
at a hospital.

The tragedy was compounded when a deputy headed to the scene was critically 
injured in a car crash near East Iliff Avenue and South Valentia Street. Deputy 
Bill Foreman Jr. was hospitalized after he was extricated from his car.

(source: Denver Post)






IDAHO:

Prosecutors plan to pursue death penalty for Erik Ohlson


Teton County Deputy Prosecutor Chris Lundberg confirmed Thursday they plan to 
pursue the death penalty for Erik Ohlson. Ohlson faces 2 felony counts of 1st 
degree murder for shooting and killing Jennifer Nalley and her unborn child.

"After consulting with the family they are in favor of us pursuing that and so 
kind of weighing all those factors we believe it's the right course of justice 
in action in this case," said Lundberg.

Ohlson appeared in court last Friday for his preliminary hearing. His next 
court appearance is Sept. 6th. This date may change because Ohlson's lawyers 
have asked to disqualify judge Gregory Moeller.

In court Friday, prosecutors played a jail interview with Erik Ohlson and a 
detective. Ohlson admitted to shooting Jennifer Nalley in the interview.

(source: KIDK news)






CALIFORNIA:


Ex-Con Could Face Death Penalty in Shooting-Robbery Case

An ex-con accused of involvement in a daytime home-invasion robbery in San 
Carlos in which a resident was fatally shot must stand trial on murder and 
other charges that could lead to the death penalty, a judge ruled Thursday.

Elliott Scott Grizzle, 45, is accused of being one of several armed intruders 
who broke into a home on Tommy Drive on May 11, tied up 2 men and shot and 
killed 33-year-old Brent Alan Adler after he arrived at the residence.

A roommate testified that the robbers questioned Adler about marijuana and 
money when he came home.

Another roommate - who was tied up and placed face down on the floor - told 
police he heard Adler struggling with the intruders near the front door and 
then heard gunshots.

Adler was found in the driveway. He was shot 3 times.

The roommates who were tied up said there were at least 3 and probably 4 or 5 
robbers in the home, San Diego police Detective Tim Norris testified. He said 
Adler and another roommate were under investigation for drug dealing.

Authorities allege Grizzle's DNA was found on a beer bottle in the home, a drug 
pipe, a lighter and a glove found in the street outside the residence.

Judge Frederic Link found that enough evidence was presented at Grizzle's 
preliminary hearing for him to proceed to trial on charges of murder, robbery, 
burglary and being a felon in possession of a firearm, with special 
circumstance allegations of murder during a robbery and murder during a 
burglary.

District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis has yet to decide whether Grizzle will face 
the death penalty or life in prison without parole if he's convicted.

A Superior Court arraignment is scheduled Sept. 1.

(source: timesofsandiego.com)

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

Death Penalty on the Initiative Plan


One reviewer found Celine's "Death on the Installment Plan" the story of "a 
gloomy, disillusioned doctor who views medicine cynically and is irritated by 
his patients."

That's about how voters are going to look at yet another decision tossed to 
them about the death penalty in California. Although there are two related 
initiatives on the November 8 ballot, under state law, if both initiatives 
pass, the one with the most votes wins.

Proposition 62 ends the death penalty in California (not the federal death 
penalty). By contrast, Proposition 66 speeds up the court process under which 
convicted killers start walking the Green Mile. Due to appeals of existing 
cases in federal court, the last execution was in 2006, 10 years ago, of a fine 
specimen of human being called Clarence Ray Allen. Already in prison for 
murder, he organized the murders of three people outside the prison.

But as is usual in California, there are complications within the complications 
of initiatives. For those favoring the death penalty, largely conservatives, 
Republicans and law enforcement, the main problem is the state is unlikely to 
elect a governor ever again who supports the death penalty, meaning death 
sentences would be commuted before the needle was jabbed into any killer's arm.

Of the declared candidates, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom long has opposed the death 
penalty and endorsed Prop. 62. Treasurer John Chiang, according to the 
Sacramento Bee, has not taken a position yet: "Chiang has positions on 4 of 17 
measures. Chiang said though a spokesman that he expects to take positions on 
'many others' in the months to come." I suspect he'll come out against the 
death penalty to preclude support going to his anti-death penalty opponents 
from wealthy liberal donors.

Although he hasn't announced yet if he's running for governor, former Los 
Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa backed Proposition 34, the 2012 initiative 
that would have repealed the death penalty, but failed 52 % to 48 %.

For those against the death penalty, largely liberals and Democrats, there also 
are complications. Although their beloved President Obama has found the death 
penalty "deeply troubling," he also has backed it. And although he might do so 
before leaving office in 6 months, so far he has not commuted the death 
sentence handed down for convicted Boston Marathon terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. 
And Democratic presidential nominee for Hillary Clinton still backs the death 
penalty, although she's troubled by racial differences in executions in some 
states.

Then there's the argument for Prop. 62 by actor Mike Farrell, who sponsored the 
measure: "Because of all the problems with the death penalty, not a single 
person has been executed here in the last 10 years. Nonetheless, Californians 
continue to pay for it in many ways. Whether you look at the death penalty from 
a taxpayer, a criminal justice or a civil rights perspective, what is clear is 
that it fails in every respect."

That's going to be a major argument: That dumping death-row inmates back into 
the general population of inmates would save money, up to $150 million a year. 
But will those inmates, all of them killers, start killing other inmates? Will 
they, like Allen, direct murders outside the prison? What do they have to lose?

And even if the death penalty is not carried out ever again, is keeping it on 
the books still a deterrent to potential murderers, who tend to be low IQ and 
don't know the positions of potential governors on the death penalty?

Those backing Prop. 62 also tend, like Newsom, to favor Proposition 63 and 
other gun control initiatives and laws. Supposedly these laws will prevent mass 
shootings and other murders. But the real problem, as gun scholar John Lott has 
detailed, is gun-free zones. Psychos and other criminals always will be able to 
get guns and ammo. But they can be deterred, and if necessary stopped, if 
law-abiding citizens nearby are armed.

That is, the real way to reduce killings by guns is for armed people themselves 
to apply the death penalty, or be ready to - immediately, on the spot.

(source: John Seiler is a former Editorial Writer at the Orange County 
Register----KECT news)





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

Poll shows gains in support to retain the state's death penalty


With surveys showing declining public support for capital punishment, opponents 
of the death penalty in California have expressed confidence in repealing it at 
the ballot box in November, after narrowly falling short four years ago. But a 
new poll released Thursday suggests voters may not go along.

The poll by the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley, conducted 
online among a statewide sampling of more than 1,500 registered voters, found 
Proposition 62, which would replace the death penalty with a sentence of life 
in prison without parole, trailing 54.9 % to 49.1 %. The measure was opposed by 
majorities of both women and men, by all age levels except those between 25 and 
34, and by all racial and ethnic groups except black voters, who were 60 
percent in favor of the proposition.

The poll listed the margin of error at 4 % points.

The same poll found overwhelming support - 75.7 % - for a rival measure, Prop. 
66, that would seek to speed up executions by setting tight deadlines for court 
rulings, placing some limits on appeals and requiring many more defense lawyers 
to take capital cases.

That finding may have been influenced, however, by the vague wording of the 
survey question, which asked voters only whether they would want to "streamline 
procedures in death-penalty cases to speed up resolution of those cases," and 
did not mention further details of the measure. The poll said strong majorities 
of both Democrats and Republicans favored the proposal.

A statewide Field Poll in January which asked respondents whether they would 
prefer to "take steps to speed up the execution process" or to repeal the death 
penalty found 48 % in favor of a speedup, 47 % for a repeal and the rest 
undecided.

The UC Berkeley pollsters tried to write "brief and fair summaries" of the 2 
measures but didn't yet have access to state elections officials??? ballot 
descriptions of the initiatives when the poll was conducted between June 29 and 
July 18, said Ethan Rarick, associate director of the Institute of Governmental 
Studies.

Still, the latest poll raises some doubt about whether Californians are ready 
to abolish capital punishment. A proponent of the prosecutor-backed measure to 
speed up executions expressed satisfaction with the results.

"Voters have made it clear time and time again that they want the death penalty 
in California for the most vicious of killers," said Jeff Flint, campaign 
manager for No on 62 and Yes on 66. "They know the current system needs to be 
fixed to end the decades of appeals that bog down the system."

Jacob Hay, spokesman for the pro-Prop. 62 campaign, said the polling numbers 
were "totally unreliable" because the questions left out details that voters 
will see on their ballots, including a state estimate of $150 million in annual 
savings from abolition of the death penalty. Ana Zamora, campaign manager for 
No on 66, said the pollsters misstated the contents of that initiative.

"Californians are deeply concerned about the possibility of executing an 
innocent person," Zamora said. "Prop. 66 will greatly increase this risk by 
removing fundamental legal safeguards."

Voters approved the current death penalty law in 1978, expanding a measure that 
had been enacted a year earlier, over Gov. Jerry Brown's veto. A measure to 
repeal it was defeated in 2012 by a 52 to 48 % ratio. Most polls since then, in 
California and nationwide, have shown declines in support for capital 
punishment.

California has the nation'slargest death row, with nearly 750 prisoners. The 
state's last execution was in January 2006, and the law has been on hold since 
then because of court rulings finding flaws in the lethal injection process and 
staff training.

(source: sfgate.com)






USA:

Senator praises 'law and order' Trump for demanding death penalty for innocent 
teens


One of the few senators to wholeheartedly back GOP presidential candidate 
Donald Trump praised the nominee as a "law and order" candidate for paying for 
an ad calling for the death penalty of 5 young men in their mid-teens who were 
wrongfully accused of raping a woman.

In an interview caught by Buzzfeed, southern Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) lauded 
Trump for his speech aimed at the African-American community Tuesday night in 
Wisconsin.

"That speech was great, and Trump has always been this way," Sessions told the 
hosts of the Matt & Aunie radio show.

"He bought an ad - people say he wasn???t a conservative - but he bought an ad 
20 years ago in the New York Times calling for the death penalty," he 
continued. "How many people in New York, that liberal bastion, were willing to 
do something like that? So he believes in law and order and he has the strength 
and will to make this country safer."

Sessions was referring to an ad Trump took out in the New York Times over 20 
years ago, with a bold headline reading "Bring the death penalty back!" aimed 
at the 5 young black and Hispanic men who were accused of raping a white woman 
who came to be known as the "Central Park jogger."

All of the young men were later exonerated by the city of New York after 
serving time in prison, and were recipients of a payout in the millions for 
their wrongful conviction.

Upon news of the settlement, Trump jumped back into the fray again, calling the 
payout, "a disgrace."

(source: buzzfeed.com)

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

Fell seeks to bar evidence from 2nd death penalty trial


A man facing a 2nd federal death penalty trial for the 2000 abduction and 
murder of a supermarket worker is seeking to exclude evidence used in his 1st 
trial.

The Rutland Herald reports that prosecution and defense witnesses will testify 
Monday about the validity of expert analysis of crime scene evidence in the 
case of Donald Fell.

Fell was convicted and sentenced to death in 2005 for the murder of Terry King, 
but his conviction was overturned.

Fell's trial is slated for February 2017. He has challenged blood, DNA and 
other evidence and testimony originally presented in his 2005 trial.

The challenge requires a judge to determine which experts can testify based on 
the scientific nature of their testimony. Experts will present their findings 
on Monday.

(source: Associated Press)