[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----IND., KY., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 30



INDIANA:

Death row inmate's habeas petition denied by 7th Circuit


The man who brutally raped and murdered a teenager in Spencer County in 2001 
will continue to sit on death row after the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals 
affirmed the denial of his petition for habeas corpus relief.

Ron Ward knocked on the door of the home of 15-year-old Stacy Payne. After she 
let him in, he assaulted her and injured her so severely she eventually died 
from her injuries. An officer responding to the scene caught Ward standing in 
the home and took him into custody.

He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death but that verdict was 
overturned because the Indiana Supreme Court believed Ward was denied the right 
to a fair trial when his trial was moved. At his second trial in Vanderburgh 
County, he pleaded guilty to murder and rape. One of his attorneys, Lorinda 
Youngcourt, was overworked as she was handing other capital cases at the same 
time. As a result, mitigating evidence wasn't prepared as intended and the 
attorneys decided to tell the jury that Ward was a psychopath and shouldn't be 
put to death because he is insane.

The jury recommended the death penalty, which was imposed by the special judge. 
Ward exhausted his state court appeals and turned to the federal court for 
relief, but the district court denied his petition for habeas corpus.

"Even assuming that Ward's attorneys performed deficiently when they pounded 
into the jury's mind the idea that Ward is a psychopath - not merely someone 
suffering from severe antisocial personality disorder - we cannot say that the 
state court's conclusion that there was no prejudice was unreasonable," Chief 
Judge Diane Wood wrote.

The judges found the Indiana Supreme Court reasonably applied Strickland v. 
Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984).

Wood also noted that Ward was not prejudiced by his counsels' performance 
because of the mountain of evidence against him.

The case is Roy L. Ward v. Ron Neal, superintendent, Indiana State Prison, 
16-1001.

(source: The Indiana Lawyer)






KENTUCKY:

Poll shows preacher can't get fair trial in Boyle County pawn shop triple 
homicide, defense says


A hearing was held Monday in Danville on a motion to move the trial of Kenneth 
Allen Keith to a place outside Boyle County.

Nearly 2/3 of Boyle County residents surveyed believe a former Pulaski County 
preacher is guilty of killing 3 people in a 2013 pawn shop shooting, according 
to a Louisville polling firm.

During a Monday hearing on a its request to move the trial, the defense team 
for Kenneth Allen Keith pointed to that telephone survey as evidence that the 
defendant cannot receive a fair trial in Boyle County because of pretrial 
publicity.

But Commonwealth's Attorney Richie Bottoms noted the survey also showed that 74 
% of respondents said they believe Keith can receive a fair trial.

Boyle Circuit Judge Darren Peckler made no ruling on the motion after the 
nearly 3-hour hearing. Peckler said he will submit a written decision as soon 
as possible.

Keith, 51, former pastor of Main Street Baptist Church in Burnside, has pleaded 
not guilty to burglary, robbery and murder in the shooting deaths of Michael 
Hockensmith, 35, and his wife, Angela, 38, both of Stanford, and gold broker 
Daniel Smith, 60, of Richmond, in a Danville pawn shop co-owned by the 
Hockensmiths in September 2013.

Michael Hockensmith formerly worked for Keith at the Danville pawn shop before 
assuming ownership and changing the business name.

If convicted, Keith could face the death penalty.

There were 401 completed interviews in the random-sample survey conducted 
earlier this year, said Mary Lea Quick, research director for Thoroughbred 
Research Group, a Louisville polling firm.

Of the 401 surveyed, 262 or 65 % said they believed Keith was guilty of the 
crimes, testified Mykol Hamilton, a psychology professor at Centre College in 
Danville. Less than 2 % said Keith was innocent.

The survey suggests that potential jurors "have made up their minds before 
hearing the true facts of the case," Hamilton said.

Prosecutor Bottoms noted that half the respondents said they were "not really 
following" news media coverage of the case. Couldn't those people sit on a 
jury, Bottoms asked Hamilton during cross-examination.

Just because they aren't following the case closely "doesn't mean they haven't 
made up their minds," Hamilton said.

Defense attorney Sam Cox said Keith's case "has received more publicity than 
any case I've ever seen."

Cox argued seating a jury will be difficult because of the high percentage of 
Boyle residents who believe Keith is guilty and because half the people will be 
ineligible over their strong death penalty opinions.

"I think the costs of moving this trial to a county where the bias is 
dramatically less far, far, far outweigh the risk posed by seating a jury 
here," Cox said.

Bottoms argued that Keith can receive a fair trial in Danville.

"The court makes every effort to seat an unbiased jury, and I believe we can do 
that in this case," Bottoms said.

(source: kentucky.com)

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

Man charged with murder investigated in 2nd woman's death


A local mom was killed, and her family is speaking out. We first told you about 
police arresting Christopher Smith, who's accused of attacking Rhonda Runyon, 
last week. He was charged with assault at the time. She died over the weekend 
from her injuries.

Now, Smith's charge has been upgraded to murder, and he faces the death 
penalty. Her family said, seeing him in court Monday morning, it's only a 
little reassuring seeing him in cuffs.

Her family remembers Rhonda Runyon as a people person and a loving mother. Her 
ex-husband, Chris Runyon, says: "She loved the boys more than anything in the 
world."

Father-in law Roger Runyon and ex-husband Chris Runyon say, when they saw the 
man accused of attacking her in court Monday they were glad to see him face the 
steepest charge. "I got to see who done it," Roger says.

But they say it doesn't help the fact they still lost someone who was family. 
"It just hurts the worse that she's gone," Chris says.

Rhonda was beaten to death inside a home on Marigold Drive, and Sheriff Sam 
Steger says the nature of the attack was personal. Steger says the 2 knew each 
other, but it's what his deputies recovered as suspected weapons that makes the 
attack so brutal.

"It looks like he used a horseshoe and a baseball bat there," Steger says. 
"Again, that's a personal crime. You're up close and personal."

But that's not how Roger and Chris want to remember Rhonda. It's the smiles in 
family pictures they have to hold onto.

The family is now moving on to making funeral arrangements. Rhonda's body is 
being cremated in Nashville. Her family will hold a visitation sometime next 
week. For those who do want to donate to help with costs and the three sons she 
left behind, you can donate in Rhonda's name at the Imes funeral home in 
Murray.

This isn't the only case Smith is accused of being involved with. He may be 
linked to a 2nd woman's death.

We told you about a deadly fire on Beane Road in Calloway County in April. 
Police found a woman dead inside. They identified her as Heather Rogers. Police 
say she died from an overdose, not from injuries from the fire.

Steger said Smith was her live-in boyfriend, but he ran away from police that 
morning when the home caught fire. Steger told me they charged him with public 
intoxication the next morning, but they're still waiting for more test results 
on evidence.

"We're basically waiting on some arson stuff to see if the fire was actually 
arson or it started by other means," Steger says.

Steger emphasized to me they do not want to jump to conclusions, and they are 
waiting for evidence to come back before pressing any charges.

Smith will be back in court next month. His bond is set at $1 million.

(soruce: WPSD news)






CALIFORNIA:

Man charged in 4 deaths can represent self at trial


1 of 2 Anaheim men accused of kidnapping, raping and killing 4 women can serve 
as his own attorney during his upcoming trial, a judge has decided.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Patrick H. Donahue agreed last week to allow 
Steven Dean Gordon to defend himself against special-circumstances murder and 
forcible rape charges.

Gordon, 46, along with Franc Cano, 29, is suspected of killing four Orange 
County women who had ties to prostitution. The Orange County District 
Attorney's Office this year announced it is seeking the death penalty for both 
men, who are being tried separately.

Gordon, during numerous hearings over the past 2 years, has expressed 
frustration at court delays.

Prosecutors are in the process of turning over the evidence that Gordon will 
need to represent himself.

Gordon and Cano were arrested following the disappearances of Kianna Jackson, 
20; Josephine Vargas, 34; and Martha Anaya, 28, as well as the discovery of the 
body of Jarrae Estepp, 21, at an Anaheim recycling facility.

Investigators believe that Gordon and Cano picked up the women at well-known 
prostitution hubs and left their bodies in trash dumpsters.

Only the one body has been found.

At the time, both men were registered sex offenders under the supervision of 
federal probation and state parole officials. Anaheim detectives used the men's 
GPS units to track them to areas where the killings were believed to have 
occurred, according to grand jury transcripts.

A jury trial for Gordon is not scheduled until November.

(source: Orange County Register)

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

Institute of Governmental Studies releases poll data on death penalty, 
bilingual education


2 polls, which were conducted by the Institute of Governmental Studies and 
released in August, revealed that the majority of California voters oppose 
abolishing the death penalty and they prioritize English-learning classes over 
bilingual classes.

The death penalty poll references 2 measures that will appear on the November 
ballot, one to repeal the death penalty and one to streamline capital 
punishment procedures. The other poll asked voters their opinions on bilingual 
education for new English learners and U.S. citizens in general.

The majority of voters in all ethnic groups, except Black voters, opposed 
abolishing the death penalty and religious voters were more likely to support 
the death penalty. Seventy percent of Republicans opposed abolishing the death 
penalty, while Democrats supported it.

"The state should not be executing anybody," said Matthew Lewis, a member of 
Cal Berkeley Democrats. "We are one of the few developed countries that still 
does (use the) death penalty."

Proposition 66, also on the November ballot, aims to streamline the appeals 
process for the death penalty. According to Franklin Zimring, a professor at 
the UC Berkeley School of Law, the appeals process takes so long that no one 
has been executed in more than 10 years.

"Executions are the 3rd leading cause of death on death row (in California)," 
Zimring said, the first 2 being natural causes and suicide.

But Zimring says that if Proposition 66 were to pass, it would mean such a 
large change in the death penalty procedures that the state would be tied up in 
litigation for years, leading to even more delays in executions.

(source: The Daily Californian)

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

California voters can tip the balance in death penalty debate


Proposition 66 proponents claim their deeply flawed ballot initiative will 
turbo-charge California's machinery of death by ensuring that all death penalty 
appeals are decided within 5 years.

Hogwash.

You don't need to be a constitutional law whiz to know Proposition 66's 
promised regime of 5-year death penalty appeals is a sham. A basic civics 
lesson on our Constitution's "separation of powers" doctrine (and our 3 
separate but equal branches of government) will suffice. But, you don't even 
need that. Just recall: In our country, 1 branch of government doesn't have the 
constitutional authority to tell another branch how to do its job.

"It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say 
what the law is," Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall famously declared 
in Marbury v. Madison, in 1803. With this historic ideal in mind, consider for 
a moment what'll happen if Prop 66 becomes law.

Specifically, can you imagine what'll happen when a particular conscientious 
state or federal judge (or set of judges) considering a death penalty appeal in 
California decides - for any one of a myriad of potentially meritorious reasons 
- that more time is needed to resolve the death penalty litigation in a 
particular case (than Prop 66's completely arbitrary 5-year deadline allows 
for)?

That's right, follow your instinct, because it jibes with the law: By 
constitutional design, judges will always get to decide just how much time is 
needed to fairly and properly resolve a criminal appeal - not family members of 
crime victims, or a group of overly-aggressive prosecutors (whose support for 
the death penalty often hinges on political calculations more than anything 
else).

Being that they're the most serious and complicated cases our legal system has, 
it should come as no surprise that death penalty appeals take a long time to 
resolve. It can take a whole year or more before the trial transcript of a 
capital case (sometimes spanning tens of thousands of pages, or more) is even 
ready for an appellate lawyer to review.

Moreover, in post-conviction or "habeas" cases, defense lawyers have a 
constitutional and ethical obligation (just as the "direct appeal" lawyers do) 
to not only scrutinize all the transcripts and trial exhibits looking for 
non-frivolous issues to appeal, but also, they are obligated to go outside of 
the record too; they must, often years after the crime, conduct a brand new 
investigation into the charges, the client's background, and the trial and 
appellate proceedings. This requires extensive meetings with the condemned 
client, consulting (hiring, and collaborating with) specialized experts, 
tracking down old witnesses and jurors - and many other things that take time, 
lots of time - and money. And, all this is even before an appeal or 
postconviction motion is filed, the state responds, and any subsequent 
proceedings and/or oral arguments are held.

The only surefire way to end the constant glut of death penalty appeals 
clogging our state court system is to vote "NO" on Proposition 66, and "YES" on 
its eminently reasonable alternative, Proposition 62.

Proposition 62 puts the final nail in capital punishment's well-deserved 
coffin, forever replacing it with life without the possibility of parole as the 
most severe - but importantly, still humane - punishment California has. If 
California voters put an end to the death penalty, hopefully others will 
follow.

(source: Stephen Cooper is a former D.C. public defender who worked as an 
assistant federal public defender in Alabama between 2012 and 2015. He has 
contributed to numerous magazines and newspapers in the United States and 
overseas. He writes full-time and lives in Woodland Hills, 
California----thehill.com)






USA:

Criminally Yours: How Do You Judge Who's An 'Idiot'?


The courts and legislature have long debated the death penalty. Some states 
have outlawed it in its entirety. The federal government still authorizes it, 
but only for certain cases and only with the approval of the highest-ranking 
prosecutor in the country, the U.S. attorney general.

Up for review this fall before the U.S. Supreme Court is a very specific issue 
relating to the death penalty. While it is agreed that the death penalty is 
cruel and unusual punishment for people who are "intellectually disabled," how 
exactly do you determine who is "intellectually disabled"? What standard should 
be used? Should there be a national standard, uniformly applied, and if so, 
based on what criteria? Or, should each state make its own determination? And 
since these standards are continually evolving, should the standard in place at 
the time of the crime control, or the standard in place at the time of the 
appellate review? (For many on death row, decades of time pass between their 
conviction and the date of their execution.)

The U.S. Supreme Court, in Atkins v. Virginia, ruled in 2002 that the execution 
of the intellectually disabled was a violation of the Eighth Amendment's ban on 
cruel and unusual punishment. How could someone who cannot fully understand or 
control his actions, in other words who is less "morally culpable," be put to 
death for those actions?

In 2014, in Hall v. Florida, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that Florida's 
bright line of a 70 IQ as the cutoff between normal functioning and mental 
retardation was too rigid and failed to take other relevant considerations such 
as social abilities into account. Cases where people had been condemned to 
death because their IQ hovered at 70 or slightly above were sent back to 
district and state courts for further examination.

The debate this fall will focus on the issue of what standard, if any, should 
be relied upon to determine that someone is incompetent.

Unsurprisingly, the originating case came from Texas, the state that killed 
more than 1/2 the people on death row in the U.S. in 2015 and, according to the 
Economist, "dwarfs its nearest rival, Oklahoma, in total executions - 537 to 
12."

In 2004, a Texas Court of Appeals evoked a literary character's dim intellect 
as a touchstone to determine what qualifies as "intellectually disabled." 
Dubbed the "Lennie standard," the court referred to the hulking sidekick in 
John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men to lay out certain factors that would have 
permitted Lennie to escape the death penalty. Among them: can the person hide 
facts or lie effectively; did the person show leadership or was he led around 
by others; did the person respond coherently, rationally, and on point when 
questioned, or did his responses wander from subject to subject?

The underlying case involved Bobby Moore, a man who no one disputed was 
mentally challenged but who the prosecutor argued was not disabled enough to 
avoid the death penalty. Depending on the test, his IQ score fluctuated between 
as high as 78 and as low as 57, putting his average right at 70. He could mow 
lawns and play pool, but he couldn't tell time, the days of the week, or add 
and subtract. The state court judge ruled that killing Moore would violate the 
Eighth Amendment, but the Court of Criminal Appeals in Texas reversed the 
decision, citing, among other things, the "Lennie" factors.

The appeal that went to the Supreme Court also sought a ruling on whether the 
amount of time Bobby Moore had been on death row - over 3 decades in solitary 
confinement because he was awaiting execution - was cruel and unusual 
punishment in and of itself. The court, however, declined to decide this issue.

In deciding Moore v. Texas, the court will have to review whether states are 
free to impose their own standards in determining intellectual function, even 
if those standards refer to criteria set decades ago and are based on literary 
characters.

A piece in the Yale Law Journal last year suggested that if judges are going 
back to earlier standards of competency, why not go way back to standards the 
Framers originally used in 1791 when the Eighth Amendment was adopted? These 
standards categorically prohibited the execution of "idiots" and "lunatics." 
According to the author of the journal piece, Michael Clemente, the rule was 
simple: if a person's functioning was below that of an ordinary 14-year-old, 
that person should not be executed.

Clemente makes the case that earlier standards were actually broader than those 
of today and therefore, there are people being executed nowadays who the 
Founders would have spared.

It's a compelling argument. With each state free to develop its own standard 
for what qualifies as intellectually disabled, it becomes arbitrary who is 
killed. That a person might be judged smart enough to be killed in Texas, but 
ruled too much of an "idiot" (to use the former terminology) to be killed in 
New Jersey, seems unfair.

Should the death penalty rise above this mere state-by-state determination?

While there will always remain subjective elements in determining who's 
intellectually disabled, by taking on the Moore case, the Supreme Court must 
decide what the limits of that subjectivity entail.

(source: Toni Messina has been practicing criminal defense law since 
1990----abovethelaw.com)

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

Dylann Roof trial: Judge sets hearing on prospect of keeping some evidence 
secret


Federal Judge Richard Gergel has set a hearing Wednesday in Charleston to 
determine whether to proceed with keeping secret some potential evidence in 
Dylann Roof's upcoming death penalty trial.

In the 14-month legal saga concerning Roof and the June 2015 racial killings at 
Charleston's AME Mother Emanuel church, nearly all court hearings have been 
public. Gergel previously set a hearing Thursday that is closed to the public 
and press to decide which evidence would not be admissible at trial.

During Thursday's hearing Gergel will listen to arguments from defense and 
prosecution attorneys on whether certain evidence will be allowed in Roof's 
upcoming trial in November. Gergel has said that hearing should be closed to 
protect Roof's right to a fair trial.

Lawyers for Charleston media WCBD-TV and the Post & Courier newspaper have 
filed motions requesting the judge hear their arguments on why Thursday's 
evidence hearing should be open.

In an Aug. 16 order, Gergel said he wants Thursday's hearing to be closed 
because "making this evidence public before (a judge) determines whether the 
evidence is admissible could expose prospective jurors to evidence that they 
may not properly consider in reach a verdict."

In arguing for an open hearing Thursday, attorney Carl Muller for WCBD argued 
that "closing the courtroom" could undermine Roof's right to a fair trial "by 
creating widespread suspicion that a blanket is being thrown over truth, and 
justice is being pushed aside by canny lawyers and the court."

In his motion to Gergel, Muller cited a 2006 S.C. Supreme Court opinion in a 
death penalty case whereby the 5 justices overturned a trial judge's decision 
to close a pretrial court hearing.

"The rights of the public and the press to attend criminal trials are 
guaranteed by the S.C. Constitution and the U.S. Constitution," the S.C. 
Supreme Court said in its opinion.

Arguing for the Post & Courier, attorney Jay Bender wrote that closing 
Thursday's hearing is "inconsistent with established First Amendment 
precedent." Bender asked for Gergel to hear arguments on closing the Thursday 
hearing, and Gergel's setting the Wednesday hearing is in response to Bender's 
Aug. 19 letter to Gergel.

"Bender and Muller are the 2 pre-eminent open court, Freedom of Information 
lawyers in South Carolina," said Bill Rogers, executive director of the S.C. 
Press Association. Each has more than 40 years experience in fighting battles 
to keep courtrooms open and getting government documents released.

Dozens of documents have so far been filed under seal in the Roof case.

On Aug. 23, a day after government prosecutors filed a 15-page document 
revealing their expert witnesses and some of the evidence those witnesses would 
testify to, Gergel filed an order revealing his sensitivity to pretrial 
publicity.

In that Aug. 23 order, Gergel reminded lawyers for Roof and the government that 
they have a duty to protect Roof's right to a fair trial and "minimize the 
effects of prejudicial pretrial publicity."

(source: thestate.com)