[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., GA., FLA., OHIO, KAN., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Dec. 13



PENNSYLANIA:

Suspect in Holly Grim's killing to face death penalty ---- Michael Horvath has 
preliminary hearing for Holly Grim murder


Michael Horvath, appears for his preliminary hearing in connection to the 
kidnapping and murder of Holly Grim, Monday at the District Justice office in 
Snydersville.

The man accused of the 2013 kidnapping and murder of Holly Grim will face the 
death penalty, according to Monroe County District Attorney David Christine.

Authorities say Michael Horvath, a co-worker of the Lower Macungie Township 
woman, snatched her from her trailer on Nov. 22, 2013. Horvath is eligible for 
the death penalty since he's accused of committing felony crimes in the 
commission of a homicide. He's been charged with homicide, kidnapping, 
obstructing police, tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse.

Christine said the notice of aggravating circumstances, the document that puts 
the death penalty option on the table for a jury, was filed within the past 
week at the Monroe County Courthouse.

Grim's disappearance long vexed police and her loved ones. Horvath, who was 
late to work on the day Grim went missing, was interviewed 3 times, and his 
story to police remained mostly consistent. In 2014, authorities say he 
volunteered a swab of DNA, which in November 2015 came back as a match to 
bloodstains found at the back of Grim's home.

In October, as crews descended on Horvath's Ross Township home to dig for 
clues, roughly 100 pieces of human bone were recovered in Horvath's yard, 
including a bone from the middle of Grim's chest that was pierced by a gunshot, 
according to authorities. Police also recovered photographs from Horvath's 
computer, some of which showed the interior of Grim's home - a piece of 
evidence that even Horvath seemed surprised by during his preliminary hearing.

(source: Morning Call)

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

Death penalty sought in Holly Grim homicide, records say


The Monroe County man charged in the 2013 homicide of Lehigh County resident 
Holly Grim could be sentenced to death, upon conviction in the case.

Michael G. Horvath, 50, of the 2300 block of Woodhaven Drive in Ross Township, 
was arrested Oct. 13 on a charge of criminal homicide; 2 felony counts of 
kidnapping; and misdemeanor tampering with evidence, obstruction of justice and 
abuse of corps.

He is being held without the possibility of bail in the Monroe County prison.

The office of District Attorney E. David Christine Jr. filed notices of intent 
to seek the death penalty in the case on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, according to court 
records. First Assistant District Attorney Michael Mancuso is prosecuting the 
case.

When capital punishment is sought in a jury trial in Pennsylvania, upon 
conviction of 1st-degree murder, the jury will conduct a separate hearing to 
decide on a sentence of life in prison or the death penalty.

The aggravating circumstances where the death penalty may be applied include 
the commission of a homicide while in the perpetration of a felony.

Frederick Cutaio, defense counsel for Horvath, tried to have the kidnapping 
charges dismissed during Horvath's preliminary hearing Nov. 14. District Judge 
JoLana Krawitz instead bound all charges for Monroe County Court.

The next steps is formal arraignment in the courthouse in Stroudsburg, followed 
by trial unless a plea deal is reached or the case is disposed of in an 
alternative manner.

New details emerged during a hearing for Michael G. Horvath, charged in Grim's 
2013 disappearance and death.

Horvath worked at Allen Organ Co. in Macungie in the wood shop with Grim, who 
was reported missing the morning of Nov. 22, 2013, from her home in Lower 
Macungie Township by her mother, Jeannette Grim.

Grim, 41, would quickly be labeled a missing person, a status that would 
continue until bones identified as hers were found outside Horvath's home 
during a search from Sept. 27 until Oct. 5, authorities said.

Grim died of a gunshot wound to the chest.

Gov. Tom Wolf has put a moratorium on executions in Pennsylvania. The last 
person executed was Gary Heidnik, by lethal injection on July 6, 1999. He had 
been convicted and given 2 death sentences in July 1988 for savagely murdering 
two women he had imprisoned in his home.

(source: lehighvalleylive.com)





GEORGIA:

Dominique Powell's family agrees with decision to seek death penalty


4 alleged gang members could face the death penalty in connection to the murder 
of Dominique Powell in Savannah and now the victim's family members say they're 
glad that's a possibility.

The Chatham County District Attorney's office says it's seeking capital 
punishment for 21-year-old Timothy Coleman, 23-year-old Arthur Newton, 
22-year-old Artex Strain, and 21-year-old Tyriek Walker. The men are accused of 
killing 24-year-old Dominique Powell in the Tatemville neighborhood 3 months 
ago.

Investigators say the 4 men are all members of the "Bloods" gang.

Dominique Powell's mother, Angelique Powell, says the pain is just as bad now 
as it was in September when Powell was shot and killed.

"It's just hard, we're not doing well at all," said Angelique Powell.

"I don't think any of us sleep very well."

Powell was a father of 2, including a baby girl.

"He has missed his daughters 1st steps, 1st birthday, 1st everything and it's 
really hard," Powell said.

His family says moving forward has been difficult.

1 of the accused killers, Tyriek Walker, was Powell's good friend according to 
Powell's mother.

"I asked him to speak at my son's funeral as a friend, and to find out that he 
was responsible was really, really hard," said Powell.

Family members say they agree with the District Attorney's decision to seek the 
death penalty in this case.

"I feel like if they felt like he didn't deserve to be here then why should 
they deserve to be here?" Powell said.

The District Attorney's office says that they are committed to making sure each 
defendant in this case receives the death penalty.

The next court date has not been announced.

(source: WJCL news)

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

DA Heap to seek death penalty against 4 alleged Savannah Bloods gang members


District Attorney Meg Heap today announced the state would seek the death 
penalty against 4 alleged members of the nationally affiliated Bloods gang and 
related charges in connection with the shooting death of a 24-year-old man who 
was killed 5 days after defending himself during an armed robbery.

Arthur Newton, 23; Artez Strain, 22; Timothy Coleman, 21, and Tyriek Walker, 
21, each made their initial appearances in the Sept. 12 slaying of Dominique 
Powell.

In court documents filed in the case, Heap alleged that Newton directed another 
to commit Powell's slaying and that Coleman was the gunman. She also alleged 
that Coleman committed the murder of another "for the purpose of receiving 
money or any other thing of monetary value."

Walker also is alleged to have committed the slaying to "receive money or any 
other thing of monetary value" as an agent of another person.

Also pleading not guilty on separate counts were Antwan Drayton, 31, and 
Sharonte Williams, 27, who was identified as Newton's girlfriend.

Only Drayton was not named as a death penalty candidate. Williams remains at 
large.

Chatham County Superior Court Judge Penny Haas Freesemann ruled that because 
the death penalty is involved, the case would be assigned to the next local 
judge under a rotation plan adopted by the court.

During the appearances, Newton became vocal in court and was ordered by the 
judge to be removed. He fell to the floor and was taken by 2 deputies to the 
jail lockup.

The 4 key indictments, returned Nov. 16 on evidence presented by Heap, came a 
week after Savannah-Chatham Police Chief Joseph Lumpkin and federal officials 
announced the arrests in the revenge slaying.

According to officials, police responded for a shooting on Sept. 12 in the 900 
block of Garey Avenue in Tatemville where they found Powell, 24, suffering with 
a fatal gunshot wound outside a residence.

Powell was the victim of an armed robbery on Sept. 7 in the neighborhood. 
During the robbery, Powell exchanged gunfire with would-be robbers Drayton, and 
Newton, police said. Investigators concluded that Powell shot Drayton and 
Newton in self-defense during the robbery.

After being arrested, Newton ordered the death of Powell, and Strain, Coleman 
and Walker carried out those orders and participated in Powell's death, Lumpkin 
said.

According to the indictments, Coleman caused Powell's death by shooting him on 
Sept. 12.

The indictments charge that Newton "did intentionally encourage and procure 
Coleman to commit the crime of malice murder by shooting Powell."

Newton also was indicted on a felony-murder count by procuring Coleman to kill 
Powell by shooting him during an aggravated assault and while influencing a 
witness, both of which are felonies.

In furtherance of the scheme, grand jurors charged that:

--Newton contacted Coleman and requested that he kill Powell

--Newton and Coleman contacted Walker and requested that he provide a firearm 
to Coleman.

--Newton and Coleman contacted Walker and asked that he provide Coleman with 
Powell's known addresses.

--Strain drove Coleman to the scene to kill Powell

--Coleman did shoot Powell

The indictment also charged Newton with aggravated assault and influencing a 
witness by using physical force toward Powell to influence his testimony as a 
witness in the trial of Newton.

The indictment also charged Newton and the other three with being associated 
with Bloods, a criminal street gang, in the case.

It also contained repeated charges of possession of a firearm during the 
commission of a felony.

In a separate indictment, Drayton was charged with armed robbery, aggravated 
assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony in the 
Sept. 8 attack on Powell.

Robbers intended to take Powell's wallet, cell phone and a firearm and pointed 
a handgun at him, the indictment said.

And, grand jurors indicted Williams on a charge of criminal attempt to commit 
felony.

That indictment, returned on evidence presented by Assistant District Attorney 
Matthew Breedon, charged that between Sept. 8-12 she intentionally attempted to 
influence a witness by having telephone contact with Newton, and discussed how 
to influence a woman to drop criminal charges against Newton.

(source: Savannah Morning News)






FLORIDA:

Justices Decline to Take Up Case of 40-Year Death Row Inmate


A divided Supreme Court on Monday declined to intervene in the case of a 
Florida man who has spent 40 on death row awaiting his execution.

Henry Perry Sireci was convicted of the murder and sentenced to die on Nov. 15, 
1976.

According to prosecutors, Sireci went to a used car lot in Orlando, Florida on 
Dec. 3, 1975, and spoke to its owner, Howard Poteet, about buying a car.

During their conversation, the government said, Sireci, armed with a wrench and 
a knife, got into a struggle with Poteet.

Forensic evidence entered during Sireci's subsequent murder trial shows Poteet 
suffered 55 stab wounds and cuts to his head, back, chest and extremities.

His throat was also cut and he died of massive hemorrhaging.

Sireci never denied visiting the used car lot, but he has consistently 
maintained he was innocent of murder. Sireci says he went to the lot and went 
to the owner's office because he wanted to make off with a set a key that he 
could use later to steal a car.

The prosecution said Sireci's real intent was to rob Poteet, and the murder was 
a robbery gone wrong.

Sireci has filed multiple challenges to his conviction over the past 4 decades, 
most of them premised on the fact the government's case during his murder trial 
was based on inaccurate forensic science and false expert testimony.

All of his appeals failed.

In July 2016, he petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to consider 
whether a state court violates a petitioner's federal due process rights when 
it denies him a new trial and a DNA test when new evidence is found casting the 
evidence and testimony in his original trial in doubt.

On Monday, a majority of justices denied to grant certiorari to the case, 
prompting Justice Stephen Breyer to write a 3-page dissent.

Breyer believes the time has come for the court to reconsider the 
constitutionality of the death penalty. In this case, it wasn't the purported 
new evidence or the claimed tainted nature of the old evidence used to convict 
Sireci that disturbed him - in fact he doesn't address those issues at all in 
his dissent - but rather, that Sireci has "lived in prison under threat of 
execution for 40 years."

"I should hope that this kind of delay would arise only on the rarest of 
occasions. But in the ever diminishing universe of actual executions, I fear 
that delays of this kind have become more common," Breyer wrote.

"The number of yearly executions has fallen from its peak of 98 in 1999 to 19 
so far this year, while the average period of imprisonment between death 
sentence and execution has rise," he continued. "Nor is this case the only case 
during the last few months in which the Court has received, but then rejected, 
a petition to review an execution taking place in what I would consider 
especially cruel and unusual circumstances."

As an example, Breyer pointed to the case of Ohio death row inmate Romell 
Broom, who the state attempted and failed to execute by lethal injection on 
Sept. 15, 2009.

"Medical team members tried for over 2 hours to find a useable vein, repeatedly 
injecting him with needles and striking bone in the process, all causing 'a 
great deal of pain,'" Breyer wrote. "The State now wishes to try to execute 
Broom once again. Given its 1st failure, does its 2nd attempt amount to a 
'cruel and unusual' punishment?"

Breyer also raised the issue of the inequitable way in which some are sentenced 
to death, and others, committing the same or worse crimes, are not.

"As I and other Justices have previously pointed out, individuals who are 
executed are not the 'worst of the worst,' but, rather, are individuals chosen 
at random, on the basis, perhaps of geography, perhaps of the views of 
individual prosecutors, or still worse on the basis of race."

(source: Courthouse News)

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

Prosecutors seek death penalty for man accused of killing Pittsburgh natives in 
Florida


Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for the man accused of killing a 
Pittsburgh woman and her uncle in Florida, Channel 11's Catherine Varnum 
reports.

Thomas Brown is charged with the deaths of his girlfriend, Amy Hatfield, and 
her uncle, Robert Massey, who were both found dead in Massey's Jacksonville, 
Florida, home in July.

Officials released the sound from 2 separate 911 calls from the night of their 
murder.

Caller 1: "Uh, yes, uh, I need officers. Our neighbor's been murdered."

Caller 2: ":His roommate came home from work, found him laying, came screaming 
out the door and said someone killed him."

Video obtained by Channel 11 showed Brown being arrested from a treatment 
facility in Georgia, falling asleep on the floor at times, putting his head in 
his hands and talking to detectives about detox.

"I don't know how it happened. I honest to God don't know how it happened," 
Brown said.

Channel 11 was 1st to report Brown had warrants for his arrest on burglaries in 
Mount Lebanon, and detectives asked him about them.

"Did you leave there because you knew you had the warrants?" detectives said.

"Yeah, it was on the news. Cause I've never been there. It was on the news -- 
Channel 11 News," Brown said.

Amy's sister, Dana Hatfield, said she is angrier and more frustrated by 
something else Brown said.

"I was doing burglaries every night so she could get high," Brown said.

Dana Hatfield said her sister cannot defend herself and he is trying to make 
Amy look bad.

Amy Hatfield left a message for a friend, expressing concern about Brown, 
before her death.

"I have nothing. I'm done with him... I don't trust him," Amy said in the 
message.

Dana said with the holidays approaching, it is still hard to realize her sister 
is gone.

"I don't even want to do it, but I have to, (for) my kids. It's gonna be hard," 
Dana Hatfield said.

(source; WPXI news)






OHIO:

Convicted man's stepmother: Juvenile detention changed him


The stepmother of a young man convicted of aggravated murder and other charges 
in a triple homicide at a suburban barbershop said his 1st stay in a juvenile 
detention facility changed him.

Douglas Shine Jr.'s stepmother testified Wednesday as the sentencing phase of 
his trial got underway in Cleveland, where jurors will decide whether to 
recommend the death penalty.

Cleveland.com (http://bit.ly/2fXtpYf ) reports that Stinner Shine told jurors 
that her 21-year-old stepson went into a youth facility in Hudson as a vibrant 
and smiley 10-year-old boy but came out a guarded young man with no trust in 
others.

"He'd still smile, but there was something gone," Stinner Shine said. "He grew 
up too fast."

A psychologist who examined Douglas Shine Jr. and reviewed hundreds of pages of 
school, jail, prison and social services records also testified Wednesday.

Psychologist Robert Kaplan said Shine had no clear role model growing up. 
Shine's mother spent 4 months in jail when he was 6 months old and frequently 
abused him, Kaplan said.

Kaplan said Shine first went to juvenile detention center when he was 10 on a 
burglary charge and was pressured to join a street gang when he was 14 and 
transferred to a youth prison.

No one ever followed through on recommendations from psychologists at jails, 
juvenile courts and schools that Shine go to therapy or counseling and be 
enrolled in specialized education programs, Kaplan said.

"You're dealing with large systems, bureaucracies where people fall through the 
cracks," said Kaplan, who was scheduled to continue his testimony Thursday.

Shine was convicted Nov. 4 of opening fire inside a Warrensville Heights 
barbershop in February 2015, killing the owner, an employee and a customer. The 
jury also convicted Shine of conspiring to kill a witness.

If jurors recommend the death penalty, a Cuyahoga County Common Pleas judge 
will decide whether to impose that sentence or give Shine life in prison with 
no chance of parole.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Ohio inmate loses appeal to block 2nd attempt at execution


The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal by a condemned killer whose 
2009 execution was called off after 2 hours during which he cried in pain while 
receiving 18 needle sticks.

The court's 6-2 ruling denies death row inmate Romell Broom the opportunity to 
argue that giving the state prisons agency a 2nd chance to execute him would 
amount to cruel and unusual punishment and double jeopardy.

Broom, 60, is only the 2nd inmate to survive an execution in U.S. history and 
the only via lethal injection. In 1947, Louisiana electrocuted 18-year-old 
Willie Francis by electric chair a year after an improperly prepared electric 
chair failed to work. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to allow the 2nd 
execution to proceed, rejecting double jeopardy arguments.

Broom was sentenced to die for raping and killing 14-year-old Tryna Middleton 
after abducting her in Cleveland in 1984 as she walked home from a football 
game with 2 friends.

Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan said they would have granted Broom's 
appeal, with Breyer saying the execution attempt took place under "especially 
cruel and unusual circumstances."

Despite the ruling, a 2nd execution is years away because of other scheduled 
executions and uncertainty over the state's supply of lethal injection drugs.

Broom's lawyer called the court's decision a missed opportunity. Previous 
lawsuits alleging that a botched execution violated an inmate's rights involved 
prisoners who ultimately died, said attorney Adele Shank.

"Here the court had the opportunity to address a case where there was a living 
person there to vindicate their constitutional rights," Shank said. "So it's 
very disappointing that this unique opportunity was not accepted for review by 
the court."

Ohioans to Stop Executions, the state's largest anti-death penalty 
organization, renewed its call for Republican Gov. John Kasich to grant Broom 
clemency.

A message was left with the state seeking comment.

The Ohio Supreme Court earlier this year rejected Broom's state appeal. The 
court sided with prosecutors who say double jeopardy doesn't apply to Broom 
because lethal drugs never entered Broom's veins while executioners 
unsuccessfully tried to hook up an IV.

Prosecutors also argue that a previously unsuccessful execution attempt doesn't 
affect the constitutionality of Broom's death sentence.

Broom's 2009 execution was stopped by then-Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, 
after an execution team tried for 2 hours to find a suitable vein. Broom has 
said he was stuck with needles at least 18 times, with pain so intense he cried 
and screamed.

An hour into the execution, the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction 
recruited a part-time prison doctor with no experience or training with 
executions to try - again, unsuccessfully - to find a vein.

Broom has been back on death row since. No new execution date has been set. 
(source: mcclatchydc.com)






KANSAS:

Capital murder cases on Supreme Court docket


2 of the final cases the Kansas Supreme Court will consider in 2016 are capital 
murder cases, including a quadruple murder case challenging the 
constitutionality of executing mentally ill inmates.

The state's high court will hear 5 days of oral arguments in 16 cases beginning 
Monday. The court will then take a 5-week break from arguments as it writes 
opinions in pending cases.

On Thursday, the court will consider a challenge by Billy Frank Davis Jr., who 
was sentenced to life in prison for the 2012 beating, rape and murder of 
8-year-old Ah'liyah Irvin in a Topeka apartment building. Davis was spared the 
death penalty by a single juror who opposed it.

Davis makes 5 claims in his appeal to the Supreme Court, chief among them that 
there was insufficient evidence to support a conviction of premeditated and 
intentional murder.

Sarah Johnson, a capital appellate defender representing Davis, claims her 
client never intended to kill Irvin, only to cause her to lose consciousness. 
During his interrogation, he repeatedly expressed shock when told Irvin had 
died.

"Mr. Davis' actions that night were far from the acts of a premeditating, 
intentional killer," Johnson wrote in a brief. "His actions were rash, not 
thought out, and haphazard. They do not support a finding of guilt on 
premeditated, intentional murder."

Shawnee County assistant district attorney Jodi Litfin disagrees. Davis' mode 
of murder - strangulation - strongly suggests it was premeditated, she argues 
in a brief. Davis watched his victim sleep for several minutes before 
kidnapping her and killing her, a crime that took at least 10 minutes. That is 
further evidence of premeditation, Litfin argues.

In Kansas, appellate courts, including the Supreme Court, don't reweigh 
evidence. Instead, the court, viewing evidence in a light most favorable to 
Litfin and the prosecution, will determine whether a reasonable person could 
have found Davis guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Supreme Court has set aside Friday morning for the State of Kansas v. James 
Kraig Kahler. In most cases, the court schedules 15 minutes each for the two 
sides to argue. For the Kahler case, however, each side will have one hour to 
make its arguments.

Kahler was sentenced to die in 2011 for the November 2009 murder of his 
estranged wife, his 2 daughters and his wife's grandmother over Thanksgiving 
weekend in Burlingame. His defense attorney never disputed that he committed 
the crimes but claimed that Kahler was severely mentally impaired because of 
major depression.

In lengthy court filings that total more than 200 pages, Johnson, representing 
Kahler, raises 10 issues on appeal and asks that Kahler's convictions and death 
sentence be vacated.

"The trial of Kraig Kahler was marred by numerous errors by both a prosecution 
who thought different rules applied to the 2 sides and by a district court who 
seemingly agreed," Johnson wrote.

For example, Johnson alleges, Osage County Judge Phillip Fromme admonished 
Kahler's defense attorney for quoting from a recording that had been introduced 
as evidence but allowed a prosecutor to do so without admonishment.

Other arguments by Johnson delve deep into constitutional disputes. A state law 
outlining when the insanity defense can be applied is unconstitutional, she 
argues, so reading it to jurors violated Kahler's right to a fair trial.

Beyond challenges to Kahler's convictions, Johnson also challenges his death 
sentence and, in turn, the state???s death penalty laws. For defendants with 
severe mental illness, such as Kahler, the death penalty is a violation of the 
Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment, she writes.

"Evolving standards of decency show a consistent direction of change against 
executing the severely mentally ill," Johnson's brief states.

Deputy solicitor general Kristafer Ailslieger will argue the case for the 
state. In legal briefs, he called Johnson???s claims of prosecutorial and 
judicial misconduct "without merit." The jury was properly instructed on Kansas 
law, he wrote, and the state law dictating insanity defenses is constitutional.

The insanity defense law in question, Ailslieger notes, was determined by the 
Kansas Supreme Court to be constitutional in 2003. "Indeed, (the) defendant 
does nothing more than rehash the same arguments that were rejected," he wrote.

Turning to Johnson's proposed ban on the death penalty for mentally ill 
defendants, Ailslieger says Kahler and Johnson failed to name which mental 
illness the defendant suffers from and how it prevents the court from enacting 
the death penalty.

"That failure, coupled with his failure to even attempt to define the 
parameters of what constitutes a serious mental illness, leaves this court 
without any manner of analyzing an actual categorical rule prohibiting the 
death penalty," Ailslieger argues.

Capital murder cases in Kansas can be appealed directly to the Kansas Supreme 
Court, which has a mixed record on the death penalty. In perhaps its most 
talked-about opinion in recent years, the court overturned the death sentences 
of Jonathan and Reginald Carr, a 2014 decision that was reversed by the U.S. 
Supreme Court but not before it earned Kansas justices the scorn of 
conservatives and victims groups. In other cases, however, the court has upheld 
the death penalty.

(source: Ottawa Herald)






USA:

Are Some Prosecutors Experts At Wrongful Conviction?


To be clear, this article in is no way directed at those government agents and 
prosecutors who do not abuse their power to seek or maintain false convictions. 
But since 1989, almost 2,000 people have been exonerated of crimes they never 
committed - a number that just scratches the surface of the true tally of 
wrongful convictions. Most of these people were sentenced to the death penalty, 
life sentences, or decades in prison. The average time they spent in prison was 
between 13 1/2 and 15 years. And again, that's only those who were fortunate 
enough to be exonerated. The rest of us - and there are many of us - have to 
fight daily to expose our innocence and the injustice we have suffered.

When wrongful convictions are viewed as mistakes while new records of 
exonerations are set yearly, we have to ask: are we turning a blind eye to 
injustice or does society just not want to call it for what it really is?

In exoneration cases over the last 2 years, prosecution misconduct was 
responsible for 75% of the wrongful convictions. Prosecutors' practices of 
abusing their authority take many forms: false confessions, false witnesses, 
withholding favorable evidence, and much more. These tactics are used daily to 
secure false convictions. The chosen victims? The poor and less fortunate. 
Sadly, in many instances, our criminal justice system has actively encouraged 
these prosecutors to get guilty verdicts by any means necessary, and then stand 
by the most questionable convictions.

The Supreme Court decision Brady v. Maryland (1963) holds that if prosecutors 
fail to provide favorable evidence that is material either to guilt or to 
punishment in response to a case discovery request, this failure violates due 
process. The use of materiality as an element of determining Brady disclosures 
has created huge problems, however. Prosecutors have often used the claim that 
evidence wasn't "material" to guilt or punishment as an excuse for failing to 
disclose favorable evidence. This is wrong - materiality is impossible to 
determine pretrial. Why? The government does not know the theory of the 
defense.

Finally, 53 years after Brady v. Maryland, and with almost 2,000 exonerations 
since 1989, the state of California has had enough of government agents' and 
prosecutors' misconduct. As of October 2016, California prosecutors who 
knowingly withhold or falsify evidence can now be charged with a felony and go 
straight to prison under a new law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown (D). A brave 
California Assemblywoman, Patty Lopez (D), introduced this bill (AB1909), 
making withholding evidence or falsifying of evidence by a prosecutor a felony 
in California.

This new law is like a breath of fresh air for us innocent prisoners, who have 
suffered from this misconduct for decades by false imprisonment. AB1909 should 
not only be spoken about but enacted in law in EVERY state to ensure justice 
for ALL.

The million dollar question is: are all states going to adopt this bill to 
bring an end to innocent prisoners' worst nightmares? Once again, this article 
is not directed at prosecutors whom do not take part in malicious tactics that 
shatter innocent prisoners' and our families' lives. For too long, these 
continuous crimes have gone unpunished. It's time to bring an end to this 
madness. Only time will tell how seriously our system takes prosecution 
misconduct.

(source: Lorenzo Johnson served 16 1/2 years of a life-without-parole sentence 
until 2012, when the Third Circuit Federal Court of Appeals ruled there was 
legally insufficient evidence for his conviction. He remained free for 4 
months, after which the US Supreme Court unanimously reinstated the conviction 
and ordered him back to prison to resume the sentence. With the support of The 
Pennsylvania Innocence Project, he is continuing to fight for his freedom. 
Though he does not have internet access himself, you can email his campaign, 
make a donation, or sign his petition and learn more at: 
http://www.freelorenzojohnson.org/sign-the-petition.html----Huffington Post)

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

Ex-governor Michael Dukakis endorses campaign to exonerate Ethel Rosenberg, 
executed in 1953


More than 60 years after the execution of alleged spy Ethel Rosenberg, a former 
governor of Massachusetts has endorsed a campaign to exonerate her.

Rosenberg and her husband, Julius, of New York, were put to death by electric 
chair in 1953 for conspiring to pass secrets about the atomic bomb to the 
Soviets. Other alleged co-conspirators served prison sentences after 
cooperating with prosecutors.

The Rosenbergs' convictions and executions remain controversial, with 
supporters saying the evidence was weak and the Rosenbergs were victims of Cold 
War hysteria.

The couple's sons, Robert and Michael Meeropol, were 6 and 10 years old at the 
time. Now 69 and 73, they are asking the U.S. Department of Justice and 
President Obama to definitively state that their mother was innocent.

"An enormous body of evidence ... demonstrates that Ethel Rosenberg was not a 
spy, and that the government knew this at the time of her trial and execution," 
said Dukakis in offering his support. "The charges against Ethel and the threat 
of the death penalty were meant to intimidate her and use her, in the 
government's own words, as 'a lever' to force her husband to cooperate with the 
prosecution."

The cause has also earned endorsements from U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, 
D-Worcester, filmmaker Michael Moore and 13 members of the New York City 
Council, along with 45,000 signatures on an online petition by the Rosenberg 
Fund for Children.

This effort is modeled on a proclamation Dukakis issued as governor in 1977, 
declaring that Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian immigrants and 
alleged anarchists executed for murder in 1927, were not guilty.

"Today, I urge President Obama to take similar action," said Dukakis, adding 
that a presidential proclamation would be in the service of "justice."

In an interview last month, Robert Meeropol said he does not want his mother 
pardoned "because she was not guilty. We're asking for a proclamation that she 
was wrongly convicted, and wrongly executed."

The brothers acknowledged in 2008 that their father was part of a conspiracy, 
but they insist he did not pass along nuclear secrets. Their change of heart 
about Julius Rosenberg came after co-defendant Morty Sobell confessed.

(source: masslive.com)

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The Lethal Gaps in How the Supreme Court Handles the Death Penalty


7 of the 12 jurors who convicted Ronald B. Smith in the murder of a convenience 
store clerk voted to spare his life. When the case reached the Supreme Court, 4 
of the 8 justices voted to stay his execution.

The arithmetic of capital punishment can seem curious. Mr. Smith was executed 
Thursday night.

Mr. Smith was convicted of murdering the clerk in 1994 in Huntsville, Ala. The 
jury recommended life without parole, but the trial judge overrode that 
determination, sentencing Mr. Smith to death.

Alabama is the only state that allows such overrides. It is a good bet that the 
Supreme Court will soon weigh the constitutionality of the practice.

That will be too late for Mr. Smith, who came up one vote short on Thursday 
night, illuminating a lethal gap in the Supreme Court's internal practices. It 
takes 4 votes to put a case on the court???s docket, but it takes 5 to stop an 
execution.

Over the years, in fits and starts, some justices have sought to address this 
anomaly by casting a "courtesy 5th" vote to stay an execution when 4 justices 
thought the case worthy of further consideration.

In a 1985 concurrence, Justice Lewis F. Powell explained his reluctant decision 
to supply such a courtesy vote. The inmate's case had "no merit whatever," he 
wrote. "But in view of the unusual situation in which 4 justices have voted" to 
hear it, he wrote, "and in view of the fact that this is a capital case with 
petitioner's life at stake, and further in view of the fact that the justices 
are scattered geographically and unable to meet for a conference, I feel 
obligated to join in granting the application for a stay."

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. was asked about the practice at his 
confirmation hearing in 2005.

"How would you feel, if you were chief, if you had 4 of the justices now voting 
for a stay of execution?" Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, asked. 
"Do you feel as chief you would do the courtesy of kicking in the 5th one?"

Chief Justice Roberts seemed receptive. "I don't want to commit to pursue a 
particular practice," he said. "But it obviously makes great sense."

"You don't want to moot the case by not staying the sentence," he added.

In the 11 years that Chief Justice Roberts has led the Supreme Court, its 
commitment to such courtesy votes has been inconsistent. Until Thursday, 
though, it seemed to be on the upswing.

The recent trend started with a case on transgender rights. A Virginia school 
board wanted to stop a transgender boy, Gavin Grimm, from using the boys' 
restroom at his high school while the Supreme Court considered an appeal from a 
decision in Mr. Grimm's favor.

In August, the court's 4 more conservative members - Chief Justice Roberts and 
Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. - voted to 
grant a stay. Justice Stephen G. Breyer added a 5th vote "as a courtesy."

Justice Breyer's motives were not hard to discern. He was concerned about 
execution chambers, not restrooms. The only case he cited in his concurrence in 
the transgender case was Medellin v. Texas, a death penalty decision in which 
he had expressed frustration that "no member of the majority has proved willing 
to provide a courtesy vote for a stay."

Last month, Justice Breyer's gambit seemed to pay off. On Nov. 3, the court 
considered an application for a stay of execution from another Alabama death 
row inmate, Thomas D. Arthur. Chief Justice Roberts provided the 5th vote 
needed to halt the execution.

He said he would not ordinarily have favored a stay, but noted that four 
justices had voted in favor of one. "To afford them the opportunity to more 
fully consider the suitability of this case for review," Chief Justice Roberts 
wrote, "I vote to grant the stay as a courtesy."

On Thursday, in Mr. Smith's case, the court's more liberal members - Justices 
Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan - voted for a 
stay. But this time there was no courtesy 5th vote.

Upon hearing that news, Mr. Smith's lawyers immediately filed a last-minute 
request for reconsideration.

"The court should not permit executions in the face of four dissents," the 
motion said, adding that the court's practices in this area "clash with the 
appearance and reality both of equal justice under law and of sound judicial 
decision making."

That motion was denied, too, this time without noted dissent.

The leading student of the courtesy 5th is Eric M. Freedman, a law professor at 
Hofstra University. The title of his 2015 law review article on the subject 
makes his views plain: "No Execution if 4 Justices Object."

On Thursday night, as it became clear that Mr. Smith was going to die, 
Professor Freedman made a more modest point. The justices, he said, should at 
the least explain their reasoning and standards.

"The time has long ago passed for the court to address forthrightly a situation 
which is simply unseemly," Professor Freedman said. "For people to live or die 
in the middle of the night on the basis of no visible rule is simply at odds 
with any defensible system of judicial decision making."

(source: Adam Liptak, New York Times)

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Breyer: Supreme Court must 'reconsider the constitutionality of the death 
penalty'


Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer dissented on Monday from the high court's 
decision not to hear a death penalty case from Florida, and argued it's time 
for the court to reconsider the issue.

The court declined to hear a petition from Henry Sireci, a man convicted of 
murder and sentenced to death 40 years ago. In his dissent, Breyer argued that, 
"[T]he time has come for this Court to reconsider the constitutionality of the 
death penalty."

"I should hope that this kind of delay would arise only on the rarest of 
occasions. But in the ever diminishing universe of actual executions, I fear 
that delays of this kind have become more common," Breyer wrote. "As I and 
other Justices have previously pointed out, individuals who are executed are 
not the 'worst of the worst,' but, rather, are individuals chosen at random, on 
the basis, perhaps of geography, perhaps of the views of individual 
prosecutors, or still worse on the basis of race."

Breyer's call comes on the heels of a split decision from the Supreme Court 
last week that allowed the execution of an Alabama man to proceed after 
multiple stays from the high court. The high court has already heard oral 
arguments in one death penalty case this term, Moore v. Texas, in which the 
court will decide whether the execution of an inmate after a prolonged period 
of incarceration - much of it spent in isolated confinement - violates the 
Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

(source: washingtonexaminer.com)

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Dylann Roof is the best argument we have for the death penalty


Like so many Americans, I have found myself in recent years on a journey when 
it comes to capital punishment.

I used to be an ardent supporter of the death penalty. 20 years ago, I would 
have confidently argued that the only reason there is any doubt about the 
deterrent effect of capital punishment is that we execute too few murderers and 
do so too slowly. I would have waved away any anecdote about innocent people 
being released from death row by saying something like, "The fact that someone 
who was not guilty did not die is not an argument against capital punishment."

But the number of innocent people freed from death row - at 156 and climbing, 
according to the anti-capital punishment Death Penalty Information Center - 
rose to the point where I began to feel doubt. Other concerns also gnawed at 
me. I am both pro-life and substantially libertarian in my politics, combining 
a belief in the sanctity of human life and a skepticism of government power 
that sits uneasily with support for capital punishment.

I no longer believe in executions as a routine punishment for the worst crimes, 
even homicide. The criminal justice system is too flawed and in need of reform. 
Too few Americans, especially in communities of color, have confidence in the 
equal protection of our laws.

Yet my journey has not ended at the same destination as others who have raised 
similar questions about the death penalty. I still do not believe capital 
punishment is inherently unjust in principle, even if I believe its frequent 
application is always likely to become so in practice. And some crimes are so 
heinous, there is no other just punishment for them.

For an example, look no further than the trial of Dylann Roof. Roof has 
confessed to murdering 9 innocent Americans during a prayer service at a 
historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina. He killed them in cold 
blood while they prayed, in premeditated fashion, because of the hatred burning 
in his heart.

Many of the common objections to the death penalty do not apply in Roof's case. 
There is no doubt about his guilt. "I went to that church in Charleston and I 
did it," he confessed with a laugh. "Did you shoot them?" a law enforcement 
officer asked. "Yes," Roof replied, laughing again.

Sentencing Roof to death would not illustrate structural racism. Quite the 
opposite. It would enhance racial justice and signify progress in a region of 
the country where the state did not always protect African Americans from 
racist murderers. It would be a public affirmation that black lives matter.

Wielding the noose infrequently makes its occasional uses a more powerful 
statement of our society's intolerance of certain acts of evil without allowing 
it to devalue life itself. Consider the countries that do not normally have the 
death penalty but executed Nazi war criminals. Osama bin Laden's death would 
have been an act of justice even if he could have been apprehended peacefully.

Murder is a gruesome and barbaric business. Its perpetrators deserve the 
ultimate punishment. But a society must try to balance its power and right to 
impose that penalty with its need to avoid becoming an accomplice to murder 
itself.

That's admittedly not an easy balance to reach. One of the other cases that has 
kept me from becoming an unadulterated opponent of the death penalty is the 
murder of a friend's grandmother. A sweet 94-year-old woman, she was brutally 
beaten to death by a young man who robbed and attempted to rape her in her own 
home.

The poor woman had lived nearly ten decades in peace, seeking only to live out 
the rest of her days with dignity. Instead her life ended in violence and 
terror. No other punishment seems adequate for such a crime, even though the 
perpetrator is not eligible for capital punishment under current legal 
precedent due to his age, a teenager being tried as an adult.

It is possible so many outrageous cases could be found that if we imposed death 
sentences in all of them, we would quickly be back to our current system of 
mass executions. Even in Roof's case, it feels wrong to write about how his 
crimes warrant capital punishment with Christmas music playing in the 
background, hours removed from church.

But that might be exactly what the country needs: a reluctant hangman carefully 
guarding their occasional acts of justice against degenerating into injustice.

(source: Opinion, W. James Antle III----The Week)

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

Does the death penalty serve a purpose? Supreme Court hasn't decided either


Death came knocking at the Supreme Court's door twice last week, as it has done 
most weeks since the justices took the bench in early October.

When William Sallie asked for a stay of execution Tuesday because of alleged 
juror bias, the justices refused, apparently without dissent. Sallie, 50, 
became the 9th man put to death in Georgia this year, a 40-year high.

When Ronald Smith asked that his execution be blocked Thursday because a judge 
overrode a jury's recommendation of life without parole, the court deadlocked 
4-4. Smith, 45, later heaved and coughed during his 34-minute lethal injection.

And when Florida's Henry Sireci, Ohio's Romell Broom, Louisiana's James Tyler 
and South Carolina's Sammie Stokes asked for their death sentences to be 
reconsidered - because of new evidence, a previously botched lethal injection, 
a disputed guilty plea and a lawyer's conflict of interest, respectively - the 
justices delayed action for several weeks. On Monday, all four petitions were 
turned down, but with a biting dissent from Justice Stephen Breyer.

"Individuals who are executed are not the 'worst of the worst' but, rather, are 
individuals chosen at random on the basis, perhaps of geography, perhaps of the 
views of individual prosecutors, or still worse on the basis of race," Breyer, 
who would have heard Sireci's and Broom's cases, said. "The time has come for 
this court to reconsider the constitutionality of the death penalty."

The 6 cases illustrate the continuing battle inside the Supreme Court over the 
nation's ultimate penalty - 1 imposed and carried out less often each year, but 
which voters in 3 states, including California, decided to retain last month.

40 years after the high court reinstated the death penalty in another Georgia 
case, the justices are increasingly divided over when it is applied, how it is 
administered and whether it serves any purpose. Since the turn of the century, 
they have ended executions for the intellectually disabled, those whose crimes 
were committed as juveniles, and those who do not commit murder or treason. 
Last year, Breyer and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said it was time to decide 
whether capital punishment itself should be abolished.

Time, however, is not on their side. President-elect Donald Trump soon will 
nominate the late Justice Antonin Scalia's successor, someone who is virtually 
certain to support the death penalty. Before his term is over, Trump could get 
the chance to replace one or more of the 5 justices who have limited its scope. 
3 of them - Ginsburg, Breyer and Justice Anthony Kennedy - are long past 
traditional retirement age.

"The window is narrowing," says Robert Smith of Harvard Law School's Fair 
Punishment Project, which opposes the death penalty. If Trump names several 
strong capital punishment proponents, "there's a chance the window closes for a 
generation."

Until then, it appears the justices will have to wrestle with a series of legal 
challenges. Already this term, they've overturned a death sentence in Oklahoma 
because of improper testimony from victims' family members and blocked another 
Alabama execution that a jury did not agree upon. That state's system, which 
empowers judges over juries, could go the way of Florida's and get struck down.

2 other cases appear likely to result in further restrictions. During oral 
arguments this fall on 2 Texas death sentences, a majority of justices appeared 
sympathetic to challenges from defendants involving racial discrimination and 
intellectual disability. More challenges are on the way, including some that 
simply question whether the range of problems renders capital punishment 
unconstitutional.

"You're playing whack-a-mole with the death penalty," says Robert Dunham, 
executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes 
capital punishment. "The pattern that we???re seeing is not just the court 
reaching out to correct errors, but the court looking at renegade, outlier 
practices."

Amid decline, a resurgence?

The high court's role in the gradual decline of capital punishment has been 
relatively minor. Far more important have been historic reductions in new death 
sentences - from about 300 annually in the 1990s to fewer than 50 a year today 
- and executions, down from 98 in 1999 to just 20 this year.

41 states have not executed anyone in the last 4 years. The number of states 
that carried out executions dropped from 9 in 2013 to 7, 6 and just 5 this 
year. Only about 16 of the nation's more than 3,000 counties dole out capital 
sentences regularly.

"The death penalty is driving itself to extinction," says Brandon Garrett, a 
professor at the University of Virginia School of Law. In an upcoming research 
paper that looks at every U.S. death sentence from 1990 to 2015, he says, "What 
remains of the American death penalty is quite fragile and reflects a legacy of 
racial bias and idiosyncratic local preferences."

But voters last month staged a capital punishment comeback of sorts, defeating 
an abolition effort in California, restoring it to the books in Nebraska 
following legislative repeal, and adding it to the state constitution in 
Oklahoma.

"It means we're going in the other direction," says Kent Scheidegger, general 
counsel at the conservative Criminal Justice Legal Foundation. "The other side 
is not making progress. They are slipping."

That's not the case in state supreme courts, where the death penalty has been 
struck down recently in Florida, Delaware and Connecticut. The Florida ruling, 
if made retroactive, could affect nearly 400 inmates on death row.

At the Supreme Court, issues involving overzealous prosecutors, inadequate 
defense lawyers, and the race or mental capacity of defendants have kept the 
justices busy this fall:

-- On Oct. 5, a majority of justices seemed convinced during oral argument 
that Texas' Duane Buck deserved a reprieve after one of his own witnesses 
testified he would be more dangerous in the future because he is black. Even 
conservative Justice Samuel Alito said the testimony was "indefensible."

-- 6 days later, the court ruled unanimously that Shaun Bosse's death sentence 
must be reconsidered because Oklahoma courts ignored Supreme Court precedent by 
allowing his murder victims' family members to recommend execution over life 
without parole.

-- On Oct. 17, the court refused to hear an appeal from Clark Elmore of 
Washington state, who wanted his death sentence struck down because of 
inadequate representation in court. In a 15-page dissent, Justice Sonia 
Sotomayor, with Ginsburg's support, said "whatever flaws do exist in our system 
can be tolerated only by remaining faithful to our Constitution's procedural 
safeguards."

-- On Nov. 3, 5 justices agreed to block the execution of Alabama's Tommy 
Arthur, who had raised objections about the state's lethal injection protocol 
and its system of letting judges overrule juries on sentencing. Chief Justice 
John Roberts added his vote to those of the 4 liberal justices "as a courtesy" 
so that the case could be considered for review.

-- During another oral argument on Nov. 29, a majority of justices appeared 
likely to block Texas from executing Bobby Moore by relying on an outdated 
definition of intellectual disability. Breyer warned that different standards 
for determining mental impairment will lead to "disparities and uncertainties, 
and different people treated alike, and people who are alike treated 
differently."

"The Supreme Court seems more sensitive to the injustices perpetrated in the 
name of the death penalty and more inclined to regulate its use," says Kathryn 
Kase, executive director of Texas Defender Service, which represents death row 
inmates. "If Buck and Moore prevail ... that will only fuel the trend towards 
reduced use of the death penalty."

'Reserved ... for those unlucky few'

The next step for the court, beyond juveniles and the intellectual disabled, 
may be to set a national standard for defendants with severe mental illness. 
The American Bar Association, American Psychological Association, National 
Alliance on Mental Illness and others are mounting a national campaign to take 
capital punishment off the table for that population.

"We ... have a duty to fit the punishment to the offender," says Hilarie Bass, 
the ABA's president-elect. Studies have estimated that about 20% of the nearly 
3,000 inmates on death row have a severe mental illness, she says.

Some opponents believe the court may go further in the future and declare the 
death penalty unconstitutional. They argue that it no longer serves as a 
deterrent to crime because of the years or decades those convicted will spend 
languishing in prison during myriad state and federal court appeals. They also 
contend the nation's standards of decency have changed since capital 
punishment's heyday.

"I think it is very plausible that if there are five votes to end the death 
penalty, it could be with the people who are on the court right now," Smith 
says.

In addition to Breyer and Ginsburg, that would require support from Sotomayor 
and Justices Elena Kagan and Anthony Kennedy - the perennial swing vote on the 
court. Kennedy has written many of its decisions on juveniles and the 
intellectually disabled and has been a vocal critic of decades-long solitary 
confinement. Kagan joined Breyer on Monday in dissenting from the court's 
decision not to hear the Ohio case on lethal injections.

It also would require the court hearing a case that presents the central 
question: Does the death penalty constitute cruel and unusual punishment under 
the 8th and 14th Amendments? One such case is that of Marcus Reed, convicted in 
2010 of killing 3 people who broke into his home in Caddo Parish, Louisiana - 
for many years the nation's leader in death sentences per capita.

"Capital punishment is now constrained to a dwindling handful of locations, 
reserved not for the most culpable offenders, but for those unlucky few 
prosecuted under anachronistic circumstances," his lawyer, Ben Cohen, wrote in 
his Supreme Court filing last month.

"The time has come to assess whether the evolving standards of decency that 
mark the maturation of a civilized society now establish that a life sentence 
without parole is a sufficiently severe punishment."

(source: USA Today)

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Supreme Court Rejects Death Row Appeals


The Supreme Court on Monday turned away appeals from death row inmates in four 
states that raised different questions about the fairness of capital 
punishment.

Justice Stephen Breyer, commenting on 2 of those cases, repeated his call for 
the court to take up the constitutionality of the death penalty. Breyer said 
defendants who face death sentences are not society's worst criminals but are 
"chosen at random, on the basis, perhaps of geography, perhaps of the views of 
the individual prosecutors, or still worse on the basis of race.''

The 4 appeals rejected Monday were from:

-- James Tyler of Louisiana, whose lawyer conceded his guilt in the hope of 
drawing a life sentence, even though Tyler repeatedly objected to the strategy.

-- Sammie Stokes of South Carolina, whose lawyer had previously prosecuted him 
for assaulting his ex-wife and never informed the judge about the earlier case.

-- Romell Broom of Ohio, who survived a botched execution in 2009.

-- Henry Sireci of Florida, who was first sentenced to death 40 years ago.

Breyer addressed Broom's and Sireci's cases on Monday, and made reference to an 
Alabama man who was executed last week even though the jury in his case had 
voted 7-5 to recommend a sentence of life in prison. The trial judge imposed a 
death sentence, lower courts upheld it and the justices divided 4 to 4 on 
whether to issue a last-minute stay - 1 vote less than was necessary to halt 
the execution.

Breyer said the cases are among those the high court has rejected that called 
for review of executions "taking place in what I would consider especially 
cruel and unusual circumstances.'' The justice invoked language from the 
Constitution that prohibits "cruel and unusual punishments.''

Living under a death sentence for decades could itself be unconstitutional, 
Breyer said. When Sireci was first convicted in 1976 of stabbing a car salesman 
to death, more than half of today's U.S. population had not yet been born, he 
said. And 40 years is longer than the average life span at the time when the 
Constitution was written, he said.

In Broom's case, prison medical personnel tried for over two hours to a find a 
vein in which to inject drugs used in the execution, he said. The state now 
wants to try again. "Given its first failure, does its second attempt amount to 
a `cruel and unusual' punishment?'' he wrote. Justice Elena Kagan also voted to 
hear Broom's appeal.

Breyer first spelled out his reservations about the death penalty last year in 
a case from Oklahoma, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Executions and new death sentences have been declining in recent years. 20 
inmates in 5 states have been executed in 2016, the lowest number since 1991, 
when 14 people were put to death. No more executions are scheduled this year.

(source: voanews.com)