[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----COLO., NEV., CALIF., ORE., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Dec. 15



COLORADO:

Death-penalty decision draws criticism


District Attorney George Brauchler will seek the death penalty for an Arapahoe 
County man accused of raping his ex-girlfriend and then murdering his 
6-year-old son. The prosecutor's decision will prompt a trial that defense 
attorneys had hoped to avoid with a guilty plea.

Brandon Johnson, 27, faces 8 charges, including 1st-degree murder, in 
connection to the February incidents. The defense team said Johnson would have 
pleaded guilty to the charges if Brauchler had agreed not to pursue death.

The district attorney's decision prompted a statement from the American Civil 
Liberties Union of Colorado, which called the capital-punishment process 
"expensive and arbitrary."

"Every costly [death-penalty] trial perpetuates a broken, racially-biased 
system that can and does make irreversible mistakes," Executive Director Nathan 
Woodliff-Stanley wrote. "Brauchler wasted millions of taxpayer dollars on the 
Aurora theater trial, a multimillion-dollar failure that resulted in the same 
life sentence that was on the table all along."

Brauchler had sought the death penalty in 2015 in that high-profile case and 
stood by his decision after the call for death was rejected by jurors.

The crimes in Johnson's case occurred Feb. 10. Sheriff's deputies were called 
to a home on East Harvard Avenue after Johnson's ex-girlfriend called to report 
he had sexually assaulted her at knifepoint. The woman told investigators that 
Johnson had threatened to kill the 2 children if she screamed during the 
alleged sexual assault. She said Johnson later walked back to his room and she 
heard a loud scream from the 6-year-old.

When deputies arrived, they found the 6-year-old dead and Johnson on the floor 
with self-inflicted knife wounds. The sexual-assault victim's 2-year-old child 
was not harmed.

During a preliminary hearing on Dec. 2, investigator Tara Mueller told the 
court the couple had broken up, but was living together for financial reasons. 
The alleged rape victim, who has not been not named, had recently sent a text 
message to Johnson indicating she was seeing another man.

(source: The Villager)

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

Voters clearly backed DA George Brauchler and the death penalty


Re: "Political motivation for DA Brauchler seeking death penalty?" Dec. 9 
letter to the editor.

Letter-writer Phil Cherner, a board member for Coloradans for Alternatives to 
the Death Penalty, has an agenda to prevent District Attorney George Brauchler, 
or anyone who would sign the death warrant for Nathan Dunlap, from becoming 
Colorado's next governor.

We have no state referendum on the death penalty, but if Brauchler's 
re-election is viewed as a referendum on his decision to pursue the death 
penalty against James Holmes, here is what we know: 1. The Democrats refused to 
even offer up an anti-death penalty candidate. 2. No other GOP or Libertarian 
candidate dared enter the race to challenge the issue of cost. 3. Of the 
522,766 ballots cast in the 18th Judicial District, 356,343 (68.2 %) were cast 
for Brauchler, when he was unopposed - each a vote of confidence.

Our community has spoken - loudly. But the death penalty is not the only issue 
with a leadership vacuum in Colorado.

Kory Nelson, Parker

The writer is chairman of the 18th Judicial District Republican Central Central 
Committee.

(source: Opinion, The Denver Post)


NEVADA:

2 state legislators co-sponsoring bill to abolish death penalty in Nevada


2 state legislators are co-sponsoring a bill to abolish the death penalty in 
Nevada.

According to State Sen. Tick Segerblom, D-Las Vegas, he and Assemblyman James 
Ohrenshall, D-Las Vegas, are co-sponsoring Bill Draft Request 544 that would 
make the "maximum criminal penalty provided by law shall be life without the 
possibility of parole."

Segerblom tells News 4 that "essentially it is too expensive to prosecute and 
carry out capital punishment."

He added that it's been years since the last execution has taken place in the 
state.

"It's just not worth the results," Segerblom added.

If passed in the upcoming 2017 Legislative session, the bill would still have 
to be signed into law by the governor.

According to Segerblom, the bill would create a statue to the state law and 
would not require a vote of the people to create an amendment to the state 
constitution.

However, if the bill does not pass, then a "constitutional change could be a 
future option," he said.

(source: Fox News)

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

Man found guilty of killing teenage girl over $450 dispute with her father


He stood over a wounded and dying 15-year-old Las Vegas girl, his shoe in her 
blood, pointed his gun even closer and fired again, prosecutors told jurors 
Wednesday.

And after more than a week of testimony, the panel found 41-year-old Norman 
Belcher guilty in the slaying of Alexus Postorino.

The girl's family and friends rubbed their eyes and held each other, as a court 
clerk read the verdict, delivered 6 years and a week after Alexus was gunned 
down in her father's bedroom.

Belcher stood silently, showing no emotion.

At the start of the jury's deliberation, Belcher told District Judge Elissa 
Cadish that he was "fine with the death penalty" and would not attend a hearing 
scheduled to begin Thursday, in which the same panel that decided his guilt on 
a total of 7 counts is expected to deliver his sentence for 1st-degree murder.

"I get a single cell" on death row, Belcher said to the judge. "I prefer living 
by myself. I don't like having roommates."

Cadish told the defendant: "It's no picnic being on death row."

And Belcher replied by saying: "I personally know people on death row that I've 
corresponded with since I've been in" the Clark County Detention Center.

Nevada's death row, in Ely State Prison, houses 81 men. The state has executed 
12 inmates since capital punishment was reinstated by the Nevada Legislature in 
1977. All but 1 were inmates who voluntarily gave up their appeals.

But earlier this year, officials with the Department of Corrections announced 
that they could not obtain the drugs to carry out lethal injection.

Belcher admitted that he has not cooperated with his lawyers as they worked to 
save him from a sentence of execution. He also said he had asked his family 
members not to testify on his behalf during the penalty hearing.

Prosecutors alleged that Belcher, also known as Norman Bates, shot Alexus 4 
times at close range, including twice in the chest, because of a dispute he had 
with the girl's father over $450. In early December 2010, the gunman opened 
fire in the Postorino home and stole a 60-inch television, a safe and a laptop 
computer before driving off in a white, 4-door 2009 Nissan Versa and later 
setting the car on fire, authorities have said.

"Look around every corner, look at every picture, look at every witness, and he 
will be right there, because he did it," prosecutor Jacqueline Bluth told 
jurors during closing arguments.

Another man who was inside the home at the time, Nicholas Brabham, testified at 
the start of trial that he recognized Belcher after he burst into the home.

Defense attorney Robert Draskovich tried to cast reasonable doubt, saying 
investigators made "several missteps" when they focused on Belcher as the 
killer.

Throughout trial, Belcher's lawyers suggested that William Postorino's 
involvement in illicit drugs meant that anyone could have been out to rob him.

In the days before Alexus was killed, Belcher sent threatening text messages to 
the girl's father.

Belcher thought William Postorino owed him the money for forged drug 
prescriptions.

"I'm actually hoping that you don't pay me, because I then feel like I'm 
following protocol," Belcher wrote in one message. "So 450 or war. An element 
of surprise."

Prosecutor Giancarlo Pesci pointed to the messages in his closing remarks.

"We know that war is a terrible, terrible thing," Pesci said, "and during war 
innocent victims are lost."

A few months before the killing, Belcher had been released from prison, where 
he had been sent for a voluntary manslaughter conviction in a 2003 homicide 
case.

(source: Las Vegas Review-Journal)

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

Let the people decide


Nevada has the death penalty - yet it doesn't really have the death penalty.

While capital punishment remains on the books, as a practical matter it is 
carried out in only extremely rare circumstances. The state has administered 
the ultimate punishment just 12 times since 1976. The last prisoner executed in 
Nevada died in 2006 by lethal injection.

Seemingly endless appeals in capital cases have effectively neutered and driven 
up the costs of such statutes in many jurisdictions. In addition, Nevada is 
currently unable to acquire the drugs necessary to conduct an execution - 
lethal injection is the only means proscribed under state law. A growing number 
of pharmaceutical companies now refuse on moral or business grounds to provide 
the substances needed to put a prisoner to death.

Nevertheless, 81 men inhabit death row at Ely State Prison.

Now comes Assemblyman James Ohrenschall, a Las Vegas Democrat, with a bill 
draft request to abolish capital punishment in Nevada. State Sen. Tick 
Segerblom, the Las Vegas Democrat who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, 
has also signed on to the proposal.

Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican, has previously expressed support for capital 
punishment, which complicates Mr. Ohrenschall's effort.

The Pew Research Center reports that support for the death penalty has fallen 
sharply in recent years. Nationally, U.S. executions in 2016 will be at their 
lowest level since 1991. Still, polls reveal that a majority of Americans favor 
capital punishment and it remains the law in 31 states.

In the past decade, 6 states - including Connecticut, New Jersey and Illinois - 
have dropped the death penalty. Yet voters in other states - including 
California, Oklahoma and Nebraska - have supported initiatives strengthening 
death penalty statutes.

Passions run high on this question. Both opponents and supporters of capital 
punishment have a stable of valid arguments.

That's why any change to Nevada's law on this hot-button issue should reflect 
the will of the electorate. Rather than act unilaterally, Mr. Ohrenschall and 
other Nevada lawmakers who hope to abolish the death penalty should propose an 
amendment to the state constitution, which would require an affirmative vote of 
the people to succeed.

(source: Editorial, Las Vegas Review-Journal)






CALIFORNIA:

Dennis Webb, convicted of murdering Atascadero couple in 1988, dies on death 
row


One of California's few death row inmates to have committed their crime in San 
Luis Obispo County has died in custody in San Quentin State Prison.

Dennis Duane Webb died at 6:14 p.m. Tuesday at a hospital near the 
maximum-security prison. California Department of Corrections and 
Rehabilitation said the cause of death is unknown pending the results of an 
autopsy. He was 65.

Webb had been on death row since August 1988, when he was sentenced to death by 
a San Luis Obispo County jury for the Feb. 5, 1987, burglary and 1st-degree 
murders of John Rainwater, 25, and Lori Rainwater, 22, of Atascadero. Their 
newborn and toddler were found alive at the murder scene.

Webb reportedly laughed when his guilty verdict was read.

According to Tribune archives, Webb broke into a 14-unit lodge at 8750 El 
Camino Real that the couple, who were devout Christians, managed. Prosecutors 
argued that Webb initially intended to rob the couple but instead repeatedly 
raped and beat them in the lodge throughout the night.

Both victims were bludgeoned in the back of the head, possibly with a pistol, 
their wounds splitting their scalps to their skulls, a pathologist testified 
during the trial.

The couple was bound and gagged, with bonds so tight they drew blood. In the 
early morning, the couple broke loose from their restraints and ran out of the 
house, only to be gunned down by Webb in the lodge parking lot.

When authorities arrived at the lodge, they found the Rainwater children, a 
15-month-old girl and a 7-day-old baby boy, hiding underneath their mother's 
naked body. Neither were seriously injured, and a family member said they were 
too young to have suffered any psychological damage.

Police did not have any suspects for 2 months after the killings, until Webb's 
former girlfriend turned him.

Investigators maintained that Webb didn't act alone, and while they thought 
they knew who his accomplice was, they never had enough evidence to bring a 
case to trial. According to archives, that suspect died while a patient at 
Patton State Hospital.

Before his sentence was read, people in the courtroom cried out to Webb to 
reveal his accomplice. Webb refused, but hinted that he indeed had one when he 
said, "It's bad enough that I have to ride this beef alone."

Webb then shocked the courtroom by claiming responsibility for 5 other murders 
and asked for the death penalty.

"I'm not here because my conscience is bothering me," he reportedly said. "I 
haven't got any remorse. I don't care."

Since 1978, when California reinstated capital punishment, 71 condemned inmates 
have died from natural causes, 25 have committed suicide, 13 have been executed 
in California, 1 was executed in Missouri, 1 was executed in Virginia, and 8 
others have died from other causes, according to CDCR.

There are currently 749 offenders on California's death row. With Webb's death, 
there are now 3 former San Luis Obispo County residents condemned to die: 
Michael Whisenhunt, Richard Benson and Rex Krebs.

(source: sanluisobispo.com)

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

Jamaican Gang Member Charged With Quadruple Murder in South Los Angeles 
Shooting


A suspected gang member was arraigned Tuesday December 6 on capital murder 
charges for the killing of 4 people outside a Jamaican restaurant in South Los 
Angeles 2 months ago, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office 
announced.

Marlon Jones (dob 4/14/75) was charged in case BA451058 with four counts of 
murder along with the special circumstance allegation of multiple murders, 
making him eligible for the death penalty.

Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman of the Major Crimes Division is 
prosecuting the case.

On Oct. 15, Jones attended a birthday party at a home that had been temporarily 
converted into a restaurant in the 2900 block of Rimpau Avenue. Jones is 
accused of fatally shooting a rival gang member.

More gunfire was exchanged between the groups, killing 3 men and wounding 10 
others.

Earlier this month, the FBI added Jones to its Ten Most Wanted List. Jones was 
captured in South Los Angeles December 2 following a car chase.

If convicted as charged, Jones faces the death penalty or life in state prison 
without the possibility of parole. The decision whether to seek capital 
punishment will be made at a later date.

The case remains under investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department's 
South Bureau Homicide.

(source: Los Angeles Sentinel)






OREGON:

It's time for Oregon conservatives to end the death penalty


Taxpayers in Oregon have just been given a wake-up call on the high price of 
the death penalty and the facts are enough to make any fiscal conservative 
squirm.

A new in-depth study by Lewis & Clark Law School and Seattle University reveals 
that in aggravated murder cases, cases that seek the death penalty cost 
taxpayers twice as much as cases seeking other penalties (life without parole 
and life with the possibility of parole).

It is no surprise when you look at the facts. According to the study, "the 
average cost of defending a death penalty case at the trial level between 2002 
and 2012 was $438,651, while the average cost of defending a non-death 
aggravated murder case at the trial level was less than 1/2 that at $216,693."

Those are just the up-front defense costs, and do not include costs for 
appeals, incarceration or the prosecution. There are 2 trials, 1 to determine 
innocence or guilt and a 2nd for sentencing. They are complex and lengthy cases 
that require experts, researchers and more. Defendants accused of aggravated 
murder in Oregon are given 2 lawyers, as well as investigators, and for good 
reason.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment four decades ago, 
156 people have been released from death rows around the nation due to wrongful 
convictions. Right now the Oregon Innocence Project is questioning the 
conviction of at least 1 death row inmate and calling for additional testing of 
evidence in the case. They have several other cases under review. Speeding up 
the process, as some prosecutors in Oregon have suggested, will only undermine 
needed safeguards and put more innocent lives at risk.

Innocence and cost are 2 of the reasons conservatives nationwide have been 
increasingly turning against the death penalty. So it only makes sense that 
more conservative lawmakers are questioning the death penalty and sponsoring 
legislation to end that. Over just the past 2 years, we've seen a 
Republican-sponsored bill to end the death penalty in a variety of states, 
including Nebraska, Utah, Missouri, Kansas, Kentucky, Ohio, Wyoming, Montana, 
South Dakota and New Hampshire.

Conservatives in Oregon should follow suit. In fact, they should call on their 
state's Democrat governor to not wait any longer and grant clemency to all 34 
people on Oregon's death row, commuting their sentences to life. It will save 
large sums of money that can either be redirected to other criminal justice 
programs that will make people safer or returned to the taxpayers.

As conservatives, we should speak out against policies that give government too 
much power or waste tax dollars. The death penalty is guilty of both. That's 
why ending the death penalty is the conservative thing to do.

(source: Opinion; Drew Johnson of Las Vegas is a senior fellow at the Taxpayers 
Protection Alliance----Statesman Journal)






USA:

Executions in the United States just fell to a 25-year low


When the state of Alabama executed Ronald Bert Smith Jr. last week, he became 
the 20th inmate put to death in the United States this year. Smith's execution 
was a rarity for the United States, where the death penalty is still retained 
in most states and on the federal level but, in practice, is carried out only 
in a shrinking handful of places.

No other lethal injections are scheduled for this month, meaning Smith will 
probably be the last inmate executed this year in the United States. As a 
result, the country is poised to end 2016 with its lowest number of executions 
in 25 years.

The decline in executions continues a recent trend, as 2016 will be the fourth 
consecutive year with fewer executions than the year before. It also speaks to 
a country that has shifted away from the death penalty in many places, while 
those states still trying to execute inmates have struggled with court 
challenges, drug shortages and issues with carrying out the executions.

Overall, though, the trend is clear. Since a peak of 98 in 1999, executions 
have steadily declined, falling this year to the lowest total since 1991, when 
14 inmates were put to death:

This year's decline can be attributed, in part, to a handful of states that are 
among the most active practitioners of capital punishment but have been 
sidelined for part or all of 2016.

Take Florida, which has carried out the fourth most executions nationwide since 
the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

Florida's death penalty has been in flux for much of this year, ever since the 
Supreme Court struck down its system of imposing death sentences in January. 
After this ruling, in Hurst v. Florida, lawmakers rewrote the death-penalty 
statute, but this new version was promptly struck down by the Florida Supreme 
Court. Nearly a year after the Hurst ruling, it is still unclear what will 
happen to Florida???s nearly 400 death row inmates.

In some cases, states hoping to carry out executions have been delayed by an 
inability to get the drugs needed for lethal injections, still the country's 
primary method of capital punishment.

These states have been hampered by a years-long shortage of lethal-injection 
drugs, fueled in part by European opposition to the death penalty and furthered 
by pharmaceutical opposition to any involvement in executions. As a result, 
states have had to scramble to adopt new combinations and seek supplies, which 
has caused extensive delays in some places.

Ohio, one of the most active death-penalty states, stopped executions for what 
will ultimately be at least 3 years while it sought new drugs. The state now 
says it plans to resume executions in January, though a spokesman did not 
respond to a message seeking comment about whether officials there had obtained 
the necessary drugs.

In Oklahoma, officials have still not resumed executions after authorities used 
the wrong drug to carry out 1 execution last year and nearly used an incorrect 
drug months later. An investigation was launched, producing a blistering grand 
jury report describing several avoidable lapses. Officials say they are still 
not seeking new execution dates.

Even the country's clear leader in capital punishment is not entirely immune to 
what is happening nationwide. In Texas, a flurry of court action halted or 
delayed a series of death sentences, causing the state to see its longest lag 
between executions since 2014. Texas ultimately carried out 7 executions this 
year, its fewest since 1996 and the 1st time since that year that it failed to 
execute at least 10 inmates. (For some context: As noted above, the United 
States executed 20 inmates this year. Texas matched or exceeded that mark on 
its own 10 times between 1997 and 2009.)

5 states carried out executions this year, down 1 from last year, when death 
sentences also declined.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based 
nonprofit, more than 1/2 of all states (31) still have the death penalty. 
However, that number includes places such as Pennsylvania, Oregon and 
Washington, where the governors have declared moratoriums, as well as places 
such as Florida, Ohio and Oklahoma, where executions are or have been on hold.

The death penalty, as an issue and a practice, did win victories this year. On 
Election Day, voters in Nebraska, California and Oklahoma showed support for 
capital punishment, rejecting a California measure to abolish it and, in 
Oklahoma, giving lawmakers more latitude in finding new execution methods. In 
Nebraska, voters repealed a bill that lawmakers had passed last year abolishing 
the death penalty. The state, which has 10 inmates on death row, last carried 
out an execution in 1997.

(source: Washington Post)

***********

Judge: Fell trial will go forward as scheduled


The death-penalty trial for Donald Fell will go forward as scheduled despite a 
defense request to postpone the trial's scheduled start in late February, a 
federal judge has ruled.

Lawyers for Fell, 36, asked U.S. District Court Judge Geoffrey Crawford last 
week to delay the trial. The defense attorneys argued they would have too 
little time to prepare for trial and provide effective counsel. In the same 
motion, the lawyers said that if trial dates could not be moved, they would 
request to be taken off the case.

Crawford said no to that, too.

Fell is accused of kidnapping and killing North Clarendon grandmother Terri 
King, 53, in 2000. This is the 2nd time the case is going to trial after Fell's 
2005 conviction and death penalty sentence were overturned due to juror 
misconduct.

Crawford ruled Wednesday that the case already has spanned 2 years since the 
verdict and sentence were thrown out in 2014, and lawyers should be able to 
comply with the agreed-upon schedule. The defense lawyers were appointed to the 
case in February 2015.

Fell's retrial originally had been set to start in this fall but was changed to 
begin Feb. 27 in Rutland after defense lawyers raised scheduling issues. 
Crawford said most of the lawyers' scheduling conflicts had been disclosed and 
were planned for in the schedule.

"The court is unwilling to upend the schedule for a 2nd time," Crawford wrote. 
"The original plan provided for a year and a half of trial preparation (without 
any interruption by other trials). ... By the time the trial date arrives, the 
defense will have had 2 full years to prepare for the retrial."

Crawford added, "The court does not deny the motion for a continuance lightly. 
But at some point, the continuances need to come to an end."

Attempts to reach Fell's lawyers for comment Wednesday were unsuccessful.

Fell is jailed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York. He 
has pleaded not guilty.

(source: Burlington Free Press)

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

Death penalty decision looms with Xerox killing


The Rochester man accused of a 2003 fatal shooting at a Xerox campus credit 
union could learn Thursday if federal prosecutors will seek the death penalty 
against him.

Richard Leon Wilbern is scheduled to appear in federal court Thursday morning. 
Federal prosecutors have been awaiting a decision from the Department of 
Justice on whether to seek the death penalty with Wilbern's alleged crimes. 
Earlier, Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Gregory, the lead prosecutor in the 
case, had indicated that a decision could be made by Thursday's court 
appearance.

(source: Democrat and Chronicle)